George McAfee "Mac" McCune (June 16, 1908 – November 5, 1948) was co-developer, with Edwin O. Reischauer

Edwin O. Reischauer

Edwin Oldfather Reischauer was the leading U.S. educator and noted scholar of the history and culture of Japan, and of East Asia. From 1961–1966, he was the U.S. ambassador to Japan.-Education and academic life:...

, of the McCune-Reischauer

McCune-Reischauer

McCune–Reischauer romanization is one of the two most widely used Korean language romanization systems, along with the Revised Romanization of Korean, which replaced McCune–Reischauer as the official romanization system in South Korea in 2000...

 romanization

Romanization

In linguistics, romanization or latinization is the representation of a written word or spoken speech with the Roman script, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language uses a different writing system . Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written...

 of Korean

Korean language

Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...

. He was born in P'yŏngyang

Pyongyang

Pyongyang is the capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, commonly known as North Korea, and the largest city in the country. Pyongyang is located on the Taedong River and, according to preliminary results from the 2008 population census, has a population of 3,255,388. The city was...

 as the son of an American educational missionary

Missionary

A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...

, George Shannon McCune and received his elementary education in Korea. He then attended Huron College

Huron University

Huron University, also known as Si Tanka University at Huron, was a private university formerly located in Huron, South Dakota. It closed on April 1, 2005.-Beginnings:...

 in South Dakota and transferred to Rutgers University

Rutgers University

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...

 after one year. He graduated from Occidental College

Occidental College

Occidental College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college located in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1887, Occidental College, or "Oxy" as it is called by students and alumni, is one of the oldest liberal arts colleges on the West Coast...

 with a Bachelor degree in 1930.

His brother, Shannon Boyd-Bailey McCune

Shannon Boyd-Bailey McCune

Shannon Boyd-Bailey McCune was an American geographer and brother of George M. McCune. He was born in Sonchon, in what is now North Korea as the son of Presbyterian missionaries. He graduated with a Bachelor's degree from the College of Wooster in 1935 and a master's degree from Syracuse...

(1913-1993), was a geographer who authored several books on Korea for the general public.