Pete Daniel, a curator in the Division of Work and Industry at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, was named incoming president-elect of the Organization of American Historians on the final day of the group's annual meeting, which was held this year in Washington DC. He was elected by the council of the OAH. He is the first public historian to head the OAH in years.

Stanford's Richard White took over from Vicki Ruiz today as president of the OAH. He in turn will be succeeded by Princeton's Nell Irvin Painter. And she will be succeeded by Pete Daniel.

In 2005 after the Katrina disaster he gave an interview to HNN about the flood of 1927, which he has researched.

His official entry on the OAH website says this about Mr. Daniel:

Pete Daniel is a curator in the division of industry and transportation at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. He specializes in the history of the twentieth-century South, in particular agriculture, labor, culture, and civil rights. He has curated exhibits that deal with science, photography, and music. His most recent book, Lost Revolutions: The South in the 1950s (1999), won the Elliott M. Rudwick Prize. Currently vice president of the Southern Historical Association, he will be its president in November 2005. In spring 2004, he delivered the Walter Lynwood Fleming Lecture at Louisiana State University about pesticides and health.