Oscar Handlin (1915- )

Studies of Emigration to America

Oscar Handlin, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, began studying the history of America at eight years old and never doubted what his career would be. He saw himself going into medieval studies, but upon entrance to Harvard University, he decided to instead focus on the study of immigrants in America because of the depth and personal importance of the subject to him and his relationship with the immigration professor. During his immigration research he commented: "Once I thought to write a history of the immigrants in America. Then I discovered that the immigrants were American history." Oscar Handlin was a history professor at Harvard University and one of the most accomplished American historians of the last century. He received the 1941 Dunning Prize for his dissertation, Boston's Immigrants 1790-1865: A Study in Acculturation and received a Pulitzer Prize for his book, The Uprooted, in 1952.