(This book is a methodological primer on how historians ga...)
This book is a methodological primer on how historians gather evidence, presume reliability of witnesses, and develop forms of verification in the conduct of analysis and research. It is an introduction to the study of history and an examination of specific instances in which ideology has distorted the study of American history.
(Anthology of writings by the children of immigrants revea...)
Anthology of writings by the children of immigrants revealing their feelings of anxiety and alienation and their unique contributions to American life.
The Popular Sources of Political Authority: Documents on the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 (Center for the Study of the History of Liberty in America)
Oscar Handlin ranks as one of the most prolific and influential American historians of the twentieth century, with pioneering works in the fields of immigration history, ethnic history, and social history.As a professor of history at Harvard University for over 50 years, he directed 80 PhD dissertations and helped promote social and ethnic history, virtually inventing the field of immigration history in the 1950s.
Background
Handlin was born on 29th of September, 1915. He was the eldest of three children of Russian-Jewish immigrants. His mother, the former Ida Yanowitz, came to the United States in 1904 and worked in the garment industry. His father, Joseph, immigrated in 1913 after attending a commercial college in Ukraine and being stationed in Harbin, China, as a soldier during the Russo-Japanese War. Handlin's parents were passionately devoted to literature and the life of the mind.The couple owned a grocery store, the success of which along with real estate investments enabled them to send their children, Oscar, Nathan, and Sarah, to Harvard.
Education
Known for his prodigious memory that allowed him to attend classes without taking notes, in 1930, Handlin entered Brooklyn College at age 15, graduating in 1934, then earning a M.A. from Harvard University in 1935, after which he won a Frederick Sheldon Fellowship for research in Europe.
Between 1936 and 1938, Handlin taught history at Brooklyn College before reentering Harvard University.In 1954, the year he became a full professor at Harvard, Handlin was chief editor of The Harvard Guide to American History.Handlin was very active as a scholarly organizer and administrator. In the Harvard history department he helped create the Center for the Study of the History of Liberty in America, and directed it 1958-67; he also chaired the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History from 1965 to 1973. From 1962 to 1966 he was a top official of the United States Board of Foreign Scholarships, which gives out Fulbright scholarships. He served on the board of overseers of Brandeis University, and was a trustee of the New York Public Library. He was Harvard's head librarian from 1979 to 1984 and acting director of the Harvard University Press in 1972. In 1972-3 Handlin was the Harold Vyvyan Harmsworth Professor of American History at Oxford University.
His PhD dissertation was published in 1941 as Boston's Immigrants, 1790–1865, and it won the AHA's John H. Dunning Prize.
He did biographies of Abraham Lincoln and Al Smith, for example; a history of youth and the family; a book on war and diplomacy, Chance or Destiny: Turning Points in American History; and a collection of reflections on his discipline, Truth in History.
He also helped to shape national policy in a crucial area.His critical writing on the subject led to his involvement in groups pushing for reform, and the opportunity to testify before Congress. When the Immigration and Nationality Act was signed into law in 1965, some of the credit for a historic legislative achievement belonged to Oscar Handlin.
In December 1967, Handlin was one of 14 anti-Communist American scholars who co-wrote a report for the Freedom House Public Affairs Institute, which argued that disaster would strike if the U.S. withdrew from Vietnam.Despite being a staunch anti-Communist and Vietnam War hawk, he was honored by both leftist and rightist academics.
Views
Oscar Handlin argued that racism was a by-product of slavery, and that the main focus was on the fact that slaves, like indentured servants, were regarded as inferior because of their status, not necessarily because of their race.
In 1964, Handlin published Fire Bell in the Night: The Crisis in Civil Rights, which criticized white supremacists and suburban liberals, but also criticized leftists for their Communist-inspired solutions such as quotas, school busing, and affirmative action.
In 1961, Handlin published The Distortion of America, his critique of the attractions of Communism.
He also criticized New Left historians and the corruption of American universities with faddishness, hiring quotas, overspecialization and fragmentation in history studies, and deficiencies in graduate training.
Quotations:
"Once I thought to write a history of the immigrants in America. Then I discovered that the immigrants were American history."
"In times of shrinking expectations,... everyone feels like a victim and pushes away outsiders to defend his own corner."
"Preferential treatment demands a departure from the ideal which judges individuals by their own merits rather than by their affiliations."
"The study of the human past persuades me that, despite the frequent risks of failure, man has the capacity to make order and find purpose in the world in which he lives when he uses the power of his reason to do so."
Membership
He was a member of Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Massachusetts Historical Society and American Academy of Arts and Science.
Colonial Society of Massachusetts
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United States
Massachusetts Historical Society
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United States
American Academy of Arts and Science
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United States
Personality
He was deeply dedicated to the instruction of both undergraduates and graduates. His lecture courses were not theatrical performances calculated to demonstrate how clever, wise, and witty he was. Speaking slowly, without notes, he lucidly laid out basic concepts and analyzed the historical evidence.In discussion classes and research seminars, Handlin spoke very little, and most of his comments were in the form of questions. He resisted the temptation to answer them himself when no one leaped to respond.A man of few words outside the lecture room, Handlin made every word count. He was possessed of a sardonic wit.
Quotes from others about the person
James Grossman: "He reoriented the whole picture of the American story from the view that America was built on the spirit of the Wild West, to the idea that we are a nation of immigrants."
Bernard Bailyn:"He published widely on all the major public issues of the time: racism, group life, anti-Semitism, prejudice, the Bill of Rights, the business corporation, ethnicity, and the Jews and other groups in American society. He was liberal in social controversies, especially those related to immigration, race, social justice, and equal opportunity. In the Vietnam era, however, shocked by what he took to be the naive views of the left-leaning professoriate, he turned to the right and became deeply conservative in his politics".
Interests
cartoons of Al Capp, travelling
Writers
James Branch Cabell
Music & Bands
operettas of Gilbert & Sullivan
Connections
Married Mary Flug in 1937. Married Lilian Bombach in 1977. He had two daughters and a son.
