Famed Immigration Historian Dies: Oscar Handlin RIP

Historian Oscar Handlin, a Harvard professor whose “classic writings on American immigration made him a leading intellectual force behind legislation that eliminated the immigration quota system in the United States,” died (and here for a NY Times obit)) on Sept. 20 after a heart attack.  The son of Jewish immigrants, Handlin chronicled the stories of Europeans, Jews, Puerto Ricans, African Americans, and other immigrant groups that shaped the United States. His book “The Uprooted: The Epic Story of the Great Migrations That Made the American People” won the 1952 Pulitzer Prize in history.

KJ