Oscar Handlin, historian, 95
Oscar Handlin, Carl M. Loeb University Professor Emeritus, died from a heart attack on Sept. 20 at his Cambridge home. He was 95. Handlin taught at Harvard for nearly 50 years, and was director of the Harvard University Library from 1979 to 1984. According to Robert Darnton, Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and University librarian, Handlin’s legacy at Harvard’s libraries is extensive: Handlin oversaw the construction of Pusey Library, the adoption of the Library of Congress cataloging system, and the preparation of what is now the HOLLIS cataloge. The author of more than 30 books, Handlin was a noted historian, and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1952 for “The Uprooted: The Epic Story of the Great Migrations That Made the American People.” “As a historian, he spoke to an enormous public and explained the central importance of immigration as a theme in American history,” said Darnton. “I took his course in American social...