Claim: Handlin, the director of numerous Ph.D. dissertations at a prestigious university, was a key pioneer and supporter of ethnic historiography, he sponsored one published by Harvard University Press in 1980 that received widespread media attention because it coincided with an American interest in their roots.
Evidence: 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. Established in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, clergyman John Harvard, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and among the most prestigious in the world. As an American historian and educator he was noted for his in depth examination of American immigration history, ethnic history, and social history. Among Handlin's many important contributions was his pioneering work on immigration to America.