At various times Joseph Handlin ran a grocery store, operated a steam laundry, and sold real estate.
Although Oscar Handlin was more than once expelled from school for being an enfant terrible, he excelled in academics. Active in athletics and talented in music, he participated in a wide variety of extracurricular activities. At age eight he resolved to become a historian and became a voracious reader who could often be seen reading books as he delivered groceries for his father. In 1931 he graduated from Brooklyn's New Utrecht High School. He then entered Brooklyn College, where he majored in history and was influenced by Jesse Clarkson, a specialist in Russian history. Within three years Handlin earned his bachelor's degree and was accepted for graduate work at Harvard University.
That Handlin became an American historian was accidental. He had intended to study medieval history with Charles H. Haskins at Harvard, but upon his arrival at the university he discovered that Haskins had retired. Because Handlin believed that the historian under whom he studied was more important than the field of history in which he specialized, he decided to write his dissertation for Arthur M.
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