I seriously doubt it is that easy back then or now. At my history department (it wasn't even a top 25 program), they took 3-6 PhD candidates a year. These were applicants with near 4.0 GPAs, went to undergrads like Princeton, and scored in the 95th or higher percentile of the GRE (often in the 99th percentile).

Then after they slog through their dissertation and get their PhD, maybe the college would permanently hire 1 student. The rest had to search for fellowships or visiting professorships after visiting professorships until they could land a tenured track position at some no name college. Then after building up their reputation through presentations at symposiums and publishing, they would job hop through better known universities.

There are like hundreds, maybe thousands of similar PhD in history around, so how could a college really make those promises to a quasi-history major undergrad.

Each tenured track and visiting professorship is fiercely competitive. At best, they would probably be talking about those that make it through the PhD program would be invited for a temporary 1 year visiting professorship or adjunct faculty position. Both of those pay garbage.