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Stellingwerff (Free U. of Amsterdam) and Swierenga (history, Hope College, Holland) present an expanded edition of the original Dutch text published under the title Amsterdamse Emigranten (Buijten & Schipperheijn, 1976). The text features some 215 immigrant letters relating to the midwestern frontier, from archives and private holdings on both side
Now at least 250,000 strong, the Dutch in greater Chicago have lived for 150 years "below the radar screens" of historians and the general public. Here their story is told for the first time. In Dutch Chicago Robert Swierenga offers a colorful, comprehensive history of the Dutch Americans who have made their home in the Windy City since the mid-1800s. The original Chicago Dutch were a polyglot lot from all social strata, regions, and religions of the Netherlands. Three-quarters were Calvinists; the rest included Catholics, Lutherans, Unitarians, Socialists, Jews, and the nominally churched. Whereas these latter Dutch groups assimilated into the American culture around them, the Dutch Reformed settled into a few distinct enclaves -- the Old West Side, Englewood, and Roseland and South Holland -- where they stuck together, building an institutional infrastructure of churches, schools, societies, and shops that enabled them to live from cradle to grave within their own communities. Focusing largely but not exclusively on the Reformed group of Dutch folks in Chicago, Swierenga recounts how their strong entrepreneurial spirit and isolationist streak played out over time. Mostly of rural origins in the northern Netherlands, these Hollanders in Chicago liked to work with horses and go into business for themselves. Picking up ashes and garbage, jobs that Americans despised, spelled opportunity for the Dutch, and they came to monopolize the garbage industry. Their independence in business reflected the privacy they craved in their religious and educational life. Church services held in the Dutch language kept outsiders at bay, as did a comprehensive system of private elementary and secondary schools intended to inculcate youngsters with the Dutch Reformed theological and cultural heritage. Not until the world wars did the forces of Americanization finally break down the walls, and the Dutch passed into the mainstream. Only in their churches today, now entirely English speaking, does the Dutch cultural memory still linger. Dutch Chicago is the first serious work on its subject, and it promises to be the definitive history. Swierenga's lively narrative, replete with historical detail and anecdotes, is accompanied by more than 250 photographs and illustrations. Valuable appendixes list Dutch-owned garbage and cartage companies in greater Chicago since 1880 as well as Reformed churches and schools. This book will be enjoyed by readers with Dutch roots as well as by anyone interested in America's rich ethnic diversity.
"Examining the domain of the home as well as the related realms of education, religion, health care, and worldview, Sinke discerns women's contributions to the creation and adaptation of families and communities, pointing out how they differed from those of men. Through Sinke's articulate and captivating descriptions of real women, the statistical evidence comes to life, providing valuable and heretofore unexamined views on the international marriage market, language shifts, the acquisition of American customs, the church's role in adaptation, and the shifting economies that allowed women to work outside the home. A parallel analysis of the United States and the Netherlands as developing welfare states provides a fascinating look at what Dutch immigrant women left behind compared to what they faced in America regarding health care, education, and quality-of-life issues."--BOOK JACKET.
Brother I cannot tell you what is best for you—staying there or coming here. If it only concerned yourself! would say, stay. But if you are concerned about your descendents I would say, come." Writing from his Michigan farm to relatives back in Overijssel, Jacob Dunnink voiced a perspective at once uniquely his own and typical of his immigrant community in 1856. Dutch American Voices brings together a full spectrum of such perspectives, as expressed in immigrants' letters to their families and friends in the Netherlands. From the terse notes of first-time writers to the polished chronicles of skilled correspondents, the letters are presented in engaging English translations that capture the diversity of their authors' personalities. Herbert J. Brinks has included twenty-three series of letters from the Dutch Immigrant Letter Collection at Calvin College, covering periods of correspondence from three to fifty-seven years. In addition to an introduction to Dutch immigration history, the book provides abundant illustrations and brief biographies of the correspondents. Most write from Dutch American agricultural communities in Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa, but some describe life in cities as far-flung as Paterson, New Jersey; Tampa, Florida; and Oak Harbor, Washington. Rural and urban, Protestant and Catholic, male and female, the letter writers capture moments from their arrival through decades of life in the New World. Affording glimpses into the daily experiences of becoming American, the letters describe the weather, the food, the price of crops, the economics of farm and factory, the peculiarities of neighbors, and the drama of politics. As they bring news of marriages, births, and deaths, sustain family members in faith, or squabble over money, they also offer an intimate view of the strength—and the frailty—of family ties over distance.
In a riveting, groundbreaking narrative, Russell Shorto tells the story of New Netherland, the Dutch colony which pre-dated the Pilgrims and established ideals of tolerance and individual rights that shaped American history. "Astonishing . . . A book that will permanently alter the way we regard our collective past." --The New York Times When the British wrested New Amsterdam from the Dutch in 1664, the truth about its thriving, polyglot society began to disappear into myths about an island purchased for 24 dollars and a cartoonish peg-legged governor. But the story of the Dutch colony of New Netherland was merely lost, not destroyed: 12,000 pages of its records–recently declared a national treasure–are now being translated. Russell Shorto draws on this remarkable archive in The Island at the Center of the World, which has been hailed by The New York Times as “a book that will permanently alter the way we regard our collective past.” The Dutch colony pre-dated the “original” thirteen colonies, yet it seems strikingly familiar. Its capital was cosmopolitan and multi-ethnic, and its citizens valued free trade, individual rights, and religious freedom. Their champion was a progressive, young lawyer named Adriaen van der Donck, who emerges in these pages as a forgotten American patriot and whose political vision brought him into conflict with Peter Stuyvesant, the autocratic director of the Dutch colony. The struggle between these two strong-willed men laid the foundation for New York City and helped shape American culture. The Island at the Center of the World uncovers a lost world and offers a surprising new perspective on our own.
Drawing on previously compiled genealogical information, archival records, and family letters and photographs, the authors have worked diligently to "set the record straight" regarding the Van Raaltes' ancestors and descendants, as well as to provide a document that future historians and genealogists can build on. Beginning with a brief biographical sketch of their lives, the book then traces Albertus and Christina's ancestors and tells the story of each of their seven children who lived to adulthood and their respective descendants. Also included is an account of what happened to the Van Raalte papers and homestead.