From the President:

This will be my last Word (as the President of AADAS). Time has passed quickly, but it has been a rewarding two-year term. In my impression AADAS is still growing as an organization, by welcoming new and young scholars within its fold, by professionalizing it products, and by developing new ideas about our programs. New books appear annually, which open up relevant sources and stimulate follow-up research. A record setting number of scholars will present papers at the conference at Dordt College, which shows there is a substantial group of people actively involved in researching the Dutch immigrant past. During my tenure, I have been fortunate to see the 2003 conference proceedings successfully printed as a handsome book—a publication that will advance distribution of the information on the Dutch-American experience. Thanks to Geoffrey Reynolds of the Joint Archives of Holland, we soon will be able to have easy web-based access to the treasure trove of the papers presented at past conferences.

Personally, I am pleased that the link between the Netherlands and the United States has been reinforced. I considered it an honor to have served as the first non-American president and will do my best to further bind people working at both ends of the immigration process—the source and its destination. Perspectives from the other side of the Atlantic (where-ever you are) always stimulate research and enliven interaction. You will read in this newsletter a report on a new research project by a Dutch Ph.D. student Enne Koops, who is working for the Roosevelt Study Center and Kampen Seminary on post-World War II emigration to North America.

Finally, I am very grateful for the institutional support of the mission of AADAS as provided by the archives, colleges, and research institutes. Without this support, our task would be so much more difficult. As a personal bonus, I have experienced real friendship during my trips to American archives, and I invite you “down” to Middelburg, to our research center, for the next time that you include the Netherlands in your travel itinerary.

I am delighted that Janet Sheeres will be stepping into the presidency of this organization, and I am confident she will infuse AADAS with new ideas and directions.

Tot ziens,
Hans Krabbendam

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AADAS: Contact & Communication by E-mail

In addition to receiving this biannual newsletter, would you, as a member of AADAS, like to receive important information electronically?

For special items that need to be communicated to members at times other than newsletter publication, it would prove helpful for AADAS members to be able to reach each other by means of an e-mail distribution list, or perhaps through a “list-serve.”

If you are willing to be included in either one of these e-mail systems, please send an e-mail to Lori Trethewey at archives@hope.edu. Please write “AADAS list serve” in the subject line. In the body of your message write your name, your e-mail address, and your institutional affiliation or your location. Please send such an e-mail even if you have already noted your e-mail address on your dues renewal form. ~Vriendelijk bedankt!

Postwar Emigration of Dutch Calvinists to
North-America, 1946-1963

Since January of this year I have been working on a Ph.D. project about the emigration of Dutch Calvinists to North America between 1946 and 1963. During this period nearly 410,000 Netherlanders, of whom a large proportion was Calvinist, emigrated to overseas countries. While the Calvinists made up some 8 to 9 percent of the total Dutch population in this period, their number in terms of overall percentage in the emigration to Canada stood around 30 percent (with peaks up to 40 percent in the first postwar years), and to the United States around 13 percent (with peaks up to 20 percent). One of the questions that arises here is why so many Calvinists were part of this emigration wave.

My dissertation offers a three-part analysis of various themes. The first part describes the background, organization and perception of the Calvinist emigration in the Netherlands and the supporting activities in North America. The second portion examines the experiences of the immigrants in the host societies. The final section compares the processes of maintenance and transformation within the Dutch-Calvinist emigration culture with the experiences of other Dutch and foreign immigrant groups, for example with the Dutch Catholics in North America or with the experiences of Calvinists in Australia and New-Zealand.

In the United States, Canada, and the Netherlands there are a considerable number of archives that hold important documents of emigration organizations, a diversity of oral-history projects, a dozen titles of Dutch-American magazines, and other relevant material. It is likely that I will find a good deal of information for my project in these collections, but I am keenly interested in three other historical sources as well.

Firstly, I am eager to obtain copies of correspondence between Dutch–if possible Calvinist–immigrants in North America and their relatives or friends in the Netherlands. The letter is a historical source which can reveal much about the motives of the postwar emigration, as well as about the continuing contacts across the ocean after the act of emigration.

Secondly, I am looking for persons whom I can interview during my stay in North America in October 2005 and April-June 2006. Again, I am especially interested in people who are or were members of a Reformed Church in the postwar decades, but I am also interested in Dutch-Americans and Canadians outside of this group.

Finally, I invite anyone else who can help me with additional historical sources (newspaper clippings, brochures, memoirs, etc.) to contact me at the address mentioned below. Thank you in advance for your cooperation in any of these areas!

Enne Koops

Roosevelt Study Center
Nieuwe Burg 42
4331 AH Middelburg
The Netherlands
e.koops@zeeland.nl

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Agenda
General Business Meeting
AADAS (June, 3, 2005) Dordt College:

1. Welcome by the president
2. Announcements
3. Agenda
4. Minutes of the past meeting in 2003
5. Election and presentation of board members
6. Financial Report
7. Location and theme of next AADAS conference
8. AADAS Website
9. Membership directory (desirability)
10. Survey of relevant other meetings/publications/
programs
11. Miscellaneous
12. Closing

The Joint Archives of Holland has been given the original collection of letters from Ottawa County Civil War soldier Willem Roon, a Dutch immigrant. After our former research assistant Michael Douma chose to take on this daunting task and was successful in translating Roon’s letters for future research, the donor thought it only fitting that we now have the originals for scholars to enjoy. Hard work by Douma paid off in this case. May there be more stories like this one!
Last summer’s history project, conducted by Michael Douma, which concentrated on the history of the Veneklassen family and their many West Michigan brickyards, is now in the final editing stage for publishing. It will be published by Eerdmans Publishing late this spring and will be titled Veneklasen Brick: A Family, a Company, and a Unique 19th Century Dutch Architectural Movement in Michigan. More information about ordering the book will be provided in the next issue of this newsletter.
The archives has also received photocopies of the translated correspondence of Hendrik Meijer, sent and received, while living in Holland, Michigan, from 1907-1911. These letters were donated by Meijer, Inc. of Grand Rapids, Michigan. This correspondence is the only publicly available collection of Meijer’s letters to and from his future wife and family members living in the Henglo area. The letters contain a rich description of the Henglo and Holland, Michigan, areas at this time, and include Hendrik’s comments on the labor situation in local factories, amusement parks, and his socialist leanings.
The Joint Archives is also working on making the papers of past AADAS meetings available online. Watch for more information on that project to come!

Staff News

Geoffrey D. Reynolds was elected president of the Michigan Oral History Association and will serve a two-year term. Two articles concerning the boat building industry in Holland, Michigan, were also published. One, “Fifty Years of Making Fun: The History of the Slick Craft Boat Company” was published in The Joint Archives of Holland Quarterly newsletter and the second, “Infamous Beauties: The Story of the Lake ‘n Sea Model Speedboats” was published in Classic Boating magazine.

Geoffrey Reynolds

Heritage Hall
Calvin College

One of the largest collections that we have processed since January 2005 has been nine cubic feet of records from the Winfield, Illinois Christian Reformed Church, which discontinued in 1997. With the completion of the presidential papers, for the first time since 1998, we have no backlog of material to process from one of constituent institutions, Calvin Theological Seminary. Of course, we still have backlogs in the college and denomination holdings. Several other collections are being processed, and will be reported when fully open for research.

We are partnering with a Dutch website, Ferwerderadeel Friesland Families (http://www.erfskipterpdoarpen.nl/) a fully linked website with information on 30,000+ families in the municipality of Ferwerderadeel, located in the northern part of the province of Friesland, the Netherlands, to provided obituary notices from the Banner and De Wachter. We scan the notices for immigrants from that municipality from a list provided from the site, the website architect formats, indexes, and houses the images, which will be made available via the website this summer.

Origins has submitted its first manuscript, a biography of Rev. Douwe J. Van Der Werp, to Historical Series of the Reformed Church of America for publication. The series board of editors has accepted the manuscript for publication in the late fall. A second manuscript, a biography of H. J. Kuiper has just been submitted for consideration.

We have completed the translation (Dutch to English) of the Vriesland, Michigan Christian Reformed Church minutes (1857-1894), one of the earliest congregations in the denomination. We have also translated and added a sizable set of immigrant records from the Lycklama a Nijeholt family who immigrated to Canada after WW II. The material consists of letters and related journal entries from correspondence with parents back in Friesland, Netherlands during the 1950s.

As part of the sesquicentennial of the Christian Reformed Church, Origins is planning an issue devoted to non-Dutch immigrant groups in the denomination. We are currently looking for authors who can write about the experiences of such diverse groups as Hispanics, African-American, Koreans, Filipino, Indonesian, Vietnamese, or Cambodians. If you have any suggestions for potential authors, please contact the editor at rharms@calvin.edu.

Richard Harms

AADAS News
c/o The Joint Archives of Holland
Hope College
P.O. Box 9000
Holland, MI 49422-9000

For more information and additional registration forms see our conference website at: http://www.dordt.edu/events/aadas