From the President:

I am delighted that the next AADAS conference will be held in Northwest Iowa and hosted by Dordt College. In my own research on Dutch immigrants I sense that the center of gravity is perhaps too much in Michigan. Nobody will deny that this was an important immigrant center, but the extension of the Dutch-American subculture to the West was more than only a geographical spread. The continued attraction of settlement on the plains (albeit romanticized) spurred immigration also to other areas. What fascinates me in particular is the emergence of a Western mentality. At the most recent AADAS conference, held at Trinity Christian College in Chicago in 2003, I discovered some benign competition between the Windy City and Grand Rapids, in addition to occasional grim criticism. Internal rivalries within the Dutch community might have felt unpleasant, but also helped to keep the group alert and reflective. I wonder whether a similar healthy tension existed between Dutch settlements in the far- and midwest. The presentations at Dordt College will help to explore this topic and contribute to a better understanding of the various mentalities in the Dutch-American subculture. I hope many of you will be able to attend this conference that is being carefully prepared by Paul Fessler and Hubert Krygsman.

There is yet another advantage of meeting in Iowa and that is the person of Henry Scholte. While his colleague Albertus Van Raalte receives his full share of scholarly attention, I note that his eminent partner (and sometimes rival) is too often neglected. While the outline of his life is sufficiently known, a full biography is still lacking. The important work of Lubbertus Oostendorf richly describes his Dutch period, but leaves too much of his twenty years in America unexplored. To wet your appetite I dug up a story about Scholte’s diplomatic explorations, which is published in this newsletter.

It is satisfying to see that the interest in Dutch-American relations is still growing. Russell Shorto’s book on New Amsterdam stimulates the attention for the early colonial period. On March 25 and 26, 2005, the University of Denver will host a conference on all aspects of the Dutch in America, “Going Dutch.” New publications appear regularly, and

new students begin new research projects. We hope that this newsletter will help you to monitor these developments. Do feel free to submit your own research questions to this publication.

Yours,

Hans Krabbendam
President AADAS
Jl.krabbendam@zeeland.nl

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AADAS Conference Announcement

AADAS Conference Announcement

The Association for the Advancement of Dutch-American Studies (AADAS) will hold its 2005 biennial meeting on the eastern edge of the Great Plains, at Dordt College, Sioux Center, Iowa, on June 2-4, 2005 (Thursday-Saturday).

The conference keynote speaker will be James Calvin Schaap, author of novels, stories, and essays, and Professor of English at Dordt College since 1976. His most recent novel, Touches the Sky, explores the relationships between the Native (Lakota) community and Dutch-American settlers in South Dakota in the early 1890s, at the time of the Ghost Dance phenomenon and the Wounded Knee Massacre. Touches the Sky received the Award of Merit in the fiction category of the Christianity Today 2004 annual book awards, the only novel so cited.

The conference theme will be Dutch Immigrants on the Plains. Planned presentation topics are Dutch/Native American relationships, rural churches and farmers, trans-Mississippi Dutch-American communities, and related permutations on the subject.

Conference organizers will begin considering proposals on December 1, 2004. However, proposals abstracts (about 300 words, along with one-page vitae) will be accepted for consideration until January 10, 2005. Send correspondence electronically to Paul Fessler (Department of History, Dordt College) at pfessler@dordt.edu.

(Continued on page 4)

The Joint Archives of Holland has finished processing two important Civil War collections from Kent and Ottawa counties. Diana Rosenhagen, a native of Germany and this past year a teaching assistant in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages at Hope College, conducted the translation of several letters from German immigrant, Georg Adam Zimmermann, to English. These letters will provide our researchers with a very interesting commentary on 19th-century German immigration and life in Kent County, Michigan, and as a Civil War soldier. The second collection of letters is from Ottawa County soldier Willem Roon, a Dutch immigrant. Our research assistant, Michael Douma, chose to take on this daunting task and was successful in translating Roon’s letters for future research.

We are also pleased to announce the opening of the Latin Americans United for Progress (LAUP) organization’s records. This collection documents the important social support that Latino’s received during their immigration to the Holland area since the 1960s as well as their founding of Fiesta!, a day of celebrating Hispanic heritage in the area.

Our annual summer history project, which last year covered the history of polio in the Holland area, concentrated on the history of the Veneklasen family and their many West Michigan brickyards. A book manuscript, written by summer research assistant Michael Douma and titled, Veneklasen Brick: A Family, a Company, and a Unique 19th Century Dutch Architectural Movement in Michigan, is being reviewed for publication in the near future.

Lastly, the Joint Archives of Holland moved into the newly renovated Henri and Elenore Theil Research Center during early October along with the A. C. Van Raalte Institute.

Staff News

Geoffrey D. Reynolds finished his term as president of the Michigan Archival Association at the annual meeting in June and is now assisting in the planning of their 2005 annual meeting to be held in Grand Rapids, with co-chairs Rebecca Mayne and Matthew Daley. Geoffrey’s paper “Built Along the Shores of Macatawa: The History of Boat Building in the Holland, Michigan Area, 1837-2002,” was published in the Summer 2004 volume of Inland Seas, the journal of the Great Lakes Historical Society.

Geoffrey has also become part of the radio airwaves by joining local Holland AM radio station, WHTC, every other week to inform their listeners about what is happening at the Joint Archives of Holland. During the morning drive listeners learn about events, both historical and current, research projects, and newly opened collections available for research.

Heritage Hall
Calvin College

We continue the process of converting our most used genealogical resources to file formats compatible with on-line availability to reduce an ever growing reference load. The latest addition to this effort is a listing of marriages performed by Revs. Douwe J. Vander Werp and Roelof T. Kuiper while pastors in Graafschap (Michigan) Christian Reformed Church, and the membership records of the Perch Lake, Michigan CRC. Links to these materials can be found at http://www.calvin.edu/hh/family_history_resources/in_ house_resourses.htm. We have completed keying-in cataloging data of about 7,000 of our audio recordings (reel-to-reel, cassette, and compact disk formats) into a campus-wide database. This database, shared with the Seminary, College Audio Visual and Conferences and Campus Events departments, is available for searching via web access at http://www.calvin.edu/admin/av/titles/index.htm. Thanks to a Michigan library services and technology grant and Hekman Library staff approximately 1,000 images of Michigan churches, schools, events, and places are now in digital formats and can be viewed via http://www.calvin.edu/library/researchhelp/hda/index.stm. During the past year we have processed 42 cubic feet of seminary records, 18 cubic feet of college material, and 103 cubic feet of denomination records. Among these were major additions from the General Secretary’s office of the Christian Reformed Church, Home Missions, and the seminary president. In addition to these 163 cubic feet of institutional records were organized and opened 179 cubic feet of manuscript material from such groups as Dynamic Youth Ministries, Christian Reformed Conference Grounds, and the Committee for Women in the Christian Reformed Church. The manuscript total also includes approximately 35 cubic feet of records from various Christian schools and other agencies related to the Dutch in North America. We also completed organizing and cataloging the records of the Midwest Sunday School

(Continued on page 4)

No Return for Scholte (continued from page 2)

Shortly after Lincoln’s inauguration in 1861, Scholte wrote to the Secretary of State, William H. Seward, to express his interest in an appointment as minister to the Netherlands, for which the Republican Delegation of Iowa had nominated him. According to Scholte, the Know-Nothings had scared not only the Dutch immigrants in Iowa, Michigan, and Wisconsin, but also prospective immigrants in the Netherlands, which had reduced the flow of immigration. “… in the Netherlands it is still considered that naturalized citizens, however intelligent they might be, are held in a condition of pariahs. If I should be appointed as Minister to the Netherlands, it would at once, without saying a word, give a total denial to that impression.” He offered to return to the Netherlands—though he personally preferred Belgium—with the explicit objective of advancing immigration.

When the eager applicant failed to get a personal interview with the Secretary and discovered that the popular historian John Lothrop Motley competed for the same position, he wrote a follow-up letter, emphasizing that it was better to send him, a living person native to the country, than to depend on the author of “the history of olden times.” He added a political argument that his state Iowa had not received a post and that the West should not be neglected in dividing the spoils. Neither candidate was successful. Motley was sent to Vienna and James S. Pike from Maine was appointed as the American minister to The Hague.

It is not surprising that Scholte did not acquire his prize. His conversion to the Republican Party was a recent one. He had been an ardent supporter of both the Whig Party, whose leader Henry Clay he admired for his national economic policy, and—after the Whigs’ demise—of the Democratic Party. He preferred the stability of the Democratic Party over the newborn Republican Party, which had not yet cleansed itself of the anti-immigrant sentiment of the Know-Nothings. In the summer of 1859, he made a third switch, this time to the Republicans. He was severely disappointed by the corrupt and inept policy of the Democratic Buchanan Administration, which had actually advanced slavery instead of containing it. Scholte had first advocated Seward’s nomination as Republican candidate for the presidency and cast his support for Lincoln rather late. Meanwhile his political influence in his hometown had waned considerably.

Six years later Scholte made another effort to return to Europe. This time he had set his mind on Berlin, where the American minister, Joseph Albert Wright, was known to have a weak health. Scholte wrote to Lincoln’s successor Andrew Johnson. This time he presented himself as a polyglot and as a personal acquaintance of Secretary Seward and several other

politicians of standing. He made it clear that he did not belong to the radical wing of the Republican Party, which made him a more reliable candidate in his own eyes. After Mr. Wright had died on May 11, he repeated his request. Again he met the competition of a historian, George Bancroft, who eventually received the post. Even a final plea: “If you appoint me, you will never regret it,” did not change the President’s mind. A year and three months later, Scholte was dead without having returned to his native land that he had left twenty years earlier.

Sources: National Archives, Washington DC. M650, Letters of application and recommendation presidents Lincoln and Johnson, Reel 43: 8 and 12 March 1861 and 8 March, 14 and 15 May 1867.

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Conference Announcement (continued from page 1)

Registration materials are forthcoming on the conference website http://www.dordt.edu/events/aadas. If you have any questions, please contact either Hubert Krygsman (krygsman@dordt.edu) or Paul Fessler (pfessler@dordt.edu).

In addition to the academic program, two excursions are planned for before and after the conference, each contingent upon interest: The first is a bus tour of Dutch-American sites in South Dakoka and Plains Indians, led by James Schaap (see above). Check in on May 31 at Dordt in the evening; early departure on June 1st with overnight stay in South Dakota and return on Thursday afternoon. The second is a post-conference bus tour of Northwest Iowa. This tour focuses on the literary and historical aspects of the region. It is also led by James Schaap.

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Heritage Hall (continued from page 3)

Association, the Back to God Hour-Guam program, the papers of Fred Klooster, John Hulst and Nicholas B. Beversluis, and the cataloging of Onze Toekomst and the Standaard. In cooperation with the Meeter Center at Calvin College, we organized the Ford Lewis Battles (1915-1979) papers (33 cubic feet). Battles was the preeminent scholar of John Calvin during the twentieth century, Battles left extensive notes and unfinished research. Unfortunately, much of his bibliographic research that led to publication was in a variety of machine readable formats that are no longer accessible due to technology and hardware changes. Fortunately the end products of these labors are still readable in book form.

 

The University of Denver will hold the conference “Going Dutch: Holland in America, 1609-2009” from March 25-26, 2005. Since AADAS members will undoubtedly be interested in the themes and topics of that conference, a program overview is provided here. Session themes, paper titles, and presenters’ names and affiliations are listed below. Feel free to contact Dr. Annette Stott (astott@du.edu) or visit the conference website (http://www.du.edu/art) for more information. Sponsors for the “Going Dutch” include the Netherland-America Foundation, the Holland Society, and Dubbel Dutch of Denver.

Session: The Dutch and American History
A Similar Mirror: The Treatment of Dutch Immigrants in U.S. History Books
Suzanne Sinke, History Department, Florida State University

‘Nothing of the Phlegmatic Dutchman about Him:’ The Image of Petrus Stuyvesant
Jaap Jacobs, University of Amsterdam

A Brahmin Goes Dutch: John Lothrop Motley and the Lessons of Dutch History in 19th-Century Boston
Mark Peterson, History Department, University of Iowa

Artist Talk & View Exhibition, The Manhattan Project, Renee Ridgway, artist

Session: The Dutch in the Hudson River Valley
Erasing the Dutch: Opposition to Hudson Valley Dutch Architecture, 1750-1840
Joseph Manca, Department of Art History, Rice University

Dutch Art and the Hudson Valley Patroon Painters
Louisa Wood Ruby, Frick Collection and Art Reference Library

Knickerbocker Ice and Dutch Masters: Advertising “Dutchness”
Jennifer Steenshorne, History Department, St. Francis College

Session: Nineteenth & Twentieth Century Dutch Immigrant Communities
‘But tho we love old Holland still, we love Columbia more:’ The Formation of a Dutch-American Subculture in the United States, 1840-1920
Hans Krabbendam, Roosevelt Study Center, Middelburg

Faith, Farms, and Families: The Dutch American Colonies of Theodore F. Koch (1885-1915)
Robert Schoone-Jongen, History Department, Calvin College

Windmills on the Plains: Pella and Orange City, Two Dutch Communities in Iowa
Julie Hochstrasser, School of Art and Art History, University of Iowa

Keynote Address Dutchness in Fact and Fiction, Willem Frijhoff, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam

Music Talk & Concert
History of the Carillon in the Netherlands
Todd Fair, University Carilloner

Session: Golden Age Dutch Art and American Collectors
Great Expectations: The Golden Age Redeems the Gilded Era
Nancy Minty, Independent Art Historian

Paintings by Old Dutch Masters: 1909/2009
Dennis Weller, North Carolina Museum of Art

Frans Hals in America
Christopher Atkins, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Session: Dutch Intellectual Influences in America in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century
The Koolhaas Effect: OMA and Modern American Culture
Christopher Pierce, School of Architecture and Design, University of Brighton

Ontwerpmethode: Designers from the Lowlands and U.S. Graphic Design Education
Joseph Coates, School of Art and Art History, University of Iowa

‘It is in Our Futural Imagery that our Humanity Lies:’
Fred L. Polak and Future Studies in the U.S., Tity de Vries, History Department, University of Groningen

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