The Dutch American Identity

The Dutch American Identity PDF Author: Terence Schoone-Jongen
Publisher: Cambria Press
ISBN: 1604975652
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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Book Description
Each year, thousands of communities across the United States celebrate their ethnic heritages, values, and identities through the medium of festivals. Drawing together elements of ethnic pride, nostalgia, religious values, economic motives, cultural memory, and a spirit of celebration, these festivals are performances that promote and preserve a community's unique identity and heritage, while at the same time attempting to place the ethnic community within the larger American experience. Although these aims are pervasive across ethnic heritage celebrations, two festivals that appear similar may nevertheless serve radically different social and political aims. Accordingly, The Dutch American Identity examines five Dutch American festivals-three of which are among the oldest ethnic heritage festivals in the United States-in order to determine what such festivals mean and do for the staging communities. Although Dutch Americans were historically among the first ethnic groups to stage ethnic heritage festivals designed to attract outside audiences, and despite the fact that several Dutch American festivals have met with sustained success, little scholarship has focused on this ethnic group's festivals. Moreover, studies that have considered festivals staged by communities of European descent have typically focused on a single festival. The Dutch American Identity thus, on the one hand, seeks to call attention to the historical development and current sociocultural significance of Dutch American heritage festivals. On the other hand, this study aims to elucidate the ties that bind the five communities that stage these festivals together rather than studying one festival in isolation from the others. Creatively combining several methodologies, The Dutch American Identity describes and analyzes how the social, political, and ethical values of the five communities are expressed (performed, acted out, represented, costumed, and displayed) in their respective festivals. Rather than relying on familiar, even stereotypical, notions of "the Midwest," "rural America," "conservative America," etc., that often appear in contemporary political discourse, Schoone-Jongen shows just how complex and contradictory these festivals are in the ways they represent each community. At the same time, by placing these festivals within the context of American history, Schoone-Jongen also demonstrates how and why each festival is a microcosm of particular cultural, social, and political developments in modern America. The Dutch American Identity is an important book for sociology, performance studies, folklore, immigration history, anthropology, and cultural history collections.

Dutch Calvinism in Modern America

Dutch Calvinism in Modern America PDF Author: James D. Bratt
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 9780802800091
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
"A rare combination of scholarship and wit. Delightful for anyone seeking insight on the Dutch in modern America." - George Marsden In this scholarly yet entertaining book, James D. Bratt takes a look at the Dutch in America from the late 19th century to the present. A comprehensive study of an ethnic subculture, the book is in large part a study of the groups religious history as well, since, as Bratt points out, the contours of the Dutch presence in America have been overwhelmingly shaped by the church and its subsidiary organizations. Although the book is extensively and scrupulously documented, Bratt has infused his scholarship with a considerable amount of anecdote that is by turns poignant and tragic and hilarious. In Bratts analysis of the fitful progress of Americanization that this close-knit religious community has undergone, we are treated to the sharp insights of a bemused and sometimes disaffected insider. Included is a chapter on novelists Arnold Mulder, David Cornel DeJong, Frederick Manfred, and Peter DeVries - four sons of the Dutch who fled the subculture only to reflect upon it almost obsessively from the outside. Well written, scholarly, and highly readable Dutch Calvinism in Modern America will have wide appeal among both academic and general readers. James D. Bratt is Professor of history at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The Dutch American Identity

The Dutch American Identity PDF Author: Terence Schoone-Jongen
Publisher: Cambria Press
ISBN: 1604975652
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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Book Description
Each year, thousands of communities across the United States celebrate their ethnic heritages, values, and identities through the medium of festivals. Drawing together elements of ethnic pride, nostalgia, religious values, economic motives, cultural memory, and a spirit of celebration, these festivals are performances that promote and preserve a community's unique identity and heritage, while at the same time attempting to place the ethnic community within the larger American experience. Although these aims are pervasive across ethnic heritage celebrations, two festivals that appear similar may nevertheless serve radically different social and political aims. Accordingly, The Dutch American Identity examines five Dutch American festivals-three of which are among the oldest ethnic heritage festivals in the United States-in order to determine what such festivals mean and do for the staging communities. Although Dutch Americans were historically among the first ethnic groups to stage ethnic heritage festivals designed to attract outside audiences, and despite the fact that several Dutch American festivals have met with sustained success, little scholarship has focused on this ethnic group's festivals. Moreover, studies that have considered festivals staged by communities of European descent have typically focused on a single festival. The Dutch American Identity thus, on the one hand, seeks to call attention to the historical development and current sociocultural significance of Dutch American heritage festivals. On the other hand, this study aims to elucidate the ties that bind the five communities that stage these festivals together rather than studying one festival in isolation from the others. Creatively combining several methodologies, The Dutch American Identity describes and analyzes how the social, political, and ethical values of the five communities are expressed (performed, acted out, represented, costumed, and displayed) in their respective festivals. Rather than relying on familiar, even stereotypical, notions of "the Midwest," "rural America," "conservative America," etc., that often appear in contemporary political discourse, Schoone-Jongen shows just how complex and contradictory these festivals are in the ways they represent each community. At the same time, by placing these festivals within the context of American history, Schoone-Jongen also demonstrates how and why each festival is a microcosm of particular cultural, social, and political developments in modern America. The Dutch American Identity is an important book for sociology, performance studies, folklore, immigration history, anthropology, and cultural history collections.

The Dutch and America

The Dutch and America PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Arts, American
Languages : en
Pages : 92

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Book Description


Dutch American Voices

Dutch American Voices PDF Author: Herbert J. Brinks
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501735705
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Book Description
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.

A Dutch Family in the Middle Colonies, 1660-1800

A Dutch Family in the Middle Colonies, 1660-1800 PDF Author: Firth Haring Fabend
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
Traces the history of the Haring family: descendants of John Pietersen Haring (fl.17th c.) and Grietje Cosyns (b.1641) who were married in 1662 in the Out-ward of Manhattan. Their descendants lived in New York and New Jersey. John and Grietje were not immigrants, but were the children of immigrants from the Netherlands. The history is prim arily description of how and under what conditions the family would have lived; includes a great deal of sociological, cultural, religiou s, and other detailed information.

Dutch Chicago

Dutch Chicago PDF Author: Robert P. Swierenga
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 9780802813114
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 940

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Book Description
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.

The Battle for the Migrants

The Battle for the Migrants PDF Author: Torsten Feys
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 1786948850
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 426

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Book Description
This book approaches the well-documented study of European mass migration to the United States of America from the viewpoint of mass migration as a business venture. The overall purpose is to demonstrate that maritime and migration histories are interlinked and dependent on a deeper understanding of the social, economic, and political factors at work in the nineteenth century Atlantic community. It centres on both the evolution of the port of Rotterdam as a migration gateway, and the crucial role of the Holland-America line as a regulator of the North American passenger trade. The first part of the book explores the simultaneous rise of transatlantic mass migration and long-distance steamshipping between 1830 to 1870. The second part, divided into five chapters, explores how mass migration became a big business between 1870 and 1914, and scrutinises how steamship companies organised and provided initiatives for transoceanic migration, plus the role of shipping agents and agent-networks, and how passenger services were constructed within transatlantic networks. Over the course of the text it becomes increasingly clear that by approaching mass migration as a trade issue, the role of steamship companies in the facilitation of transatlantic migration is rendered both intrinsic and pivotal. It consists of an introduction containing contextual information, two sections providing historical overviews, five chapters exploring different aspects of the shipping industry’s response to mass migration, conclusion, bibliography, and six appendices of passenger, destination, agent, and advertising statistics.

Loyalist Mosaic

Loyalist Mosaic PDF Author: Joan Magee
Publisher: Dundurn
ISBN: 1554882206
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
Loyalist Mosaic highlights the ethnic diversity among the Loyalist settlers to Canada by exploring the experiences of 11 extraordinary individuals.

Voices of Our Ancestors

Voices of Our Ancestors PDF Author: Patricia Causey Nichols
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 1643363492
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
The first detailed linguistic history of South Carolina, with a new preface by the author In Voices of Our Ancestors Patricia Causey Nichols offers the first detailed linguistic history of South Carolina as she explores the contacts between distinctive language cultures in the colonial and early federal eras and studies the dialects that evolved even as English became paramount in the state. As language development reflects historical development, Nichols's work also serves as a new avenue of inquiry into South Carolina's social history from the epoch of Native American primacy to the present day. Because Charleston was among the foremost colonial American seaports, South Carolina experienced a diverse influx of cultures and languages from the onset, drawing influences from Native Americans, enslaved African Americans, and a plethora of European peoples—Scots-Irish, English, Jewish, German, and French Huguenot chief among them. Nichols tells the richly complex story of language contact from groups representing three continents and myriad cultures. In examining how South Carolinians spoke in public and private we glean much about how they developed a common culture while still honoring as best they could the heritages and tongues of their ancestors. Nichols pays particular attention to the development of the Gullah language among the coastal African American peoples and the ways in which this language—and others of South Carolina's early inhabitants—continues to influence the communication and culture of the state's current populations. Nichols's synthetic treatment of language history makes expert use of primary source materials and is further enhanced by the author's field research with Gullah-speaking African Americans and with descendants of Native Americans, as well as her keen observation of her own European American community in South Carolina. Through her deft analysis of contemporary language variations and regional and ethnic speech communities, she advances our understanding of how diverse the South Carolina experience has been, from the lowcountry to the upcountry and all points in between, and yet how the need to communicate shared experiences and values has united the state's population with a common meaningful language in which the diverse voices of our ancestors can still be heard. In a new preface, Nichols reflects on the growing diversity of the United States as a whole and how relationships across communities shape language and culture.

Fur, Fashion and Transatlantic Trade During the Seventeenth Century

Fur, Fashion and Transatlantic Trade During the Seventeenth Century PDF Author: John C. Appleby
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1783275790
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Offers insight, using the example of the Chesapeake Bay fur trade, into how the different elements of transatlantic trade in the seventeenth century fitted together.This book explores the development of the fur trade in Chesapeake Bay during the seventeenth century, and the wide-ranging links that were formed in a new and extensive transatlantic chain of supply and consumption. It considers changing fashion in England, the growing demand for fur, at a time when the Russian fur trade was in decline, examines native North Americans and their trading and other exchanges with colonists, and explores the nature of colonial society, including the commercial ambitions of a varied range of investors. As such, it outlines the intense rivalry which existed between different colonies and colonial interests. Although the book argues that fur never supplanted tobacco as the region's principal export, noting that the trade declined as new, more profitable sources of supply were opened up, nevertheless the case of the Chesapeake fur trade provides an excellent example of how different elements in a new transatlantic enterprise fitted together and had a profound impact on each other.peake fur trade provides an excellent example of how different elements in a new transatlantic enterprise fitted together and had a profound impact on each other.peake fur trade provides an excellent example of how different elements in a new transatlantic enterprise fitted together and had a profound impact on each other.peake fur trade provides an excellent example of how different elements in a new transatlantic enterprise fitted together and had a profound impact on each other.