On the Waterfront ·
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· INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL HISTORY INTERNATIONAAL INSTITUUT VOOR SOCIALE GESCHIEDENIS On the Waterfront . { 1 } · · Introduction e composition of this fifth issue is similar to the previous one, but what is noteworthy this time is the first true restitution of the archives from Russia. We also call your attention to the further extension of the research projects that have been initiated with the help of the Friends. Members of the Friends of the IISH pay annual dues of one or five hundred euro or join with a lifetime dona- tion of one thousand five hundred euro or more. Payments can also be made on the instalment system. In return, members are invited to semi-annual sessions featuring presentations of IISH acquisitions and guest speakers. ese guest speakers deliver lectures on their field of research, which does not necessarily concern the IISH collection. e presentation and lecture are followed by a reception. In addition to these semi-annual gatherings, all Friends receive a forty-percent discount on IISH publications. Friends paying dues of five hundred euro or more are also entitled to choose Institute publications from a broad selection offered at no charge. INTERNATIONAAL INSTITUUT VOOR SOCIALE GESCHIEDENIS e board consults the Friends about allocation of the dues and delivers an annual financial report in conjunc- INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL HISTORY tion with the IISH administration. e IISH was founded by master collector Nicolaas Posthumus (-) in the s. For the past decade, two of the institutes established by this “history entrepreneur” have operated from the same premises: the NEHA (Neth- erlands Economic History Archive) since and the International Institute of Social History (IISH ), which is now over sixty-five years old. Both institutes are still collecting, although the “subsidiary”IISH has grown far larger than the “parent” NEHA. (Detailed information about the IISH appears in: Maria Hunink De papieren van de revolutie. Het Internation- aal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis -, Amsterdam , and in: Jan Lucassen Tracing the past. Col- lections and research in social and economic history; e International Institute of Social History, e Nether- lands Economic History Archive and related institutions, Amsterdam ; in addition, Mies Campfens reviews archives in De Nederlandse archieven van het Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis te Amsterdam, INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL HISTORY Amsterdam (), and Jaap Haag and Atie van der Horst have compiled the Guide to the International INTERNATIONAAL INSTITUUT VOOR SOCIALE GESCHIEDENIS Archives and Collections at the IISH , Amsterdam, Amsterdam ). For all information concerning the Friends, contact Mieke IJzermans at the IISH ([email protected]). 31 · 1019 . + 31 20 6685866 · + 31 20 6654181 · .. · .@. · 41.13.90.805, 4740245 : · -: · : · : · : , · , , : - .., · : , , , , , , , , · : /: · -: · : · : , -, , { 2 } { 3 } · · ese two new acquisitions are supplemented by four other Fifth Friends Day, books from the collection; these also clearly show similar daily use. e first two have been in June the collection quite a while, but the other two almanacs have also been recently acquired. ese consist of a Zahl-Büchlein from At the end of we were able to Munich (), bound and acquire at the LiberBerlin exhibit equipped with two copper locks two books whose workmanship and an entry by what was prob- As previously, in the first half of clearly showed that they had been ably the original owner, “Chris- the acquired over one intended for daily use. e first tian Heilberger Pr[...] Meister”; - hundred archives: more than half of these is the fifth edition of the there is also a calculations book - - were new ones, while less than half Vade Mecum by John Playford, for linen merchants by Joannes consisted of supplementary collec- printed in London in . de Cock, published in Ghent in tions. Some of the acquisitions are , which is bound in a folio - spectacular, especially if we note e first printing of this mer- format. e Koopmans Comptoir , the way in which they came to us. chants handbook appeared in en Schrijf-Almanak (Merchant Of- , In this regard we point the reader . From the workmanship it fice and Writing Almanac), pub- to the section below about the re- can clearly be seen that the book lished in Amsterdam in , is turn of the archives from Russia. was intended to be taken on a trip. In addition to the ’s archival It has a protective envelope (vel- INTERNATIONAAL INSTITUUT VOOR SOCIALE GESCHIEDENIS acquisitions, we would also like lum) and lock. In addition, this to call the reader’s attention to book clearly bears traces of use. It INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL HISTORY those of the library and the . is precisely this type of publication that is rare, for most of them have Merchant literature been discarded after use. In general, each collector would like to own as good an example e contents consist of a small as possible of a book or brochure; almanac, interest tables, calcula- and in this way an institute is no tion tables, information about different from an individual, al- markets, postal and trade routes, though this rule is not really true prices of transport tickets for in all cases. In collecting merchant barge and coach, etc. is fifth INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF SOCIALliterature, HISTORY in some cases it is actu- edition from must have been INTERNATIONAAL INSTITUUT VOOR SOCIALE GESCHIEDENIS ally more important to acquire used for a long time, because the something that had clearly been first page contains the statement, used in order to be able to see that “A John Flatman ow[n]e[d] this it was not an academic publica- book .” is owner must tion, but that it had truly been surely not have been a collector, useful in practice. e number but a simple user, which is borne also in folio format, and contains of mercantile libraries whose out by his disclosure on Novem- all sorts of agricultural notes from existence we know of, or what ber th : Zeeland. e Dordrecht Almanak they contained, is very limited. from is bound in a somewhat We find that most of the books “If any man my name would plainer manner, but it contains ex- in the collection whose origins know tra white pages for notes. can be traced (and in this way the in letters to i will you show , collection is no different the first is I in all mans right La Feuille from other collections elsewhere the next is F to tell you right In their general meeting of in the world), often come from and if you think i spell amiss December , the Friends de- the libraries of wealthy merchants, then look below and there it is cided to allocate revenues for the a cloister, nobleman, or were part John Flatham.” acquisition by the Institute of the ; of explicit material used to train renowned French Paper La Feuille merchants. But we can only guess e second is a Tariffa, published (see On the Waterfront , p. and what an “ordinary” merchant in a folio format in Bologna in ). is important purchase for , - would have used. at is why it . is book consists of a the Library can now be shown to is valuable that some acquisitions table with rates of exchange for the Friends. were clearly intended for use, and calculating the value of Bolog- in those cases traces of use are in nese coins against Italian liras in Zo d.’Axa (pseudonym of Al- fact desirable! the early nineteenth century. phonse Gallaud; for additional . { 2 } { 3 } · · archive especially established for Joseph Bloch (-) was this purpose. e existence of this the editor of the Sozialistische “special archive” was only made Monatshefte (Socialist Monthly) known in . (-). His archive included about , letters by individu- About collections from the als who largely came from reform Netherlands landed in Moscow groups of the socialist movement (cf. also On the Waterfront , p. in Germany (Max Adler, Friedrich ). Following many years of Adler, Karl Kautsky, Gustav Land- discussions, in June , on the auer and many others). In it occasion of a visit to Russia by had been sold by Bloch’s widow the Dutch Queen, the Russians to the in Paris for fl. declared that they were prepared e previously received this to return collections, although collection in on microfilm the fate of the remaining would from Moscow. - remain under discussion. Included : in the collections that still needed e archive of the Secretariat of , - . to be returned are also a few that the Sozialistische Jugend Inter- “” () had belonged to the , as well nationale () is comprised of ’ , as a number of collections that in dossiers from the Secretariat, all likelihood will be kept by the including (among other things) . because the original owners correspondence from Erich Ol- are no longer alive. It was not un- lenhauer, secretary of the . Ol- information see our web site: til April that the first ship- lenhauer presented this archive to http://www.iisg.nl/collections/ ment, consisting of collections the Paris office of the in the INTERNATIONAAL INSTITUUT VOOR SOCIALE GESCHIEDENIS zodaxa/index.html), a libertarian with a total dimension of m, ar- late s. e restitution from publicist, was the editor, while rived at the . Everything was Moscow is a welcome addition to INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF