The Evolution of Dutch American Identities, 1847-Present Michael J
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Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2011 The Evolution of Dutch American Identities, 1847-Present Michael J. Douma Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES THE EVOLUTION OF DUTCH AMERICAN IDENTITIES, 1847-PRESENT By MICHAEL J. DOUMA A Dissertation submitted to the History Department in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2011 i The members of the committee approve the dissertation of Michael J. Douma defended on March 18, 2011. _____________________________ Dr. Suzanne Sinke Professor Directing Dissertation ______________________________ Dr. Reinier Leushuis University Representative ______________________________ Dr. Edward Gray Committee Member ______________________________ Dr. Jennifer Koslow Committee Member ______________________________ Dr. Darrin McMahon Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation was written on napkins, the reverse sides of archival call slips and grocery receipts, on notebook paper while sitting in the train, in Dutch but mostly in English, in long-hand, scribble, and digital text. Most of the chapters were composed in a fourth floor apartment on the west side of Amsterdam in the sunless winter of 2009-2010 and the slightly less gloomy spring of 2010. Distractions from the work included Sudoku puzzles, European girls, and Eurosport broadcasts of the Winter Olympics on a used television with a recurring sound glitch. This dissertation is the product of my mind and its faults are my responsibility, but the final product represents the work and activity of many who helped me along the way. Suzanne Sinke directed the dissertation, and helped focus my scattered thoughts. I am thankful for having had a demanding yet caring advisor through my years at Florida State. Sinke's former master’s thesis advisor at Kent State University, Robert Swierenga (now at the Van Raalte Institute), gave straightforward comments on the value of certain chapters and contributed to my better understanding of the topic. Hans Krabbendam read, edited, and commented on numerous sections of the text. Through Hans' invitation, I participated in a productive seminar with Dutch graduate students (AIO's) at the Roosevelt Institute in Middelburg, the Netherlands. This project was funded by a Fulbright grant to the Netherlands, a Florida State University International Dissertation Fellowship, two yearly fellowships from the Institute for Humane Studies, and a summer fellowship at the Van Raalte Institute. As a "medewerker" in the history department at Leiden University, I was greeted by the friendly Marlou Schrover, who encouraged my participation in departmental lectures and events. Dr. Schrover was also responsible for aiding the publication of my second chapter as an article in the Tijdschrijft voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis [Journal of Social and Economic History]. Conversations with George Harinck, James Kennedy, Martijn van den Burg, Dennis Bosch, Steef Eman, and others in the academic historian circles of the Netherlands aided my search for primary documents and strengthened my understanding of Dutch history. Pieter Stokvis and J.P. VerHave were kind enough to invite me into their homes in Leiden and Nijmegen, respectively. Family relations in the villages of Metslawier, Friesland, and Bedum, Groningen, invited me for Christmas and showed me another side of the country. Archival centers consulted in the Netherlands included the Dutch Royal Library, the Amsterdam Municipal Archives, the National Archives of the Netherlands in The Hague, the North Holland Archive, TRESOAR (the archives of the province of Friesland, the Reformed (Gereformeerde) Church Archive and Documentation Center in Kampen, the Protestant Documentation Center at Amsterdam’s Free University, and the Leiden University Archives. The staff of the Van Raalte Institute, and particularly Elton Bruins, were helpful in fielding my questions about topics ranging from the structure of the Reformed Church in America to the history of Wisconsin Dutch communities. In this time, we were saddened with the loss of Karen Schakel, the secretary of the institute. Richard Harms and the staff of Heritage Hall at Calvin College were, as always, kind and helpful, as was Catherine Jung at the Holland Museum Archives. It is now seven years since I graduated from Hope College, where I worked for four years at the Joint Archives of Holland alongside Lori Trethewey and Geoffrey Reynolds, who have seen more than just this project take shape. They have also seen me grow up. Most of all, I am thankful to my parents for supporting me through it all. I dedicate this work to them. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables v List of Abbreviations vi Abstract vii Introduction 1 Chapter 1: The Origins of Dutch American Identities 22 Chapter 2: The Making of an Imagined Dutch American Subculture, 1847-1875 45 Chapter 3: Making Patriotic American Citizens, 1850-1900 69 Chapter 4: A Black Dutchman and the Racial Discourse of the Dutch in America, 1865-1920 97 Chapter 5: The Peak of Dutch America, 1900-1920 113 Chapter 6: Arnold Mulder's Alienated Second Generation 134 Chapter 7: Tulip Time and the Invention of a New Ethnic Identity 156 Chapter 8: From Identity to Heritage: The Memory and Myth of Van Raalte 176 Chapter 9: The Fading Away of Dutch America 199 Chapter 10: Dutch American Identities Since 1980 221 Conclusion/ Eplilogue 243 Bibliography 247 iv LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Some Major Influences Shaping Dutch American Identities 14 Table 2: RCA West and CRC Membership Statistics Compared 115 Table 3: Language Transition in Rural Dutch American Churches 209 v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS The following abbreviations appear either in the text or the footnotes of the manuscript. The first use of an abbreviation is accompanied by its full term. JAH - Joint Archives of Holland HMA - Holland Museum Archives DIS - Dutch International Society RCA - Reformed Church in America CRC - Christian Reformed Church NHK - Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk (Dutch Reformed Church) VU - Vrije Universiteit (Free University of Amsterdam) vi ABSTRACT This work is at once a study of ethnic change among Dutch Americans and a contribution to the study of ethnic identity in America more broadly. It seeks to explain how Dutch American identities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries formed and evolved and why references to the Netherlands played an enduring role in how Americans of Dutch descent identified themselves. This study argues that the evolution, the adaptability, and the reinterpretation of "Dutchness" in an American setting has been the primary cause of the persistence of Dutch American ethnic identities. It shows that for the Dutch in America, ethnic identity has been resilient, not because it has remained intact, but rather because it has changed shape. The main contribution of this study is its demonstration of the evolution of ethnicity over the long-term (over generations and centuries) and the implications of this perspective for how we understand ethnic groups. Scholars have long seen ethnic groups as ever-evolving entities with boundaries that are constantly renegotiated. But like the evolution of species, ethnic change is gradual and imperceptible at the daily level. From the perspective of decades or centuries, however, certain themes of historical change become visible. At least two key lessons emerge from this long-term perspective on the evolution of ethnic identity. One is the understanding that ethnic groups persist by evolving, and do so when and where ethnicity is flexible, adaptable, and useful. The second lesson is the important role of written histories and historical memory in influencing the continued evolution of ethnicity. Ethnicities must be understood as developing categories, historically situated, and continually informed by interpretations of the past. vii INTRODUCTION A foreign man arrived in Hudsonville, Michigan, in 1949 and found his way to the rural home of his American cousin. He knocked on the front door and it opened halfway as a Mrs. Plumert stuck her head out to view her afternoon visitor. When the man said that he was family from Holland and had come to say hello, the door closed a few centimeters. Mrs. Plumert had no family in Holland, Michigan, a city just a few miles away, so she took the visitor to be a liar. But the man responded hastily that he had come from “the Netherlands”, from the same place that her husband had left twenty-three years before, and the door opened wide. “I thought you were a vacuum cleaner-salesman!" apologized Mrs. Plumert, "one of them who travels around with their vacuums and tries by any means to come inside and give a demonstration. I didn't believe you at first. I'm so sorry!'"1 Having learned the visitor's true identity, Mrs. Plumert invited him inside. That evening and the next day, the visitor and his host family regaled one another with stories about the old days in the old country. The encounter at the doorway provides just one illustration of the divergence between the Dutch and the Dutch Americans. For many Dutch Americans like Mrs. Plumert, the city of Holland, Michigan, featured more prominently on the mental landscape than the country known as Holland, or the Netherlands. Mrs. Plumert, whose original surname was Brouwer, was not an immigrant, but she was a Dutch American. Like many in West Michigan, Mr. and Mrs. Plumert had not forgotten their connections to the Netherlands, even though they had had developed identities that were distinct from their Dutch origins. This work is at once a study of ethnic change among Dutch Americans and a contribution to the study of ethnic identity in America more broadly. It seeks to explain how Dutch American identities formed and evolved and why references to the Netherlands played an enduring role in how Americans of Dutch descent identified themselves.