Notes ABBREVIATIONS USED IN NOTES AMBZ Archief Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken COL Columbia University, Butler Library COR Cornell University, Carl A. Kroch Library, Rare and Manuscript Collections EBvL Eliza Bowditch van Loon EBvLP Eliza Bowditch van Loon Papers ER Eleanor Roosevelt ERP Eleanor Roosevelt Papers FBI U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation FDR Franklin Delano Roosevelt FDRL Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum GAR Gemeentearchief Rotterdam GWvL Gerard Willem van Loon HAL Holland-America Line HHPL Herber Hoover Presidential Library HU Harvard University, Houghton Library HWvL Hendrik Willem van Loon HWvLP Hendrik Willem van Loon Papers KHA Koninklijk Huisarchief, Archief Prinses Juliana LC Library of Congress, Manuscript Division NA Nationaal Archief, Tweede Afdeling NIOD Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie NLMD Nederlands Letterkundig Museum en Documentatiecentrum NYPL New York Public Library, Manuscripts and Archives Division PPF President’s Personal File, Franklin D. Roosevelt Papers PSF President’s Secretary’s File, Franklin D. Roosevelt Papers SHSW State Historical Society of Wisconsin Story GWvL, The Story of Hendrik Willem van Loon (Philadelphia and New York: Lippincott Company, 1972) SUL Syracuse University Library, Department of Special Collections UIL University of Iowa Libraries, Special Collections Department UP University of Pennsylvania, Van Pelt Library, Special Collections Department ZA Zeeuws Archief 270 Notes Prologue 1. “Van Loon Buried in Old Greenwich,” New York Times, 15 March 1944; “Van Loon Rites Conducted in Old Greenwich,” New York Herald Tribune, 15 March 1944; “Van Loon Rites Attended By La Guardia, Dutch Envoy,” Greenwich Time, 15 March 1944; Unitarian Church of All Souls Archives, Rev. Laurance I. Neale Collection, HWvL Files, Text spoken by Rev. Laurance I. Neale at funeral service for HWvL in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, 14 March 1944; COR, HWvLP, box 3, folder 23, unidentified person to Rene Scudamore, 14 March 1944, and Jimmie to Rene Scudamore, 23 March 1944; GWvL, Story, 374–375; Author’s interview with Henry B. van Loon, 8 January 1994; F. Fraser Bond, “Hendrik and the Gate of Heaven,” Saturday Review of Literature 29 (15 June 1946): 22–23. 2. New York Times, 12 and 13 March 1944; New York Herald Tribune, 12 March 1944. 3. L.A. Ries, “Hendrik-Willem van Loon. An Appreciation of the Man,” Netherlands News Digest 3.1 (15 March 1944): 1–3. 4. J. Greshoff, “Hendrik Willem van Loon,” Knickerbocker Weekly, 20 March 1944: 38; Adriaan J. Barnouw, Monthly Letters on the Culture and History of the Netherlands (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1969), 240–244. 5. Grant Richards, “Mr. H.W. van Loon. An Appreciation,” The Times, 14 March 1944; FDRL, PPF 2259, Folder HWvL 1940–1944, FDR to Mrs. HWvL, 11 March 1944. 1 A Troubled Youth in Holland (1882–1902) 1. HWvL, Report to Saint Peter (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1947), 190. 2. HWvL, Report to Saint Peter, 21, 94; GWvL, Story, 6. 3. GWvL, Story, 7; HWvL, Report to Saint Peter, 40–41. 4. HWvL, Report to Saint Peter, 46–47. 5. GWvL, Story, 7; HWvL, My School Books (Wilmington, Delaware: E.I. DuPont De Nemours and Company, 1939), 13, 16; HWvL, Report to Saint Peter, 106–109. 6. HWvL, Report to Saint Peter, 28–29; HWvL, The Story of Mankind (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1921), 450. 7. HWvL, Report to Saint Peter, 61–69. 8. HWvL, Report to Saint Peter, 202–205, 214. 9. HWvL, Report to Saint Peter, 208. 10. Clifton Fadiman, ed., I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Certain Eminent Men and Women of Our Time (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1939), 308–309; HWvL, Report to Saint Peter, 189, 194, 196, 200, 202. 11. COR, HWvLP, box 65, folder 61–73, HWvL to unidentified person, 3 March 1939. 12. HWvL, Report to Saint Peter, 42–43, 105–106. 13. GWvL, Story, 12–13. 14. HWvL, Report to Saint Peter, 22. Notes 271 15. GWvL, Story, 13–15; HWvL, Van Loon’s Lives (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1942), 5, 21–22; The Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, With a Short Life of the Author by Hendrik Willem van Loon of Rotterdam Who Also Illustrated the Book. Published for the Classics Club (Roslyn, New York: Walter J. Black, 1942), 21. 16. COR, HWvLP, box 4, folders 1 and 2, mostly undated letters from HW’s mother to HW; HWvL, Report to Saint Peter, 212–213; The Praise of Folly, 22. 17. GWvL, Story, 16–17. 18. GWvL, Story, 17–18; HWvL, Report to Saint Peter, 15. 19. GWvL, Story, 18–19; COR, HWvLP, box 19, folder 21, obituary notice Elisabeth Johanna Hanken, 2 May 1900. 20. GWvL, Story, 20; COR, HWvLP, box 10, folder 5, George L. Burr to Sarah Parker Hanken, 27 January 1902. 21. COR, HWvLP, box 10, folder 5, HWvL to George L. Burr, 27 March 1902. 22. GWvL, Story, 21–22, 24; GAR, HAL Passenger Lists 1900–1940, departure S.S. Potsdam, 24 July 1902; Photo in COR, HWvLP, box 58, folder 3, N4551. 2 Cornell–Harvard–Cornell (1902–1905) 1. HWvL, “I Knew a Saint,” Omnibook Magazine 1.10 (September 1939): 1; James Bryce, The American Commonwealth, 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan Company, 1888). Two decades later, in his “H.v.L.” column in the Baltimore Sun, van Loon wrote that although most foreigners who came to the United States to study the country were advised to read Bryce’s American Commonwealth, he thought that these two volumes were “rather difficult to read.” Though Bryce’s book explained the political system, according to van Loon it was “not so good [at trying] to explain just what sort of people the fertile soil of this great continent produced during a century of pioneering and fighting and working and suffering, when the foundations of our modern state were being laid.” “H.v.L.” Sun column, 11 July 1922. 2. HWvL, “I Knew a Saint,” 1–2. 3. HWvL, “Impressions of Cornell,” in Raymond F. Howes, ed., Our Cornell (Ithaca, NY: The Cayuga Press, 1939), 2–4. 4. COR, HWvLP, box 1, folder 1, HWvL to Esther Bell-Robinson, 20 August 1902. 5. Photo in COR, HWvLP, box 58, folder 22, N4548, and in box 53, photograph album. 6. COR, HWvLP, box 1, folder 1, HWvL to Esther Bell-Robinson, 29 September 1902. 7. Charles L. Williams, retired U.S. Army major, to the mayor of Greenwich, Connecticut (probably 14 March 1944). The letter was published in the Greenwich Time, 16 March 1944, 3. 8. GWvL, Story, 25. 272 Notes 9. COR, HWvLP, box 65, folder 61–73, HWvL to George L. Burr, 9 August 1903; ibid., box 8, folder 7, HWvL to Mr. L. Cooper, 28 September 1903. 10. COR, HWvLP, box 65, folder 61–73, HWvL to George L. Burr, 29 September and 27 November 1903; ibid., box 10, folder 5, HWvL to George L. Burr, 3 March 1904. 11. COR, HWvLP, box 10, folder 5, HWvL to George L. Burr, 7 May and 8 June 1904. 12. GAR, HAL Passenger Lists 1900–1940, departure S.S. Potsdam, 17 September 1904; GWvL, Story, 27–33. 13. GWvL, Story, 33–35. 14. COR, HWvLP, box 10, folder 5, HWvL to George L. Burr, 26 October 1904. 15. HWvL, “Impressions of Cornell” in Howes, Our Cornell, 9–10. 16. GWvL, Story, 35; COR, HWvLP, box 2, folder 9, HWvL’s résumé enclosed to his 24 April 1914 letter to Professor Goodnight of the University of Wisconsin at Madison. 17. COR, HWvLP, box 65, folder 61–73, HWvL to George L. Burr, 17 July 1903; ibid., box 1, folder 1, Franklin Matthews to Charles H. Hull, 18 December 1904. 18. COR, HWvLP, box 17, folder 10, HWvL to Andrew D. White, 31 December 1904; ibid., box 56 contains HWvL’s “certificate of graduation,” which states that HWvL “was in residence at Cornell University from September 1902 to June 1905 [not mentioning the year at Harvard] and received the AB on June 22, 1905”; GWvL, Story, 36. 3 Associated Press Journalist in Russia and Poland (1905–1907) 1. COR, HWvLP, box 2, folder 9, HWvL’s résumé enclosed to his 24 April 1914 letter to Professor Goodnight of the University of Wisconsin at Madison. 2. COR, HWvLP, box 10, folder 6, HWvL to George L. Burr, 3 July 1905. 3. COR, HWvLP, box 10, folder 6, Henry P. Bowditch to George L. Burr, 6 July 1905 and George L. Burr to Henry P. Bowditch, 8 and 10 July 1905. 4. COR, HWvLP, box 10, folder 6, HWvL to George L. Burr, 21 September and 25 October 1905. 5. COR, HWvLP, box 17, folder 10, HWvL to Andrew D. White, 29 September 1905; ibid., box 10, folder 6, HWvL to George L. Burr, 25 October 1905. A decade later, HWvL wrote that during his Washington days as Associated Press journalist he did “everything: State Department, Army, Navy, Congress, dog shows, Chinese viceroys, White House.” In retrospect he considered it “rather flat work.” Ibid., box 2, folder 9, HWvL’s résumé enclosed to his 24 April 1914 letter to Professor Goodnight of the University of Wisconsin. 6. COR, HWvLP, box 10, folder 6, HWvL to George L. Burr, 21 November 1905, and Henry P. Bowditch to George L. Burr, 8 December 1905; ibid., box 66, folder 10, Hermann Hagedorn to GWvL, 26 October 1960. Notes 273 7. COR, HWvLP, box 4, folder 6, HWvL to Fanny Bowditch, 28 November 1905; ibid., box 10, folder 6, HWvL to George L. Burr, 15 December 1905. 8. GWvL, Story, 39–40; HWvL asked Professor Burr to attend the wedding ceremony and “to give me such support as I will badly need.” COR, HWvLP, box 10, folder 6, HWvL to George L.