Holland Mania [Hardcover]

Annette Stott (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1998

Holland Mania is an extraordinary book about a curious era in which a significant portion of the American sensibility celebrated all things Dutch. This Dutch sensibility - in contrast to earlier and prevailing notions of British traditions in America - was, for a time, almost maniacally taken up. For forty years between 1880 and 1920, this remarkable period in American cultural history took place. In 1903, an editorial in Ladies' Home Journal announced to millions of American readers that Holland, not England, was the Motherland of the United States. Citing evidence of colonial Dutch influence in American politics, cultural institutions, social customs, and even language, the editorial concluded that all truly American characteristics and ideals originated in the Netherlands! It came at the height of a craze for Holland that affected Americans from nearly every geographic region of the United States.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

After reading Stott's earnest, engaging study of the Dutch influence on American art, architecture and culture between 1880 and 1920, one's doubt lingers as to whether Americans' penchant for things Dutch was a "Holland Mania," as she calls it, or just a cultural footnote. She traces the beginning of the phenomenon to Gilded Age barons who collected Dutch old masters. Propelled by the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt (who was of Dutch descent), the availability of inexpensive reproductions of the Dutch masters and the writings of revisionist historians, many Americans, she notes, embraced Holland as an alternative to the nation's British heritage, seeing it as a fountainhead of democracy, liberty, Protestantism and such institutions as free public education, religious freedom and a written Constitution. Stott, an art historian at the University of Denver, documents the Dutch craze through popular stereotypical images of windmills, dikes and honest people wearing wooden shoes. Americans enamored of Holland built colonial Dutch-style houses, wore Dutch caps, held Dutch costume parties and consumed products ranging from Dutch Masters cigars to Old Dutch Cleanser. In 1903, Edward Bok, the Dutch-born editor of the Ladies' Home Journal, proclaimed that the interest in things Dutch was not a passing fad but "something more intelligent and permanent." Not quite: as Stott shows, the Dutch pastoral could not survive the political realities of WWI. 150 pictures, 46 in color.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The trappings of Dutch kitsch?windmills, wooden shoes, delft tiles, costumed Dutch twins, Dutch Masters cigars, even Dutch Boy paints and Dutch-inspired hygienic products?are at the center of this wide-ranging interdisciplinary survey of Dutch motifs and influences on American art and life between 1880 and 1920. Scott does not fully prove all her hypotheses?that the revival was fueled by interest in the old Dutch masters art market and that it extended significantly beyond East Coast Dutch settlements to non-Dutch localities, for instance. Still, the book is a veritable tour-de-force in identifying Dutch American influences in the visual arts, architecture, ornamentation, interior decoration, and advertising. Chapters on American artists in Holland and Nederlandish imagery are noteworthy, along with a comprehensive bibliography and an appendix of American artists' activities in Holland from Dutch archives. A ground-breaking study worthy of consideration for American history, culture, and ethnicity research collections.?Russell T. Clement, Univ. of Tennessee Lib., Knoxville
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 310 pages
• Publisher: Overlook Hardcover; 1st edition (November 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879519061
• ISBN-13: 978-0879519063
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,877,564 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Forgotten Period Brought to Light, January 18, 2000

By 

Michael H. Charles - See all my reviews

This review is from: Holland Mania (Hardcover)

Ms. Stott has made a valuable contribution to American History with this book. The early Dutch period in America has been overshadowed by the English for so many years that many do not realize the impact on American Culture. Bravo!