Travel writing and tourism

By the end of the nineteenth century Americans realized their European roots and objected to the predominantly English interpretation of American history and identity.

Around 1900 a revisionist trend in the historical writing in America emphasized the Dutchness in American culture. In 1903 the Ladies' Home Journal praised Holland as the source of America's political and cultural roots. The vital institutions of the country were based on a Dutch heritage: free public education, religious freedom, freedom of press and the secret ballot.

These values had been brought to America by the Pilgrim Fathers, the Puritan dissenters who had left England during the reign of king James I and had settled in Holland for 12 years, before leaving for America. Revisionist historians considered this stay in the Netherlands as vital for their moral values of the Pilgrims.

The basic source of Dutch history was John Lothrop Motley's popular books The Rise of the Dutch Republic (1855) and History of the United Netherlands (1867). In these works Motley created a heroic image of the Dutch people, who succeeded to free themselves from the evil Spaniards. He saw the love of liberty and the principle of self-government as most distinctive and prevailing characteristics of the emerging Dutch nation in the seventeenth century.

In his view there was a straight line between this political and moral constellation of the Dutch Republic and the American society of his time.

The Holland-centric idea was most sharply profiled by Douglas Campbell's in his two-volume treatise The Puritan in Holland, England and America: An Introduction to American History (1898). Campbell was a lawyer with strong historical interests and a suggestive style of writing (his book was a real bestseller ― although less positively received in the academic circles).

He concluded that most American institutions and values had come from the Netherlands, either directly through Dutch settlers, or indirectly through Holland's cultural influence on England.

For example, the American Declaration of Independence would have been grafted upon the Dutch Declaration of Independence (Act of Abjuration), made in the revolt against Spanish domination.

Travel books with historical flashbacks

Travel books suggested a historical tour through the Netherlands and memorized historical facts worth knowing for important cities travelled through. A good example is William Griffis's The American in Holland, in which he recounts an historical anecdote in each place. Everywhere he saw parallels and connections with American history.

At the same time the notion spread, that the ideas and spirit of the seventeenth century Dutch Republic were essentially modern, and similar to the mentality of contemporary America.

American travel literature emphasized Dutch fine art. The prevalent notion was that Holland was old-fashioned and unchanging and visitors thought to recognize the landscape and atmosphere of the paintings by seventeenth century masters. Visiting the Netherlands was experienced as a form of time travel.

In 1880 and 1881 George Henry Boughton and Edwin Austin Abbey made sketches in the Netherlands. Their work was published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine and used to demonstrate the authenticity of Dutch roots of the contemporary American culture.

Some women went to Holland for academic education. Female artists worked in Netherlands with more experienced compatriots, like Emma Lampert Cooper and Wilhelmina Hawley, who also painted typical Dutch country scenes and people in traditional costumes. The American painter George Hitchcock attracted notice in the Paris Salon of 1885 with his work of Dutch tulip garden. For years he had a studio near Egmond aan Zee, Netherlands, where he started his art summer school that later resulted in a group that informally became the Egmondse School.

One of the most successful artists, who used contemporary Holland as source for the visualization of historic America was Walter MacEwen. He was strongly inspired by Johan Vermeer and borrowed many motifs in his work from this painter.

In 1884 a colleague, Charles Frederich Ulrich, painted the printing shop of Joh. Enschedé at Haarlem. This painting carried an underlying reference to the invention of movable type claimed by the Dutch. At the same time, it was related to the freedom of the press. Technological innovation, intellectual freedom and tolerance were important values ascribed to the America's Dutch heritage.

Another frequently praised virtue of the Dutch people was their courage in the continuous fight against water, demonstrated in extensive land reclamation and a reliable system of dykes. Elizabeth Nourse created a pictorial representation of this notion in her painting On the dyke at Volendam. This work exudes the stability and solidity that American visitors ascribed to the Dutch national character.

In the second half of the nineteenth century ships became safer and faster, which stimulated transoceanic travel. In 1880s American tourist travel to Holland became significant, also aided by the foundation of the Holland America Line in 1893 (originally named 'Nederlandsche-Amerikaansche Stoomvaart Maatschappij'). During the first 25 years the company carried 400,000 people over the ocean.

By the 1890s American publishers began producing their own books about Holland. These reflected the positive Romantic view of the Holland Mania. Writers were full of praise for the beauty of the Dutch landscape, which induced a spirit of quiet restfulness, as one of them, William Griffis, noted. The title of his Brave Little Holland and What She Taught Us (1894), is characteristic of this positive attitude.

Others appreciated the "kind and peaceable disposition" of the Dutch people, their "high principle of honor and morality" (Charles Taylor, 1900) and the industrious, persevering nature (Louise Robinson), observations that are in stark contrast with those by some British travelogue authors, who discovered sloth and laziness in the Dutch working class.

Visitors were advised to go to smaller places to get the authentic character of the Netherlands, which was missing in big cities like Rotterdam, Amsterdam and the Hague. In the rural districts one would find the windmills and people wearing wooden shoes and sleeping "in a bed inside a cupboard" (i.e. an enclosed bed). Canal boats were the best means of transport to escape from the busy urban life, in search of locals wearing old costumes and the typical air of the seventeenth century. Touring through the countryside by bike was also recommended for the same reason.

Many tourists went to Delft, Edam, Veere, Marken, Volendam and Zaandam, and ― last but not least ― Broek in Waterland (in contemporary sources shortly 'Broek'). Broek had the reputation of the cleanest village and had already been a tourist attraction for decades. Tourist agencies organized day trips to Volendam and Marken. In Marken widow Marretje Thijssen Teerhuis opened her home as a show place to visitors willing to pay a fee.

The influx of tourists, Americans in particular, stimulated the growth of small scale local tourist activities, which also had its downside. Children started begging and bothering visitors, which some people could handle better than others.

Moreover, about 1910 the anachronistic image of the Netherlands began to annoy many Dutch people, who did not want their country to be advertised any longer as a living museum, disregarding the innovation, railways and modern industry, which had made their appearance by that time.