August 1st, 2009
LITERATURE
Janwillem van de Wetering – Renowned for detective fiction; his most popular writing was Grijpstra and de Gier
Edward W. Bok – Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiographer and magazine editor credited with coining the term “living room.”
Herman Melville – American novelist who created masterpieces of American and world literature, such as Moby-Dick and Billy Budd.
John Updike – American novelist, poet, literary critic. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Dutch Ancestry
Posted in Culture | No Comments »
August 1st, 2009
- American Presidents of Dutch ancestry:
- Martin Van Buren – 8th President; key organizer of the Democratic Party; first president not of English, Irish, or Scottish descent. He also was the only president not to have spoken English as his first language – rather grew up speaking Dutch.
- Theodore Roosevelt – 26th President; was a Progressive reformer with a “cowboy” persona.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt – 32nd President; elected to four terms, the only president to be elected more than twice; ranked as one of the three greatest U.S. presidents. He was raised and lived in the Hudson Valley (Dutchess County). Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Dutch Ancestry, Politics
Posted in Politics | No Comments »
August 1st, 2009
The Dutch – from one of the smallest countries in Europe – established a trading empire, New Netherland, in the Hudson Valley, a series of trading posts, towns, and forts up and down the Hudson River.
- New Netherland (Hudson Valley) produced immense wealth for the Dutch and other nations began to envy the riches flowing out of the Hudson River Valley.
- Netherlands/Dutch are the 4th largest investors in the United States.
- Cornelius Vanderbilt – American entrepreneur who built wealth in shipping and railroads and known as “The Commodore.”
- Jacob Westervelt, renowned and prolific shipbuilder and Mayor of New York (1853)
- Thomas Edison – businessman and inventor of devices that influenced the world – phonograph, electricity, light bulbs, principles of mass production, and the first industrial research lab – with over 1093 U.S. patents.
Tags: Dutch Ancestry, Hudson Valley
Posted in Commerce | No Comments »
August 1st, 2009
- The first settlers shared a history of friendship and cooperation encouraged by the Dutch love of liberty, democracy, and tolerance. Dutch practicality, inclusiveness, and entrepreneurial qualities were essential characteristics to New Netherland – and are part of the founding DNA of America.
- The Dutch were socially progressive, enterprising with a on commerce as the source of the common good.
- The Dutch tradition of tolerance became a hallmark of conduct in its new world colonies.
- Dutch-inspired values like freedom of the press, religious tolerance, and public education seeped into
- Pioneers from Amsterdam planted the seeds of democracy, a zeal for freedom, entrepreneurial spirit, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and the principle of tolerance.
Tags: Culture
Posted in Culture | No Comments »
August 1st, 2009
The earliest houses were simple one-story, single-room permanent dwellings.In rural areas, the design of houses depended primarily on available building materials. Where stone was abundant, houses were built with thick stone walls; where suitable clay was available, houses were built of brick, usually laid in a Flemish bond pattern; where timber was plentiful, the houses were of wood construction with siding of wide weatherboarding.
Common characteristics included: a roof covering of wood shingles or tiles; steeply pitched gables with parapets; Dutch gambrel roofs with flared eaves having a considerable overhang; straight-line gables; a chimney located in a thick exterior wall at a gable end or gambrel end of the house; casement windows with small panes and battened shutters; a Dutch door; heavy plank floors, bake ovens.
Tags: Architecture
Posted in Architecture, Uncategorized | No Comments »
August 1st, 2009
Early Dutch architectural details rest on construction and building techniques that are still expressed and visible in the Hudson Valley and beyond:
- Some of the oldest buildings and sites in the United States are located in Ulster County and the Hudson Valley: Original New York State Senate House; oldest Dutch Reform Church; Historic Stockade District.
- The streets in the City of Kingston (Ulster County NY), formerly called Wiltwyck, remain laid out just as they were by the Dutch.
- Although the wooden houses of the original colonists are long gone, the second generation of homes—which were made from stone—still survive. Today twenty-one still stand within the original layout of the Stockade Historic District, of which many are listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
- The original Dutch home design began as a single room with a loft and then gradually expanded. The simple limestone and mortar materials that were hauled directly from the fields outside of the Stockade are still visible.
- Agricultural land was called the “polder.” As a result of a this type of planting pattern, the streets of Manhattan (among others) are divided into plots similar in size and ordered along numbered streets similar to the Dutch polder. This street pattern was called the Beemster.
Tags: Architecture, Kingston, Ulster County
Posted in Architecture | No Comments »
