Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis - Volume 134, Issue 4, 2021

Duster and Sabre. Civilian Armament, Revolution, and Terror during the Patriot Revolt in Holland, 1786-7

Historians have interpreted the armament of Dutch citizens during the Dutch Patriot Revolt of the 1780s either as a revival of traditional urban militias, or as an essentially symbolic action echoing the classical-republican ideal of the active citizen. This article argues that these interpretations have overlooked the fact that the patriots innovated traditional forms of armament by setting up National or Provincial Assemblies of Civilian Corps (Vergadering van Burgercorpsen), and that popular armament was essential in order for the patriot movement to become an organized political force of national importance. In the summer of 1787 patriots in Holland deployed the so-called Flying Army to enforce the revolution on a local level, crush opposition, and instill fear and terror into their enemies.

Orangists vs. Orange. The Struggle for the Orangist Restoration, 1787-8

In the year following the Orangist victory over the Patriots in September 1787 the stadholder faced surprisingly strong opposition not from former Patriots but from his own supporters. This article investigates why this was the case, arguing that after the Patriot defeat the Orangist camp was divided over questions of retribution and reconciliation. By following the Orangist civic movement from its inception in early 1787 to its repression by the restored regime over the course of 1788, this article shows that a new interpretation of Orangist burghers’ motivations is needed in order properly to understand this little-known episode in Dutch revolutionary history. To do so, it builds on various types of sources written by these burghers themselves, including petitions, letters, and commemorative works. It also explores the relevance of this particular case to broader questions of transitional justice in societies divided by civil conflict.

‘A rational consideration on the organism of society’. Sam van Houten’s Child Labour Act as an Economic Idea and Political Debate on Social Questions

The fight against child labour in the Netherlands, resulting in Van Houtens Child Labor Act in 1874, continues to appeal to the imagination. In the cultural canon of the Netherlands it is one of the fifty key historical facts. This paper shows that the Child Labour Act was not entirely the result of moral aversion to child labour. The original legislation as drafted by Van Houten was driven in the first place by new theories in economics. After comparing the debate on child labour with the debate on prostitution, this papers critically discusses the historiography on government policy, the social question, and political debate in the late nineteenth century.

Harm Smeenge’s proximity politics, 1886-1935. Local representation in Dutch national politics

Local political ties and direct interactions between representatives and represented have long been, and often still are, portrayed in the Netherlands as characteristics of an archaic politics of notability. In this article the concept of ‘proximity politics’ is introduced in order to reconsider this type of representative relations. The politics and underlying beliefs of liberal representative Harm Smeenge are interpreted as an example of local proximity politics. Newspaper articles, the Proceedings of the States General, political pamphlets, and letters are analyzed to show how this style of political representation was put into practice in Dutch politics around 1900. This article shows how local proximity politics could be conducted within the traditional liberal frameworks of political representation, in which the importance of distance is usually stressed. It explores the question of how common this style of political representation was, with regard also to other political-ideological traditions and on the municipal level: can we we discern a tradition of local proximity politics? And how would such a tradition have been affected by the abolishment of the majoritarian system of electoral districts, and the introduction of proportional representation in 1918?

An increasingly emotional society? An historical assessment of emotionality in Dutch politics and media, 1945-89

A historiographical consensus seems to exist regarding the development of an ‘emotion culture’ in the Netherlands in the second half of the twentieth century. This process of emotionalisation involves an increase in the public expression and manifestation of emotions from the 1970s onwards. This period is often contrasted with the immediate post-war years. This article asks whether Dutch society has indeed become more emotional in the public sphere. Using computational text analysis and four different digitized historical datasets, the manifestation of emotions in historical language is systematically and diachronically investigated. The assumption that emotionality is reflected in an increase in the use of emotional words is fundamental to our approach. This study did not find empirical evidence for the existence of a period of silence and concealment of emotions, nor for a strong increase in emotional manifestations from the 1970s onwards. On the contrary we conclude that the period 1945-89 experienced stability and continuity in the public manifestation of emotions.