Scholars exploring the Library's rich collection of Dutch Americana will welcome the new LC publication New Netherland, 1609-1664: A Selective Bibliography by Margrit B. Krewson, German/Dutch area specialist in the European Division.
The bibliography cites essential reference works as well as more obscure titles likely to escape the notice of researchers investigating the political, economic, social and military history of the Dutch in North America.
At the heart of the Library's Dutch American holdings is a wide range of works concerning the 17th century colony of New Netherland, which at its zenith stretched from the Connecticut River to the Delaware Bay and was home to some 20,000 settlers. Although the Dutch surrendered the colony to the British in 1664, their contribution to American culture has endured.
The Dutch colonists enriched American English with such everyday terms as cookie, waffle, sleigh, landscape and furlough, and Dutch place names cover the maps of New York state and New Jersey. Descendants of the Dutch colony include many prominent families who have played a major role in politics and commerce and have been patrons of the arts. Three U.S. presidents, for example, trace their roots to New Netherland. Dutch Americans established Rutgers College, the New Brunswick Seminary and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (one of the first institutions in the English-speaking world to grant degrees in science and engineering).
The bibliography presents almost 400 entries arranged alphabetically within thematic sections. The works were chosen from more than 10,000 titles in the Library's general collections and the special collections of the Rare Book and Special Collections, Geography and Map, Prints and Photographs and Manuscript divisions.
Citing works such as Van Clear Bachman's Peltries or Plantations: The Economic Policies of the Dutch West India Company in New Netherland, 1623-1639 and the seven-volume ecclesiastical records of the Dutch Reformed Church in New York, the bibliography will appeal to historians and genealogists in particular. Nonspecialists, too, will be attracted by such tantalizing titles as The Friendly Relations of the Indians and Early Dutch Settlers of the Upper Hudson by Edward Johnson and Henri A. van der Zee's A Sweet and Alien Land: The Story of Dutch New York.
New Netherland, 1609-1664: A Selective Biography is available upon request from the Library of Congress, European Division, Washington, DC 20540-5530 or by calling (202) 707-5414.
