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Freedom on the Horizon: Dutch Immigration to America, 1840-1940. By Hans Krabbendam. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009. xxvi, 404 pp. Paper, $32.00, isbn 978-0-8028-6545-8.)
This excellent overview of Dutch immigration to America from 1840 to 1940 is a reminder that there were two distinct waves of Dutch American immigration: the colonial settlement of New Netherland and nineteenthcentury Dutch immigration, primarily to the Midwest. For the most part, the two groups have remained separate, as evidenced by the decision of the Holland Society, founded in 1885 in New York City, to restrict its membership to men who could trace their ancestry in America prior to 1675.
In this English translation of his previously published book the Dutch historian Hans Krabbendam is primarily concerned with why rhe nineteenth-century Dutch immigrants were able to maintain...