Transforming the Public Sphere: The Dutch National Exhibition of Women’s Labor in 1898 9780822385547

Citation preview

TRANSFORMING

THE PUBLIC SPHERE

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TRANSFORMING THE PUBLIC SPHERE the dutch national exhibition of women’s labor in 1898 n

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maria grever and berteke waaldijk Translated by Mischa F. C. Hoyinck and Robert E. Chesal

duke university press Durham and London 2004

© 2004 Duke University Press All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper  Designed by Amy Ruth Buchanan. Typeset in Scala by Tseng Information Systems, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book. First published in the original Dutch as Feministische openbaarheid. De Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid in 1898, in 1998 by Stichting beheer iisg/iiav, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The Dutch text was revised and updated before translation.

The English translation from the Dutch original as well as the illustration inserts were supported by a grant from the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds. This translation was supported by a grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (Nederlands voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek; nwo). In addition, the Vereniging Trustfonds and Faculty of History and Arts, Erasmus University Rotterdam, and the Research Institute for History and Culture provided support for promotion and distribution of this book.

CONTENTS ■

Acknowledgments, vii Abbreviations, xi Introduction, 1 1. Feminists and the Public Sphere, 9 2. An Illustrated Women’s Conference, 25 3. A Panorama in the Dunes, 67 4. The Exhibition Experience, 111 5. Colonialism on Display, 135 6. Exhibition in Print and Visual Impressions, 171 7. Creating a Counterpublic, 193 8. After the Summer, 215 Notes, 225 List of References, 271 Index, 297 Illustrations fall after pages 116 and 148

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS n

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This study of the Dutch National Exhibition of Women’s Labor would not have been possible without the documents so wisely collected and saved by the exhibition organizers. Nearly all of these documents are now carefully stored at the International Information Center and Archives of the Women’s Movement (Internationaal Informatiecentrum en Archief voor de Vrouwenbeweging; iiav) in Amsterdam. Historians in the Netherlands should consider themselves lucky to have access to such a professional institution housing archival materials about national and international women’s organizations, an institution that also constitutes a veritable treasure trove of biographical information about feminists and other women. The iiav supported us in every possible way, granting us unlimited use of its pictorial archives. We are particularly grateful to Joke Blom, Yolande Hentenaar, Lizzy Jongma, Annemarie Kloosterman, Heleen Massee, Annette Mevis, and Susanne Neugebauer. The iiav’s Web site (www.iiav.nl) offers a virtual tour of the 1898 exhibition. We are indebted to the following archives and libraries for their assistance: The Hague Municipal Archives (Kees Stal), Enschede Municipal Archives (A. M. Roding), and the municipal archives in Amsterdam, Den Bosch, Den Helder, Groningen, Kampen, Leeuwarden, Leiden, Nijmegen, Nunspeet, and Oldenzaal. We would also like to thank the staff at The Hague Municipal Museum (Haags Gemeente Museum), the International Institute of Social History (Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis), the Archives of the Dutch Royal House (Koninklijk Huisarchief ) in The Hague, the Royal Tropical Institute (Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen) in Amsterdam, the Royal Institute of Linguistics and Anthropology (Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde) in Leiden,

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acknowledgments

the Boymans van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam, the State Documentation Center for Art History (Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie) in The Hague, and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Many people also allowed us to use their private collections: J. R. Bienfait in Eindhoven, Cees Goekoop in Amsterdam, N. M. Hugenholtz in Glimmen, J. H. H. van Roosmalen in Tilburg, Henk Tattersall in Enschede, C. M. van der Broek in Bennebroek, and O. Vermeulen in Laren. Many colleagues generously supplied us with their own research findings and advice: Marga Altena, Liesbeth Bervoets, Mary Blanchard, Marieke Bloembergen, Mineke Bosch, Anje Boswijk, Rahany Gramberg, Cora Hollema, Frida de Jong, Jeroen Kapelle, Eva Lous, Ingeborg Nödinger, Jannie Poelstra, Harry Poeze, Monica Soeting, Dineke Stam, Inge Stemmler, Twie Tjoa, and Elisabeth Wohofsky. At various stages of our research, colleagues and friends provided valuable comments on the text and other forms of support. We are very grateful to Saskia de Bodt, Jan Brabers, Marianne Braun, Rosemarie Buikema, Fia Dieteren, Annemarie Kloosterman, Susan Legêne, Elsbeth LocherScholten, Annette Mevis, Karen Offen, Hans Schraven, and Gloria Wekker. The Dutch-language publication was sponsored by the Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment, Directorate of Equal Opportunity; the Prince Bernard Fund (Prins Bernard Cultuurfonds); and Reaal Verzekering NV. This translation was sponsored by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (Nederlands Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek) and the Prince Bernhard Fund. We would like to express appreciation to Hans Blom, the director of the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie, niod), for suggesting that a historical study of the 1898 exhibition be conducted. Marti Huetink from iisg beheer publishers in Amsterdam (now named aksant) was responsible for the beautiful Dutch edition and proved tremendously helpful in preparing the manuscript of this translation. We would not have reached the publication stage without the warm interest and support of Frances Gouda at the University of Amsterdam and Antoinette Burton at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Our editor at Duke University Press, Miriam Angress, brought great enthusiasm to the project. We would like to thank Mischa Hoyinck and Robert Chesal for their painstaking professionalism in translating this book. They showed a great deal of creativity and patience in their continuous effort to understand the arguments we wanted to convey.

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Many colleagues and students provided a daily source of inspiration during our work on this revised edition. These included the Women’s Studies Department and the Department of History at Nijmegen University; the Faculty of History and Arts at Erasmus University, Rotterdam; the Utrecht University’s Women’s Studies Department; the Media and Re/presentation Institute; and the Research Institute for History and Culture. Very special thanks go to Rosi Braidotti (Utrecht University), Willy Jansen (Nijmegen University), and Selma Leydesdorff (University of Amsterdam) of the Dutch Research School of Women’s Studies (Nederlandse Onderzoekschool voor Vrouwenstudies). Cooperation between the various women’s studies departments at Dutch universities has created a public domain in which knowledge by and for women is key. In a sense, this cooperation continues the ideals put forward by the Dutch National Exhibition of Women’s Labor in 1898.

L I S T O F A B B R E V I AT I O N S n

ara/na ahr andb hgm icw iiav

iisg kb kha kun nrc ntv nvr nvvzb

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Algemeen Rijksarchief; recently renamed Nationaal Archief (National Archives) American Historical Review Algemeene Nederlandsche Diamantbewerkers Bond General (Dutch Diamond Cutters Union) Haags Gemeentemuseum (The Hague Municipal Museum) International Council of Women Internationaal Informatiecentrum en Archief voor de Vrouwenbeweging (International Information Center and Archives of the Women’s Movement) Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis (International Institute of Social History) Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Royal Dutch Library) Koninklijk Huisarchief (Archives of the Dutch Royal House) Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen (Nijmegen University) Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant (New Rotterdam Newspaper) Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid (Dutch National Exhibition of Women’s Labor) Nationale Vrouwenraad van Nederland (Dutch National Council of Women) Nederlandsche Vrouwenbond tot Verhooging van het zedelijk Bewustzijn (Dutch Women’s League for the Advancement of Moral Awareness) Rijksarchief (State Provincial Archives) Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (State Documentation Center for Art History)

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list of abbreviations

sdap tdv ub uu vov vvvk vvv

Sociaal-Democratische Arbeiderspartij (Social Democratic Labor Party) Tentoonstelling ‘‘De Vrouw 1813–1913’’ (Exhibition entitled ‘‘Woman 1813–1913’’) Universiteitsbibliotheek (University Library) Universiteit Utrecht (Utrecht University) Vereeniging Onderlinge Vrouwenbescherming (Women’s Mutual Protection League) Vereeniging voor Vrouwenkiesrecht (Dutch Woman’s Suffrage Association) Vrije Vrouwenvereeniging (Free Women’s Association)

INTRODUCTION n

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The Spectacular History of Dutch Feminism antoinette burton

The last half of the nineteenth century was not just ‘‘the age of exhibitions’’; it was the high noon of imperial spectacle as well.1 From London to Paris to Amsterdam to Brussels to Chicago to Adelaide to Calcutta, governments cooperated with entrepreneurs and exhibition organizers to deliver a variety of goods (agricultural, mechanical, industrial, aesthetic, and narrative) to an increasingly sophisticated consuming public, training them at once in national and global ways of seeing and belonging. Exhibitions created both real and imagined spaces in which imperial spectators and colonial ‘‘objects’’ came together in circuits of capitalist production and, of course, asymmetrical power. They were, in other words, one particularly spectacular manifestation of what Mary Louise Pratt has called ‘‘contact zones’’: terrains as material as they were symbolic, through which all manner of historical subjects might glean knowledge about the world and from which new, hybridized cultural forms often emerged. If exhibitions were predominantly metropolitan affairs, offering what Pratt calls a ‘‘promontory’’ perspective on Euro-American empires and their peoples, they were also decidedly multidimensional and interactive.2 They generated new modes of knowing and a variety of unintended consequences, including performances of subaltern agency and resistance by colonial people for consumption by ‘‘native’’ inhabitants of the West.3 To be sure, the triumphal ethnocentrism and orientalism that, together, undergirded the majority of these spectacles, attributed a ‘‘whiggish inevitability’’ to Europe’s diverse—and at times competitive—civilizing missions.4 But as feminist scholars like Annie Coombes have reminded us, the modern exhibition, like the modern museum, was a ‘‘repository for contradictory desires and identities,’’ as well as one means by which a variety of publics were im-

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plicated in ‘‘the narratives of exclusion and belonging’’ produced by wouldbe hegemonic imperialisms, whether high or low, official or popular.5 Despite the veritable explosion of historical work on exhibitionary culture in the last decade, relatively little attention has been paid to the role of women in organizing the transnational spectacles that dominated the culturescapes of imperial modernity—or, for that matter, to the gendered meanings attached to, and entailed by, the dichotomies of production and consumption, respectability and decadence, civilization and savagery, and ‘‘home’’ and ‘‘away,’’ which were among the governing categories mobilized in exhibition venues across the whole of the nineteenth century.6 Maria Grever and Berteke Waaldijk’s Transforming the Public Sphere, published in Dutch in 1998 and translated into English for the first time in this volume, offers an important corrective to this oversight by bringing to our attention the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor, which was staged at The Hague in 1898, drew 1,400 contributors, and attracted 90,000 visitors. Arguing that the exhibition was ‘‘the first large-scale manifestation of modern feminism in the Netherlands,’’ they situate it in the context of emergent (and convergent) Dutch feminist, nationalist, and imperialist ideologies. Through a combination of rich empirical detail and compelling social and cultural analysis, they demonstrate how and why fin de siècle Dutch feminism was embedded in contemporary debates about national/ imperial achievement and status. In this respect, Grever and Waaldijk echo and complicate many of the concerns of Euro-American women’s, gender, and feminist history of the past decade. In the first instance, they insist on Dutch women’s complicity in framing national/imperial discourses for public consumption, thereby challenging the false binary of metropole and colony, which scholars such as Mrinalini Sinha, Catherine Hall, Ann Stoler, and others and have been trying to dismantle as part of a larger antiimperialist historiographic project.7 By demonstrating that Dutch women actively sought to connect consumerism and citizenship through an exhibition directed expressly, though by no means exclusively, toward women, Grever and Waaldijk illustrate linkages between a Habermasian public sphere and those so-called counterpublics created and maintained by a profoundly (if not univocally) bourgeois imperial feminism.8 And last but certainly not least, by foregrounding the controversies over labor management, class difference, and the racialized politics of the exhibition’s organization and execution, the authors of Transforming the Public Sphere write the history of work and of a variety of laboring bodies—from Dutch fac-

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tory girls to carpet weavers—into a historiography of imperial spectacle that has largely failed to come to terms with the conditions of production behind the scenes of the modern exhibitionary impulse.9 The year 1898 constitutes a watershed date in American history because it marks the beginning of a new phase of American imperial-military power.10 It proves equally significant for Dutch national-imperial history: that year saw the passage of a mixed-marriage law for the Dutch East Indies, reflecting anxieties about Dutch national purity and stability characteristic of the turn of the century more generally.11 But if readers expect to find here a reprise of the festival-of-nations approach that characterized much exhibition organization down to the late twentieth century—one that celebrates national exceptionalism or distinctiveness by excavating a particular national narrative—they will be disappointed, and instructively so. From the beginning of their story, Grever and Waaldijk are at pains to show how saturated the project of 1898 in the Netherlands was with international influences, beginning with the walkabout that Cecile Goekoop, one of the chief forces behind the exhibition in The Hague, did at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Like Goekoop, many of the principals involved in the making of the ‘‘National’’ Exhibition of Women’s Labor either had read about other contemporary displays or had themselves visited the international exhibitions in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Though they were keenly aware of the event’s stakes for Dutch politics at both the national and regional levels, they were equally cognizant of the global marketplace of spectacle in which they strove to participate and on which they aspired to leave their distinctive mark. Indeed, their efforts to marshal the best of Dutch culture, as embodied both literally and figuratively in the respectable Dutch working girl (pressed into national and imperial service by well-meaning, if patronizing, bourgeois Dutch women), speak eloquently to the contradictions of ‘‘cosmopolitan domesticity’’ that middle- and upper-class white women across the world tried to articulate as their signature contribution to dominant regimes of global culture and modern civilization.12 This is not to say that there was nothing distinctively Dutch about the exhibition, or that Grever and Waaldijk privilege an international frame of analysis over a national one. Like any number of feminist scholars trying to historicize the grip that imperial geopolitics had on regional and national experiences of self, nation, and empire in the modern period, they are determined to identify the ‘‘specificity of national formation’’ in a complex of international and global contexts.13 No less signifi-

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cantly, their work on the Dutch exhibition underscores the reciprocal influence of the colonies (Indonesia, Surinam, and the Dutch Antilles) on the metropole, as well as the constitutive role that women and gender ideologies played in shaping the ‘‘civilization’’ process of a variety of subjects— with Dutch visitors themselves serving as the primary pedagogical objects of this nationally specific imperial spectacle.14 Those well acquainted with recent research produced under the rubric of ‘‘gender and imperialism’’ will find the story told below familiar, both in terms of the themes Grever and Waaldijk focus on and their historical methodology. Among the former are the competing and overlapping discourses of race and class which nineteenth- and early twentieth-century elite white women used, both intentionally and unintentionally, to display their allegiance as well as their indispensability to the imperial nation; their appropriation of a variety of others as spectacle to shore up their claims to legitimacy and authority as public political subjects; and their anxieties and ambivalences about those spectacles when the bodies subjected to scrutiny acted out, rebelled, and otherwise refused to fulfill the cultural roles and historical destinies assigned them in the several counterpublics achieved through a space like the exhibition hall. Equally recognizable is the combination of attention to space, geographies of culture, and the mapping of social order which have been characteristic of much imperial history, feminist and otherwise, since the late 1980s and 1990s. In Transforming the Public Sphere, readers will find thoughtful analyses of the intersections of national and imperial discourses with those of gender and feminism, as well as a sensitivity to the differences between agency and resistance per se, especially, though not exclusively, where white women are concerned. Such interpretive approaches have become the hallmarks of feminist studies of imperialism, as work in the last decade on subjects as diverse as British feminists, German imperial women, Australian female travelers, and Indian women reformers, to name just a few, has shown.15 While it is true that the highest density of historiographical work on imperial cultures so far has focused on Britain and France, with feminist critics leading the way, scholars have long been at work on the subject of women, gender, and Dutch colonialism—beginning with the 1959– 60 dissertation on Indonesian women by Cora Vreede-de Stuers.16 Far from being derivative, Grever and Waaldijk face the same methodological challenges and impasses bequeathed to us all by imperial systems of knowledge, classification, and archival logic—systems within which and

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against which we try to write narratives that have the capacity to counter the dominant, colonizing accounts of traditional imperial histories. Like many scholars interested in the recovery and historicization of the subaltern, for example, the authors come up against the limits of the exhibitionary archive, as well as of the complementary world of print culture on which they draw to recreate the polyphonic cultural universe surrounding the 1898 exhibition, its supporters, critics, visitors, and employees. The strike over wages, and subsequent walkout, by the Amersfoort young women workers in the middle of the exhibition—followed later by the Javanese mock-village workers—offers a case in point. Though there is much we can read from the extant sources about the contexts of these spectacular labor actions, especially in terms of the embarrassment they posed to the Dutch women organizers already divided politically about the value of exhibiting live women workers for display, we learn more about the limits of the bourgeois imperial humanitarian narrative than we do about the subjectivities of any of the strikers.17 Their historical experiences remain beyond the realm of full recovery and, ultimately, opaque. If such opacity is unavoidable, it remains a representative feature of even the most politically nuanced and engaged feminist scholarship in the context of postcoloniality. And it behooves us to remember that although we as historians are subject to the continued distortions and depredations of the colonial archive, we are also obliged to continue to struggle to imagine new ways of bringing obscure and obscured subjects into history—even as we recognize the dream of total knowledge as one of the legacies of modern Western imperialism to the discipline of history itself.18 Although the stories of the vast majority of colonial peoples brought to The Hague and staged as live exhibits were not audible then or now, the colonized at work were literally everywhere to be seen at the 1898 exhibition. The purpose-built Kampong Insulinde (literally, ‘‘village of the island empire’’) was the ideological heart of the spectacle, featuring batik workers, musicians, and Javanese waiters in its rijsttafel-serving restaurant.19 As Grever and Waaldijk point out, there were rare instances of consensual participation by ‘‘native’’ women: the celebrated Indonesian feminist Raden Adjeng Kartini, for example, supported the exhibition, helping organizers gather handicrafts for display and even raising funds for the event. As European feminists elsewhere did with respect to ‘‘other’’ women subject to colonial rule, however, Dutch feminists would not and likely could not conceive of her as an equal, despite and, of course, be-

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cause of their commitment to bringing ‘‘the woman question’’ into public view through the bodies of colonial females (and males) at work. This refusal relied equally on their determination to see colonized bodies as evidence of primitive time as posited against the relentless modernity of the European present, an expression of what Anne McClintock calls ‘‘anachronistic space,’’ whereby the distance separating metropole and colony is expressed in temporal terms and, typically, through gendered bodies as well.20 Simply by their presence, ‘‘real’’ colonized women like Kartini and Louisa Yda (daughter of an ex-slave woman from Paramaribo who appeared in ‘‘native dress’’ at the exhibition) disrupt the fiction that Dutch feminists could speak, and otherwise dictate terms, for their brown ‘‘sisters’’—for us, if not for their contemporaries. If this is one of the most recognizable scripts in the story of comparative colonialisms, it is also an example of what Stoler calls the many ‘‘intersecting plots’’ of a modern global imperial history that exceeds national boundaries, even as it depends on them for the nuance and the cultural specificity they provide.21 In both the long and short run, the exhibition opened up new spaces in the public sphere for Dutch women which involved participation in debates about women’s education, domestic service, the arts, vocational training, Dutch social/sexual purity, and, of course, the relationship between gender, labor, and the nation. In each case, Dutch feminists’ increased (though still limited) authority on public political matters can be traced back to the forms of colonial knowledge they gathered, represented, and turned into objects of consumption. These practices, which were intended to display their capacity for citizenship, depended on the subordination of working bodies both black and white, as well as on the violences— real and symbolic—on which such subordination was predicated. In the process, Dutch women and, arguably, much of the Dutch reading public had the opportunity to see just how intimately nation and empire, class and race, gender and work were connected on the threshold of the new century. That these relationships were articulated and understood through an orientalist aesthetic both ornamentalizing and monumentalizing, tells us much about how culture was produced in the crucible of imperial modernity, not to mention how central women and gender were to its racialized manifestations. Domesticity, though an important register for normalizing imperial values, was clearly not the only one where Dutch women were concerned. At the very least, domesticity as a material reality and as a discourse was subject to refraction through a variety of lenses, women’s work

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in a colonial context chief among them. Recognizing labor as a crucial category of analysis in histories of imperial culture proves as pressing a project as reconfiguring the field to take account of women and gender, however much it may fragment narratives of empire, whether inherited or new.22 As significantly, the exhibition should not be understood merely as a spectacle of empire, for it was nothing less than an actor in the historical drama of Dutch colonialism and its intersection with Dutch feminism, in all their interdependent complexities. How and why the exhibition acted in the service of many contradictory desires—for nation, for empire, for emancipation, and ultimately for power in the public sphere—is one aspect of the heretofore undocumented story of 1898 that this book begins to tell.

CHAPTER 1 n

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Feminists and the Public Sphere

In 1893, 21 million people visited the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.1 In the White City, they strolled through palatial pavilions that celebrated the Western world’s economic, political, and social progress. They also milled through the Midway Plaisance amusement park to be entertained by a range of sideshows and performances. One of the visitors was a young Dutch woman named Cecile Goekoop-de Jong van Beek en Donk, who was touring Europe and the United States along with her husband. The couple visited the exposition in Chicago during the month of October. In letters to her sister Elisabeth in Amsterdam, Cecile Goekoop enthusiastically exclaimed how impressed she was by the white marble replicas of Greek architecture, reflecting the brilliant autumn sun.2 She could hardly have suspected that five years later, she was to head the organization of a Dutch national exhibition on women’s issues. The National Exhibition of Women’s Labor, held in The Hague in the summer of 1898, was modeled on the same principles as the World’s Columbian Exposition, and as such it fell into the nineteenth-century tradition of national and international exhibitions. Although much smaller in scale, the exhibition in The Hague also, for instance, followed the characteristic division into national and colonial exhibits. Like the larger fairs, The Hague’s exhibition also emphasized industrial progress, featured conferences, and offered sideshows and souvenirs to visiting tourists. This book is about The National Exhibition of Women’s Labor held in 1898. It tells the story of how the women’s movement in a small, Western nation with a large colonial empire used an exhibition to put women’s social position on the political agenda. By choosing the exhibition as their

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forum, Dutch women created a new public sphere. They created, to borrow Nancy Fraser’s term, a counterpublic, in which the parameters of speaking about gender shifted dramatically.3 The exhibition in The Hague constituted a milestone in the development of Dutch feminism. Under the umbrella term women’s labor, new coalitions were formed and new political tools deployed. A small but crucial factor in this process was the link that Dutch women had established with kindred spirits organizing women’s exhibitions abroad. In this study, we interpret these developments in three contexts. First, we examine the exhibition’s role as a feminist intervention in the process of constructing the public sphere and citizenship. Second, we look at the event in The Hague as an important chapter in the history of gender and visual culture. And third, we consider how women shaped and adapted the format of the colonial exhibition. This will shed light on the imperial context in which Western women’s movements, and the Dutch women’s movement in particular, claimed citizenship in the nation-state. WOMEN’S LABOR

The year 1898 proved a special one for the Netherlands, for it was then that Wilhelmina, heiress to the Dutch throne, would turn eighteen.Wilhelmina, the only surviving child of King Willem iii—who had died in 1890— was to ascend to the throne on September 6. Various local and national festivities were organized to coincide with her inauguration. Amsterdam staged a great Rembrandt exhibition, which attracted thousands of visitors. There were pageants recalling the nation’s glorious past, while an exhibition of traditional dress from various regions displayed the uniqueness of Dutch cultural heritage. Not coincidentally, many of the events alluded to the seventeenth century—the period known as the Dutch Golden Age—while they appeared to ignore the recent past. The nineteenth century had seen economic and political stagnation in the Netherlands. In economic terms, the Netherlands lagged behind its more rapidly industrializing neighbors, Belgium, England, and Germany. Toward the end of the century, the agrarian-based Dutch economy suffered from a prolonged agricultural crisis. The Netherlands lacked a strong industrial proletariat—although Dutch farm workers in the North were influenced by anarchism, the socialist movement was still in its infancy; socialists were not elected to parliament until 1897. The

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Dutch bourgeoisie amassed wealth through trade, banking, and—from the 1880s onward—private exploitation of colonial resources.4 The Netherlands had colonies in Asia (the Indonesian archipelago), South America (Surinam), and the Caribbean islands. In terms of territory, Dutch colonial rule had not expanded in the nineteenth century. While other European powers were vying to conquer new African colonies, the Dutch concentrated on subjugating parts of the Indonesian archipelago that, until then, had been indirectly ruled through indigenous viceroys. These expansionist ambitions led to a few colonial military victories: on the island of Lombok in 1894, and in Aceh province in 1896. The inauguration of the first Dutch queen offered various groups in society an opportunity to call attention to their national and imperial agendas. To some, the crowning of young Wilhelmina heralded a revival of Dutch glory. It was a time of reemerging nationalism, with national identity defined in explicitly imperial terms. This nationalist revival went hand in hand with a fondness for the monarchy and offered many people something to cling to in the rapidly changing society of the day.5 The Dutch women’s movement took inspiration from the crowning of a female monarch and seized the opportunity to express its hopes and desires for the future. After all, the movement reasoned, if a woman could fill the highest post in the Netherlands, then it was high time the nation realized that women could—and already did—play an important role in other areas of society. To convey this message, they chose a vehicle used only once before in the history of the international women’s movement: a national exhibition. Following the example set by their Danish counterparts three years earlier, some five hundred Dutch women independently organized the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor. From July 9 to September 21, 1898, the exhibition in the dunes between The Hague and the North Sea coast attracted 90,000 visitors—most of them women, including Queen Wilhelmina and her mother Emma. In the exhibition’s large, white wooden buildings with wide verandas and pavilions, objects and activities portrayed all facets of Dutch women’s labor. The Hall of Industry showed live factory girls at work, while elsewhere women displayed their skills as typists, cigar makers, and pharmacists. In a mock Javanese kampong, women and men from the Dutch East Indies demonstrated batik dyeing and other skills. Exhibits devoted to social work, nursing, and education displayed the large contribution women had made to these fields. In the library, visitors could read books written by (and about)

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women, while in the art hall they could view paintings by Dutch women artists. Every week, conferences and lectures attracted new visitors to the grounds. With this exhibition, the Dutch women’s movement had, in the words of one journalist, ‘‘erected its own temple.’’ 6 The Dutch women’s movement had already been making its voice heard for more than three decades before it mounted the exhibition. From 1860 onward, the Dutch public had learned of the economic, social, cultural, and political restraints placed on women. Opinion-makers had spread their views in brochures, articles, pamphlets, and at public gatherings. Debates dealt with such issues as women’s working conditions, the lack of educational opportunity for girls, occupational hazards for housemaids, the need for legal recourse against the fathers of illegitimate children, the legal incompetence of married women, and their subservience to their husbands. Women established associations that campaigned for the right to paid labor or fought against legalized prostitution. New magazines urged subscribers to support women’s causes. A few novels pointed to women’s subordinate position in society. With these forums of public debate conquered, the stage was set for women to expand their territory with an exhibition.7 Overtly political exhibitions remained virtually unknown to the Dutch in the late nineteenth century. National expositions usually displayed achievements in various sectors of industry, the arts, and craftsmanship, while the public gazed at the spectacle and bought the goods offered. Political movements traditionally sought publicity through serious writings and public statements. The worker’s movement had recently added strikes and demonstrations to its repertoire. The women’s movement, however, was no ordinary political movement. With its heterogeneous and diffuse constituency, it campaigned on a wide range of issues. Its activists came from disparate religious and ideological backgrounds. The Dutch women’s movement—like its counterparts in many other countries—encompassed groups that held diametrically opposed views on such issues as the expansion of educational and professional opportunities for women and the need for labor protection and changes in marital law. From 1884, for example, a small but influential group of upper-class women campaigned against the trade in women and the legalization of prostitution in brothels. Outside influences, like England’s Josephine Butler, helped to shape this nascent women’s movement.8 In 1894, the Dutch Woman’s Suffrage Association (Vereeniging voor Vrouwenkiesrecht; vvvk) lobbied for the recognition of women’s civil rights, a political demand that the Dutch until then had only

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heard from a few radical socialists.9 Although the Netherlands had long remained involved in the slave trade (it did not abolish slavery in the West Indies until 1863), the country had no strong abolitionist movement. This deprived the Dutch women’s movement of the kind of important training ground that had proved so crucial to the development of the American and British women’s movements. In the 1890s, a few women began calling themselves feminists, while many more who did not use this tag nonetheless felt a part of the women’s movement in a wider sense. For such a multifaceted movement, the exhibition proved an excellent medium. In the period leading up to the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor, discussed in chapter 2, it became clear that organizing the event would require the women’s movement to bridge its internal divisions in age, religion, social class, and political views. One of the movement’s elder pioneers from the 1870s, Mina Kruseman, happily wrote to the central committee that ‘‘the reports of her death were greatly exaggerated’’ and that she would gladly contribute to the exhibition.10 However, the various generations of women did not always cooperate so smoothly, and all too often conflicts ensued. As elsewhere, problems also arose when the women made attempts to transcend class divisions in the interest of their emancipation. Still, many countries did see the formation of new coalitions at the turn of the century. In England and the United States, women’s trade union leagues bridged the gap between middle- and working-class women in their joint struggle for labor legislation and protection. In Germany and Scandinavia, women of divergent political tendencies found common ground in the demand for paid pregnancy and maternity leave.11 The exhibition’s central theme—women’s labor—reflects this ambition to overcome class divisions. The phrase encapsulated both factory labor, performed by working-class women, and professions held by middle-class women. It also mirrored a complex combination of old and new discourses. In one sense, labor referred to the notion of productive labor (industriousness as a virtue) upheld by nineteenth-century Dutch liberals.12 In their view, a civilized nation was built on honest labor, rationality, and morality. Therefore, working meant making a worthwhile contribution to the nation, and productive labor by women was thought to legitimize women’s claim to citizenship.13 In another sense, however, the concept of women’s labor had acquired negative connotations. By the 1890s, it had lost its neutral tone and had become widely associated with low wages, poor working conditions, immorality, unemployed men, and neglected children.14 In this

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sense, the use of the term women’s labor constituted a conscious political intervention by the organizers of the exhibition in The Hague. The exhibition, they decided, would portray civilized and decent forms of employment and would emphasize the role of productivity in social and industrial progress. This is why it displayed the work of well-to-do middle-class women who aspired to skilled vocations. At the same time, it allowed visitors to enter the world of working-class women through live demonstrations of factory, workshop, and farm work, though it paid only scant attention to the perspective of working-class women themselves. All in all, the exhibition shifted the connotations of women’s labor in the public debate. As we will show in chapter 3, the organizers created new representations of gender and class difference in the public domain through a variety of (trade) exhibits. As a result, women’s labor came to be seen less as a social problem and more as a modern challenge. THE PUBLIC SPHERE AND CITIZENSHIP

In our interpretation of the exhibition as a transformation of the public sphere, we use Jürgen Habermas’s concept of the public sphere, as well as later studies that have critiqued this concept from a gender perspective. The distinction between the so-called public and private spheres has played an important role in the development of women’s history.15 Like Nancy Fraser, we believe that Habermas’s differentiation between three arenas of public discourse holds great importance. In his analysis of late-eighteenthcentury Western European society, Habermas distinguished between the state, the market, and the public sphere (Öffentlichkeit). It is in this third arena that people can participate through rational communication about matters of common interest, about politics. This ‘‘public sphere’’ of newspapers, clubs, and private associations is distinct from the state (whose monopoly on coercion limits free interaction between citizens) and from the market (where the distribution of wealth and property determines human relations). The public sphere, or civil society, constitutes the space where people with no stake in the outcome of the debate discuss issues of general interest, where the economic power and legal status of the interlocutors is ‘‘bracketed.’’ 16 Since the age of Enlightenment, this has been the arena in which new forms of citizenship are molded. Habermas’s interpretation of the public sphere proves both descriptive and prescriptive and has been the focus of much criticism from scholars in

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the field of gender studies. Some have pointed out that Habermas failed to recognize the masculine nature of the public sphere, never taking into account that the boundary between the public and private spheres coincided with the dividing line between the masculine and feminine domains. Some have argued that the exclusion of women from rational communication in the public sphere made civil society a masculine domain.17 Indeed, many arenas of public debate were accessible to men only. Yet defining the public sphere as masculine problematically means that women who did take part in public debate can only be seen as exceptions operating ‘‘beyond their sex.’’ 18 In our interpretation of the 1898 exhibition as a feminist intervention in the public sphere, we find Nancy Fraser’s critique of Habermas more useful. According to Fraser, Habermas was wrong to assume that the nineteenth-century bourgeois public sphere constituted the only public domain. She argues that the public sphere was not a monolithic entity, but consisted of a variety of publics and counterpublics. She believes the various public domains took shape simultaneously with, and often in opposition to, the dominant bourgeois public sphere. Counterpublics differ from the classic public sphere; they have different criteria for participation and different style and content standards of communication. The National Exhibition of Women’s Labor, we believe, is an example of a counterpublic in both senses. First, new actors participated in this counterpublic. For the first time in Dutch history, women independently organized an exhibition, and working-class women such as servants spoke in public. Second, the exhibition shifted both the form and content of the debate about gender and society. The search for pluriformity in the public sphere corresponds to recent developments in gender and citizenship studies. The idea that there was only one form of citizenship, a male-defined concept that excluded women, is giving way to a new focus tracing different forms of citizenship that have developed through history. From the end of the eighteenth century, different citizenship ideals took shape in the Western world. The ancient republican ideal, in which all citizens equally and directly participated in their community government, was revived in Rousseau’s ideal of direct participatory democracy, in which the people constituted the nation. The rise of liberalism in Europe and the United States resulted in a concept of citizenship that gave the citizen a number of state-guaranteed rights and freedoms. Citizens were not obliged to govern the state directly, but they were entitled to representation in the government.19 In this ideal of repre-

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sentative democracy, the rights of all go hand in hand with the state’s responsibility for the welfare of all. The various concepts of citizenship were linked to several concurrent and interlaced forms of public discourse in the Western world. In the Netherlands, enlightened citizenship took cultural and moral shape around the year 1800. Private societies and fellowships bore moral responsibility for civilizing the nation, advocating education of the masses and relief for the poor, all in the name of the common good.20 In the first half of the nineteenth century, Dutch conservatives dominated this discourse; they relied on private, often familial, ties in politics.21 Their position remained virtually unchallenged until the Dutch constitution was revised in 1848. The revision made room for a liberal public domain in the Netherlands, with new channels of public political debate: debating societies and electors’ associations. In contrast with conservative forces, the liberals proposed that political power be subject to checks and balances and be forced to seek legitimacy through a ‘‘civilized’’ debate removed from private interests, desires, and preferences. It was in this context that the distinction between participatory and representative citizenship became relevant. At first, only people with sufficient ‘‘refinement’’—a combination of self-restraint and intellectual development—were considered suitable participants in political dealings. In time, progressive liberals began appealing for wider criteria, arguing that everyone who performed productive labor should be permitted to join. Taken to its logical conclusion, this line of reasoning meant that the Dutch aristocracy stood to lose its selfevident role in governing the nation, while the lower middle classes and working classes would in principle gain full citizenship rights. Like other countries in Europe, the Netherlands saw new groups with distinct denominational identities and social backgrounds enter the political arena after 1880. Two political forces broke away from the conservative and liberal conventions of public debate: The orthodox Protestant Antirevolutionary Party (Anti-Revolutionaire Partij, established 1879), mainly supported by small businessmen, and the Social Democratic Labor Party (Sociaal-Democratische Arbeiderspartij, established 1894).22 Both parties mobilized their followers using rhetoric that appealed to emotions and group interests; they clamored for representation, discarding restrained discussions in favor of the politics of passion and turmoil.23 This input from small tradespeople and the working classes redrew the boundaries of Dutch politics and changed their very nature.

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Our study attempts to determine what type of citizenship the organizers of the Dutch National Exhibition of Women’s Labor strove for. After all, they could choose from various models of political participation taking root at the time. They had become familiar with the conservative, liberal, socialist, and denominational views of their time, either from discussions with their male kin or through their own membership in organizations. Some feminists must have taken inspiration from the working classes’ and small businessmen’s demand for political representation, because as women they suffered similar exclusion. It is questionable, however, whether women seeking emancipation could invoke passion and emotion as freely as the lower middle and working classes. After all, a lack of self-control in women was traditionally associated with indecent behavior, and women’s presence in the public sphere was also considered unseemly. Now that their own citizenship was at stake, some women were intent on showing that they, too, were capable of participating in the public debate in a proper, civilized manner. Therefore, they fell back on conservative and liberal concepts of moral and civilized citizenship. They were keen, for example, to avoid association with mass entertainment, for fear of appearing frivolous and improper. Some organizers even stubbornly referred to the exhibition as an ‘‘illustrated conference’’ and insisted that the grounds close at dusk. At the same time, however, the women organizers tried to attract a public much wider than their own upper middle class. They introduced low entrance fees to entice factory girls and servants to participate in the new public domain. As such, the exhibition became a locus where the Dutch women’s movement could try out new combinations of participatory and representative citizenship. G E N D E R A N D V I S U A L C U LT U R E

Historiography about the public sphere often draws a sharp distinction between serious civil society, composed of political associations and literary salons, and the commercial mass media, which immerses the public in illusion and superficial entertainment.24 This opposition of citizenship and consumer culture tends to be represented as gendered—while women went shopping, men discussed politics.25 Exhibitions constituted a complex combination of, or a transition between, these two public domains. The organizers of the exhibition in The Hague were intent on staging a serious event that communicated their message: women were capable

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of making a worthwhile contribution to national power, civilization, and progress. However, from a commercial point of view—and in the eyes of most visitors—exhibitions mainly provided an opportunity for entertainment and amusement. Historians Robert Rydell and James Gilbert describe how exhibitions served as modern, urban spaces for public consumption.26 Lauren Rabinovitz points out that this interpretation ignores the core issue of women and gender. Her study of fairground attractions as one of the cradles of cinema culture explains the importance of women acquiring a public space in which they could be spectators: ‘‘The Exposition constructed a socially sanctioned public space for women’s participation, promising the possibility of mobile spectatorship in a safe urban environment.’’ 27 In chapter 4, we will discuss how one can detect various forms of gazing and being gazed at even within the limited scope of the exhibition in The Hague. The display of objects and people in an exhibition hall steers the spectator’s interpretation; while strolling, he or she weaves separate elements into a story.28 The story’s meaning is therefore partly determined by the spectator (who decides how to move through the space), and partly by the layout. Several important studies have been devoted to the visual experience of exhibition visitors. According to Lieven de Cauter, technological innovations made it possible to dazzle visitors with an increasing number of sensory experiences using height, speed, and optical illusion. His examples include the Eiffel Tower, the Ferris wheel, the roller coaster, the exhibition train, and, from 1895 onward, cinema.29 Exhibitions combine different forms of visual experience. A panoramic view gives visitors a broad, overall impression of the whole event, and a structured layout with straight lines of vision and a predictable, hierarchical structure provides spectators with the illusion that they are able to grasp the whole world in all its complexity. The panorama has emerged as the predominant form used in national pavilions illustrating industrial progress. Anne McClintock points out that spectators derive a feeling of power from the ability to oversee time and space. She sees a link between this feeling and the popularization of Western imperialism at the end of the nineteenth century.30 When spectators are invited to look at a staged, private reality such as a replica of a native village, they have another type of visual experience. It can be described as a kind of voyeurism, in which the spectators gaze at the other in a domestic setting, while at the same time being drawn into the

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scene before them. They temporarily identify with the men and women they are gazing at, while also wondering how these others return their gaze. Their experience of the exhibition constitutes more than a mere peek into another world; for a moment, spectators become part of the world under their scrutiny.31 They are both subject and object of the gaze. The two types of visual experience can be linked to different notions of citizenship. The distinction between immersion and distance corresponds to the difference between participatory and representative citizenship models. Experienced as an immersion, an exhibition can be compared to a festival in which the distinction between spectators and performers is lost in total participation. Rousseau saw festivals as symbols of an ideal community of people united in one will (volonté générale). Whether or not visitors to the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor realized it, in a sense their attendance amounted to a political statement. Spectators momentarily joined the masses who were putting women’s emancipation on the political agenda. At the same time, however, the panorama of women’s labor suggested the notion of representative citizenship. Safe in the certainties of their own position and worldview, some visitors saw the exhibition as a theatrical performance about social problems and political issues.32 FEMINISM AND IMPERIALISM

The histories of citizenship and public domains outlined above remain conspicuously silent about the colonial and racial context in which these concepts and domains took shape. In Race and the Education of Desire, Ann Stoler points out the virtual absences of colonial experiences from national historiographies of the Western world. Without distinguishing between the traditions of participatory and representative citizenship, she argues that the liberal, free, and autonomous citizen who emerged in nineteenthcentury England, France, and the Netherlands was not a product of metropolitan European culture. Instead, Stoler argues that the Western citizen derived his self-image from a colonial encounter in which he defined his self in relation to the racialized and gendered other from the colonies. This new bourgeois sense of self was predicated on colonial definitions of sexuality and hygiene. So far, Dutch historians have hardly touched on the issue of a possible relationship between bourgeois culture and colonialism; even recent surveys of the history of Dutch politics pay little attention to colo-

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nial history.33 In the words of Susan Legêne, one of the few Dutch authors who has described the interaction between Dutch citizenship and colonialism, ‘‘Historiography of Dutch expansionism is a specialism.’’ 34 In other words, it is not considered an integral part of Dutch history. We believe Stoler’s focus on ethnically (or racially) motivated inclusion and exclusion is indispensable for a proper understanding of bourgeois liberalism and the claims to citizenship formulated by nineteenth-century emancipatory movements. In the historiography of the Western women’s movement, racial and colonial relationships have largely remained invisible. While many studies about bourgeois and proletarian feminism have thoroughly explored the relationship between class and gender, the connection between race and gender has been left untouched.35 Studies on gender and imperialism have dealt with the relationship between the ‘‘whiteness’’ of Western cultures and Western images of female virginity, but seldom have these conclusions been extrapolated to the development of feminist thought.36 Nevertheless, it is of great importance to move beyond the idea that women function merely as signifiers of the colonial relationship and to study how they were actively involved in the construction of colonial discourses.37 Antoinette Burton was one of the first scholars of imperialism to explicitly raise the issues of feminism and the women’s movement. In Burdens of History, she shows how the rhetoric and content of women’s emancipation in England bore the hallmarks of an intensive interaction with colonial discourses. Virtually no studies about the Netherlands have explored the links between imperialism and feminism.38 We hope that our book will help rectify this situation. The colonial exhibits at the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor, which we will discuss in chapter 5, contributed directly to the success of the Dutch feminist cause. With special exhibits devoted to the West Indies and East Indies ‘‘possessions,’’ the organizers followed in the footsteps of the world’s fairs.39 Studies devoted to the latter have paid due attention to the imperialist implications of the exhibitions’ physical layout.40 In these enterprises, it is easy to detect a ‘‘grammar of gender differences.’’ 41 Machines, cannons, ships, and buildings—all objects from the masculine domain—were prominently displayed, while ‘‘feminine’’ objects such as handicrafts, kitchen appliances, and interior decoration apparently stirred the imagination to a lesser degree. The masculine represented Western modernity, progress, power, and the potential imperial aggression of competing nations. Studies of gender’s role in exhibitions focus mainly on how

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the women involved in these exhibitions fared; in time, women succeeded in securing their own exhibits, buildings, and pavilions at world’s fairs.42 With a few exceptions, the relationship between gender and imperialism in expositions remains largely uncharted territory. Hazel Carby describes how African American women were kept from participating as equals in organizing the Women’s Building at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. McClintock draws attention to the ways in which domestic commodities and imperialism became intertwined: advertisements for detergents and imperialist expositions ‘‘converted the narrative of imperial progress into mass-produced consumer spectacles.’’ 43 Alan Trachtenberg points to the symbolic location of the 1893 Chicago Women’s Building: halfway between the White City of Western ‘‘civilization’’ and the commercial exploitation of non-Western peoples in Midway Plaisance.44 The National Exhibition of Women’s Labor included two halls which provided an overview of the Dutch colonies in the West and East Indies. It also featured a replica of a kampong situated next to the main buildings, where it functioned as an exotic attraction. In accommodating these exhibits, the organizers compromised their original policy decisions on two points. To begin with, the kampong was the only section in the entire exhibition which deliberately showed men and women working side by side. Together, these male and female Javanese artisans illustrated the ‘‘native lifestyle’’ of the Dutch East Indies. Thus the difference between ‘‘civilized’’ and ‘‘native’’ superseded gender difference. The commercial importance of the colonial exhibit inspired the second deviation from the original policy. To maximize profit from the popular kampong, the organizers decided to keep this section open to the public even at night. Perhaps the organizers’ concession to commercial entertainment was to be expected. After all, as Timothy Mitchell, Paul Greenhalgh, and Zeynep Çelik have shown, it was nearly impossible to draw a distinction between commercial spectacle and the pretense of scholarly interest in non-European peoples.45 The combination of ‘‘scientific accuracy’’ and an invitation to drift into an exotic fantasy world proved irresistible to visitors and, from a business point of view, indispensable.46 According to Annie Coombes, a visit to a colonial exposition allowed English working-class people who had never ventured outside the metropolis to identify with the imperialism propagated by the state and their employers.47 In The Hague, the East Indies exhibit and food stands made for the greatest attractions. People who had never traveled to the overseas territories experienced the colonial

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exhibit as a visit to a strange and mysterious world, not least because many others visiting the exhibit were ‘‘colonials’’: people of Eurasian descent and Dutch people who had lived in the Indonesian archipelago for an extended period of time. This duality, the coexistence of the panoramic view with the experience of ‘‘losing oneself in the exoticism of colonial exhibits, also has been identified in women’s travel writing by Marie Louise Pratt and Sara Mills. There, these scholars have detected two distinct representations of colonial space: a panoramic view, that of the male colonial administrator who oversees his ‘‘reign’’ from a vantage point and devises policy, and a sexualized contact zone, where the excitement of the ‘‘dangerous’’ encounter with the colonial other is described.48 The colonial exhibit at the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor offered both types of experience. In so doing, it not only evoked the two ways of representing the colonies; it also suggested the representative and participatory notions of European citizenship. In this sense, the colonial exhibit reflected the different forms of citizenship claimed by Dutch women. Exhibitions were the first mass gatherings that allowed thousands of people to see not only the medium but each other too. Seeing and being seen was the crux of going to a fair.49 However, the rise of this new medium did not render older vehicles of feminist propaganda, such as printed matter and debating clubs, obsolete. If anything, the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor perpetuated their growth. The proceedings of the exhibition conferences and debates were published in a hefty, twelve-volume series of books of lasting influence. A stream of brochures and individual books also saw publication. Furthermore, the exhibition inspired the creation of several new organizations; their significance is the subject of chapters 6 and 7. The lasting impact of the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor lies in the combined use of visual and verbal means to legitimize a feminist intervention in public discourse. In this respect, the exhibition’s organizers constructed a feminist public domain. New forms of visual representation in the late nineteenth century produced what Vanessa Schwartz calls ‘‘a new kind of crowd,’’ a gathering not unified by political demands, as in the revolutions a century earlier, but one that found mutual recognition in pleasure and entertainment.50 Groups excluded from political citizenship, such as women, the working classes, and the indigenous populations of the colonies, did sometimes have access to this communal experience. That did not mean that gender, class, and

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race had ceased to function as hierarchical ordering principles; to the contrary, the distinctions between frivolous entertainment and serious labor and studies were highly gendered and racialized in expositions. This was certainly true of the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor. The pioneers of the Dutch women’s movement organizing the exhibition were wary of the ‘‘superficial entertainment’’ that women servants, factory girls, and Eurasians found in the dunes near The Hague. In this respect, their attitudes subscribed to patterns of political and cultural exclusion based on race, gender, and class. However, by opting for the format of the exposition and its paradoxical combination of seriousness and frivolousness, the organizers created a public sphere in which great numbers of Dutch women from diverse backgrounds could reflect on gender issues. Without such an intervention, participation in the classical political arena would have remained beyond women’s reach.

CHAPTER 2 n

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In this chapter, we explain how and why an exhibition was used to stage the first large-scale manifestation of modern feminism in the Netherlands. By 1898, industrial and applied art exhibitions were a tried and true medium. An exhibition was seen as an excellent way for women to make their views on gender visible and discussible. This was easier said than done, however, for reasons that become clear in this chapter. We discuss the influence of other exhibitions; the objectives and intentions underlying the women’s exhibition; the moral, financial, and logistical obstacles faced by those organizing the exhibition; and the organizers’ social roots and their relationship to the nineteenth-century women’s movement. EXHIBITIONS AND FAIRS

The nineteenth century saw the heyday of industrial and applied art exhibitions in the Western world. The trend started with national exhibitions in late-eighteenth-century France, and it quickly spread throughout Western Europe. The first Dutch national exhibition took place in 1808: the Public Exhibition of Products of the Nation’s Industry (Openbare Tentoonstelling van de Voortbrengselen der Volksvlijt) held in Utrecht.1 By 1898, organizers had staged another twenty such exhibitions in Amsterdam, Arnhem, The Hague, Delft, Haarlem, and elsewhere. Expositions displayed manufactured goods, tools, and machinery in a classified fashion to provide visitors with an overview of the various sectors of national industry and artisanship. Relatively few exhibits were devoted to agriculture and livestock breeding. Politicians and the business community used expositions to promote technological progress and the aesthetic design of industrial and

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crafted products, and to make prospective buyers aware of the high quality of goods available in their own country.2 The notion of progress also dominated the world’s fairs, the first of which was held in 1851 in London’s Crystal Palace on the initiative of Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband.3 At first, world’s fairs differed from national expositions only in scale. World’s fairs were gigantic enterprises in which several countries participated. Newspaper reports often spoke of densely packed crowds flooding exhibition grounds.4 While 6 million people flocked to the Crystal Palace in 1851, the Paris World Exposition of 1900 attracted 50 million visitors. According to one estimate, France’s nineteenth-century world exhibitions drew more than 100 million spectators altogether.5 Designers of world expositions began to plan the layout of their exhibitions to achieve a didactic effect. The idea, derived from classical mnemonics, was to link the classification of exhibited items to an explanatory walking tour.6 National and international exhibitions usually lasted several months and took place on special grounds, often custom-built and landscaped. These events became a specific genre, complete with characteristic symbols and rituals: the festive opening ceremony with dignitaries, the publication of a catalog, and contests in which a jury assessed products and awarded prizes to the best entries. In a sense, the industrial revolution was choreographed and portrayed as a festival of progress. Its proponents showed visitors the newest goods and persuaded them to buy products that would bring the industrial revolution into their homes. Exhibitions also constituted a site for the demonstration of new scientific inventions: the telegraph, the telephone, electrical appliances, radium, and X-ray photography.7 Apart from economic and commercial motives, a more specifically political objective gained importance—engendering national identity. At world exhibitions, Western nations began competing to display the best (or most) buildings, machines, equipment, arms, inventions, paintings, sculptures, ploughshares, weaving looms, and various domestic products. National exhibitions displayed a similar competitiveness between regions. National and world exhibitions also visually portrayed the state of human civilization.8 They featured conferences, live demonstrations of labor and sports, and musical and theatrical performances. Thematic historical exhibits represented the history of the Western world. There were also exhibits displaying contemporary non-Western objects and peoples, usually

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from colonial territories. At world’s fairs, visitors could walk from France to North Africa in a matter of minutes, dropping by Italy and India on the way. Such a ‘‘journey’’ gave a quick impression of the balance of power between various Western empires. The British, French, Belgian, and Dutch populations, as well as other Western fairgoers learned about their ‘‘overseas possessions’’ and were impressed by their own nation’s far-reaching influence. In other words, world expositions made the abstract notion of the nation-state tangible through the representation of its colonies. They propagated nationalist sentiments and notions of Western superiority. Historians Robert Rydell and Nancy Gwinn regard such world’s fairs as ‘‘laboratories of modernity,’’ which accelerated the rise of modern mass culture. They see world’s fairs as largely responsible for the advent of marketing and public relations, mass tourism, and the souvenir industry; these sites were the birthplace of the picture postcard, for instance.9 At a time when department stores were relatively uncommon and when transportation and communication still remained painfully slow, large expositions offered visitors from every social stratum a rare opportunity to see what products were available at home and abroad and how people around the world were supposed to live. Through the sheer number of products and peoples they displayed, exhibitions presented side by side apparent contradictions such as modernity and tradition, education and entertainment, progress and nostalgia, civilization and barbarism, publicness and privacy, the mother country and colonies. Exposition pavilions and exhibits also embodied the disputed space of political power, a space accessible to some groups but not others, with one group determining what another could see. n

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At the first world’s fair, in 1851, the Dutch contribution made a poor impression. Only a handful of manufacturers had submitted something for display, and there were no contributions at all from ‘‘the rich East-Indian possessions.’’ 10 The Dutch national committee’s financial scope had been minimal because the government had only contributed 6,000 guilders, an amount worth U.S.$68,000 in 2003. The Dutch government showed similar disinterest in the world expositions that followed. Even Amsterdam’s International, Colonial, and Export Exhibition of 1883 was the work of a foreigner, Eduard Agostini, while a Belgian firm paid for it.11 In the end, the Dutch government did con-

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tribute 250,000 guilders (over U.S.$2.8 million in current value), half of which came from the Ministry of Colonies. The government’s attitude was odd considering how popular national exhibitions had become. In 1852, a year after London’s Crystal Palace, 70,000 people visited the Exhibition of Products of Dutch National Industry and its Overseas Possessions in Arnhem. There were eight hundred participants, and the exhibition closed with a nice profit. The General National Exhibition of 1861 in Haarlem boasted 1,284 participants and drew 80,000 spectators. It also included various forms of entertainment: a Venetian gondola festival, fireworks, historical pageants, and musical performances. The 1866 Dutch national exhibition, which was staged in the newly completed Palace of National Industry (Paleis voor Volksvlijt) in Amsterdam, attracted 1,464 participants and 260,000 visitors.12 With 1,400 participants and 90,000 visitors, the 1898 Dutch National Exhibition of Women’s Labor seems to pale by comparison. Since 1880, however, a certain ‘‘exhibition fatigue’’ had set in among Dutch industrialists.13 The industrial exposition as a business enterprise was becoming somewhat superfluous due to the advent of advertising and department stores. This international trend continued in the twentieth century; the industrial exposition lost even more of its importance with the introduction of modern trade fairs. It was partly for these reasons that the nature of exhibitions changed. Cheap entertainment became more prominent. Visitors wanted to stroll and consume, to be entertained rather than informed.14 Ferris wheels, merry-go-rounds, panoramas, and other attractions that had once served as side attractions now took center stage. The boundaries between education and entertainment became blurred, and nowhere was this more evident than in the many ethnographic exhibits showing ‘‘working and living’’ people from the colonies. As early as 1879, at the National Exhibition of Dutch and Colonial Industry in Arnhem, Javanese musicians performed traditional gamelan music from the Dutch East Indies. The orchestra had been sent by the Prince of Solo (a city in Java) and was accompanied by his son. These musicians and two Javanese dancers were the top attraction at the exhibition.15 The Amsterdam world’s fair of 1883 was the first to display indigenous people from the colonies in their ‘‘own’’ habitat. A group of Javanese men and women demonstrated their handicrafts and musical talents in a mock kampong, a village of different types of dwellings from across the Indonesian archipelago. Under a circus tent, twenty-eight in-

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digenous Surinamese, including what one journalist called ‘‘a collection of negresses of all shades,’’ lodged in huts encircled by a makeshift pen.16 These displays of people from the colonies remained popular well into the twentieth century, giving visitors a chance to gaze at the ‘‘exotic,’’ which engendered a new sense of self. The ethnographic choreography of these displays was based less on reality than on the imperialist expectations of Europeans. A Dutch journalist expressed these expectations during the Amsterdam world’s fair: ‘‘Both the Netherlands and the rest of the industrial and commercial world are preparing for that peaceful contest between nations, in which we hope our fatherland will cut a figure commensurate with its rank among its European peers in terms of colonial trade.’’ 17 Soon, colonial exhibits displaying live people became a standard fixture at all great exhibitions. World expositions featured villages housing colonized people from the British, French, Belgian and Dutch empires. At some expositions, for instance Chicago 1893, the people on show were classified to support the racialist concept of human evolution in which white Western man was thought to embody the most advanced stage. At the 1900 world exposition in Paris, visitors could do more than gawk at various races in colonial villages—they could hire black Africans to carry them around the site in a hammock. The rise of anthropology, with many anthropologists better described as armchair scholars than hands-on field researchers, strongly influenced these human exhibits, which also toured Europe as independent shows.18 World expositions offered ‘‘scientists’’ an opportunity to compare and classify indigenous peoples and ‘‘racial types’’ by measuring and comparing physical dimensions and other parameters. There was also a more general tendency to apply anthropological/ideological constructs to ethnic and regional differences, as well as to a nation’s own past. This included Western myths about the so-called noble savage, the construct of the simple (backward) pastoral life, and the glorification of ‘‘the good old days.’’ The world’s fairs in Chicago (1893), Antwerp (1894), Brussels (1897), and Paris (1900) all featured historical districts in which the inhabitants performed tableaux vivants and historical pageants.19 n

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Though women played only a modest role in these expositions, female participants and organizers were not ignored entirely. Handicrafts attracted particular interest and gained appreciation as an expression of ‘‘civilized’’

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labor performed by women.20 In 1871, the Dutch city of Delft made three rooms in city hall available for the Exhibition Bazaar of Female Industry and Art. The bazaar was organized by Betsy Perk’s General Dutch Women’s Association, also known as Arbeid Adelt (Nobility through Labor), the first national women’s association in the Netherlands that advocated women’s interests. One of its objectives was to improve ‘‘the fate of ‘civilized’ indigent women by encouraging and promoting their artistic talents and labor skills.’’ 21 An important way to achieve this was to foster ‘‘noble competition by organizing expositions of products that result exclusively from female industriousness and art.’’ 22 The Delft sales exposition of ‘‘civilized female labor’’ proved a great success. According to one reporter, Dutch Queen Sophie (the first wife of king William iii and patroness of Arbeid Adelt) showed a great deal of interest in the 1,200 tastefully displayed objects during a preopening visit.23 Before long, however, a group of women quit Arbeid Adelt because of a conflict with Betsy Perk. One bone of contention was whether the women who made money selling their handicrafts should remain anonymous. Perk wanted them known by name in order to combat the prejudice that it was improper for ‘‘civilized’’ women to work for pay. But the new Tesselschade General Dutch Women’s Association intended not to reveal the names of the women whose handicrafts they sold.24 A key player in the Tesselschade association was the ambitious Lady Jeltje de Bosch Kemper, quite the opposite in character to the sometimes chaotic Betsy Perk. After the schism, the board of Arbeid Adelt decided to embrace the principle of anonymity, leaving Perk, the group’s founding mother, frustrated and marginalized by her own members. This move by the board virtually eliminated all differences between the two women’s associations. Both aimed to help middleclass women develop their artistic talents and labor skills by anonymously selling their products and funding their education.25 Eventually, the associations began to cooperate on a regular basis. In 1878, Arbeid Adelt and Tesselschade worked together on the Exhibition of Objects of Industry and Art Made by Women held in Leeuwarden, an event organized by Gerharda Matthijssen. This Frisian photographer, arts teacher, and gallery owner was a bold woman, intent on squashing ‘‘the prejudice that it demeans a woman to work.’’ 26 Matthijssen headed a committee of twenty women who collected 3,000 objects to be displayed for several weeks in an indoor riding arena. The exhibition opened with speeches by several ladies and the king’s commissioner of Friesland, and

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then a singing choir concluded the opening ceremony.27 The women exhibited a great range of diverse objects: handicrafts, antique lace and embroidery, tapestry, wicker chairs, products from the Amsterdam Industry School for Girls, golden jewelry, photographs, and paintings by the likes of Sientje Mesdag-van Houten and Thérèse Schwartze. The collection included two prized documents: the diploma recently earned by Aletta Jacobs, the first woman to become a medical doctor in the Netherlands, and a list of the first Dutch women to study pharmacy. Despite the fact that men dominated national exhibitions, Dutch women’s organizations had been able to make their mark at these events. They had done the same at world expositions. At the 1883 Amsterdam world’s fair, Tesselschade and Arbeid Adelt displayed dolls in traditional regional costume. Painter Thérèse Schwartze sat on the jury of the prestigious international painting exhibit that formed part of this exposition, a fact that caused quite a stir.28 There was even a modest tradition of women’s expositions in the Netherlands before 1898. These expositions had been organized by the associations that first defended women’s right to paid labor and received encouragement by press coverage of women’s contributions to the world’s fairs in Vienna (1873), Philadelphia (1876), and Chicago (1893). I N T E R N AT I O N A L I N F L U E N C E S

While regional and national exhibits of women’s labor were already a wellestablished tradition, the Pavilion of Women’s Labor at the Vienna World’s Fair (1873) constituted the first attempt to organize an international exhibit of this kind. It was a particularly remarkable initiative because hardly an international women’s movement to speak of existed at that time. The central objective of the Vienna world’s fair was to show ‘‘who did the work’’ (wer arbeitet): one of the issues considered important was the gender division in labor. The idea was to display women’s labor both as part of the general exhibits and in a separate women’s exhibit.29 However, the attempt to integrate women’s labor into general labor exhibits failed due to most contributions’ anonymity. The special women’s pavilion fared better—German, English, and Dutch women’s associations initially responded with enthusiasm. Unfortunately, no record telling us which Dutch women’s association responded exists; most likely it was Arbeid Adelt.30 Ultimately, no foreign contributions found inclusion in the Vienna

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women’s pavilion due to a lack of international women’s networks. Moreover, the pavilion’s emphasis on homemaking and household chores turned it into a quintessentially feminine sphere used to soften the edges of the harsh, masculine exhibits in the machinery hall. Women’s participation in industrial work remained invisible except for a few written reports and pictures.31 Shortly after Vienna, American women participating in the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition were asked to organize a women’s section in the main exhibition hall and to generally support the efforts of the exhibition board.32 Thirteen Philadelphia women were appointed by the Centennial Board to form a Women’s Centennial Executive Committee, with Mrs. Elizabeth D. Gillespie as president. However, in June 1875, the women—who had by then raised a large sum of money—learned that there was no room for them in the main hall. The board advised them to build a separate pavilion, which they would have to pay for themselves. Despite this setback, the furious Mrs. Gillespie and her companions within a few months managed to raise the necessary funds. On May 10, 1876, the Woman’s Pavilion opened its doors. The wooden building of about 131,234 square feet housed a library, art gallery, working machinery operated by women, exhibits on women inventors, an education section demonstrating Fröbel’s educational system on pupils from a local orphanage, and the office of A New Century for Women, the only regularly published newspaper at the centennial. The international exhibits in the pavilion included a Dutch contribution. Responding to an appeal in the women’s publication De huisvrouw, five Dutch women, one of them a member of Arbeid Adelt, contributed needlework, waxen roses, and a printed oratorio.33 n

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If the women’s pavilions in Vienna and Philadelphia impressed some Dutch women, then the Woman’s Building at the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893 exceeded their wildest expectations. The impressive exposition in Chicago was held to mark the quadricentennial anniversary of ‘‘Columbus’s discovery of the New World.’’ The specially constructed Woman’s Building displayed objects from thirty countries, and its library housed books and statistics. Mrs. Potter Palmer, president of the Board of Lady Managers, had made it her ambition to provide a comprehensive, worldwide overview of women’s labor. She had exhorted both domestic and

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foreign women’s organizations to help her achieve this goal. She received an impressive number of statistical surveys that caused a true sensation at the exposition. The data made it possible to compile and display the first statistical overview of women’s labor in the fields of industry, agriculture, education, charity, nursing, and arts and culture.34 The Dutch women’s movement was represented in the library by twelve ‘‘Reports on Women’s Labor in the Netherlands.’’ 35 A group of Amsterdam women headed by Jeltje de Bosch Kemper, chairwoman of Tesselschade, had seen to the preparation of these reports. In response to a request by the American envoy in The Hague, the Dutch government appointed the official Women’s Committee in addition to the national Dutch Committee. The Women’s Committee did not contribute any objects or photographs for display, nor did it send a delegation to the separate Congress of Representative Women in Chicago.36 What it did do was send books by Dutch women writers. However, due to Potter Palmer’s almost compulsive perfectionism, it is unlikely that anyone at the exposition actually saw these. The board president demanded that anything ever written by a woman anywhere in the world, including original manuscripts, be collected and cataloged prior to display. This proved impossible, even with the help of two librarians and two clerks. Hence books from the Netherlands remained packed for months and later were shelved uncataloged, along with the contributions from Germany, Norway, and Belgium.37 ‘‘So far, Holland is conspicuous only by its absence,’’ scoffed the Dutch feminist magazine Evolutie just a few days before the Chicago women’s congress took place.38 One Dutch woman who did see the World’s Columbian Exposition was the young Cecile Goekoop-de Jong van Beek en Donk, yet her visit was part of a private trip to America. In fact, she did not even have any direct links to the women’s movement at that time. Although the Board of Lady Managers and the government in The Hague showed appreciation for the effort made,39 the absence of Dutch women in Chicago led to an open conflict in the national women’s press. In an alleged interview with a female Dutch reporter, Potter Palmer took a good swipe at the Dutch women for their insignificant contribution to Chicago. The translated interview was published in Evolutie, the influential magazine of the Free Women’s Association (Vrije Vrouwenvereeniging; vvv), an organization founded in 1889 by the radical feminist Wilhelmina Drucker. According to the reporter, Potter Palmer felt that:

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‘‘Dutch women employed a type of turtle tactics: at the least sign of danger, they crawl back into their shell. . . . Personally, I could not or only with the greatest difficulty associate with the type of people who, priding themselves in their titles and class, are only too happy to put their names on charity lists or build homes for fallen women, yet are loath to part with their energy or money to nip evil in the bud, to prevent it. Energy!,’’ she resumed after a brief pause, ‘‘that is, I think, exactly what Dutch women lack, deprived as they generally are of the exposure to and friction of ideas which one can only come across outside the home.’’ 40 These harsh words were a blow to the president of the Women’s Committee, De Bosch Kemper, who had proudly publicized the Americans’ appreciation of foreign contributions (expressed in a resolution passed by the board). Now she sent the text of this resolution to Evolutie and added that the lady managers’ ‘‘sincere appreciation of the work of foreign commissions and representatives’’ appeared to contradict Potter Palmer’s comment that ‘‘Dutch women had not cut any figure at all at the exhibition.’’ 41 However, the magazine’s editor rightly replied that the resolution was merely a token gesture of politeness. After all, there had been no Dutch representatives to thank. The magazine then published a letter by Lady Anna van Hogendorp, who had helped compile the Dutch contribution for Chicago.42 Hogendorp expressed her regret that the Dutch Women’s Committee had decided against sending a representative to Chicago. Evolutie, in its response to this letter, revealed that the Free Women’s Association had tried to persuade the committee to include objects made by women in the Dutch contribution to the World’s Columbian Exposition. It criticized the Women’s Committee for compiling the selection for Chicago on its own. According to Evolutie, the Free Women’s Association decided not to take part at all when it saw that its efforts had been in vain, expecting the results to be meager anyway.43 However, Dutch interest in women’s exhibitions was rising. This became particularly clear when plans were revealed for a Brussels world exhibition to be held in 1897. According to the January 3, 1895, issue of Evolutie, the Belgian organizers intended to include a special exhibit displaying women’s art and industry. The magazine saw in the Brussels event a chance for the Dutch to redeem themselves for their embarrassing absence in Chicago. It called for the immediate creation of a committee, composed of enterprising Dutch

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women ‘‘of all persuasions and classes, but above all laborers—both intellectual and manual,’’ to compile a sizeable contribution to this special exhibit.44 Wilhelmina Drucker and her companion Dora Schook-Haver sent out a letter to several Dutch women’s organizations asking for one of them to take the lead. Arbeid Adelt, the Groningen Women’s League (Groningse Vrouwenbond; gv), and the Woman’s Suffrage Association all responded, but none of them really took up the challenge.45 Evolutie concluded with annoyance that Dutch women still would not budge. While their absence from the World’s Columbian Exposition had been justified by the cost of transatlantic travel, the same excuse could not be used for Brussels: ‘‘If here too, just like at the 1893 World’s Fair, the Dutch are to be conspicuous by their absence only, then the Old and New World alike will say that in terms of its women, the Netherlands might not belong to the most backward of people like the Congolese or the Hottentots, but it certainly is and will remain the China of Europe.’’ 46 Clearly, Drucker was trying to pressure the women’s organizations into cooperating by appealing to their national pride and their self-image as civilized people. Her language resounded with the imperial rhetoric of world’s fairs in that day. On December 8, 1895, at long last, the Free Women’s Association managed to organize a meeting in Amsterdam to discuss Dutch representation in Brussels. It is unclear whether the Groningen Women’s League was present, but on December 14, the latter group sent a letter to SchookHaver outlining plans to establish a committee coordinating Dutch entries for Brussels.47 Finally, there was an initiative and a seed of cooperation. Although Tesselschade had been included on the invitation list, Jeltje de Bosch Kemper—perhaps with vivid memories of the Chicago affair—kept her distance. Her aloofness probably came as no surprise to the editors of Evolutie or to the Free Women’s Association. The magazine had ridiculed De Bosch Kemper, and she now had an axe to grind. Because Lady Jeltje held authority in political and cultural circles and sat on the board of many institutions, her stance complicated matters.48 It would become clear that she was a force to be reckoned with when efforts to organize the Brussels contribution evolved into plans for a Dutch national women’s exhibition. n

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In the winter of 1895–96, Dutch women read articles about the successful Danish national Women’s Exhibition from Past to Present (Kvindernes

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Udstilling fra Fortid til Nutid) held from June 22 to September 15, 1895, in Copenhagen. Organized solely by women, the event had resulted in a credit balance worth about 7,000 Dutch guilders.49 This, and the apparent lack of time to collect enough material for Brussels, must have inspired Cateau Worp-Roland Holst of the Groningen Women’s League to suggest organizing a similar event in the Netherlands.50 To discuss the idea, she called together seven women who met in Utrecht on May 4, 1896. Three women from her own province of Groningen were joined by two women from Amsterdam: Hendrina Scholten-Commelin, a friend of De Bosch Kemper’s, and Trinette Smithuijsen. There were also two women from The Hague: Cecile Goekoop-de Jong van Beek en Donk and Bertha Levyssohn Norman.51 These women agreed on the feasibility of organizing a national exhibition. They formed a temporary committee and called another meeting, to be held in Utrecht on May 21, 1896. This turbulent meeting was also attended by members of Tesselschade, and, not surprisingly, the atmosphere quickly became hostile.52 No sooner had Worp-Roland Holst put her ideas forward than De Bosch Kemper rejected them as superfluous. However, Lady Jeltje failed to get her way in the ensuing debate. A motion was made to organize a national exhibition on women’s labor in the Netherlands to coincide with the inauguration of Queen Wilhelmina. The proposal was approved with only six dissenting votes, and then the discussion turned to the thorny issue of male participation. Marie Rutgers-Hoitsema, a nationally famous suffragette, strongly opposed men taking part. She argued that organizing such an event would provide an excellent training ground for women. The issue was put to several debates and votes. Some of those in favor of male participation were incensed that this issue had not been voted on before the decision to hold an exhibition; they demanded a second round. In the end, a slim majority voted to exclude men from administrative and organizational tasks. The venue chosen was Amsterdam’s Palace of National Industry. Margaretha Meijboom, who was fluent in Scandinavian languages, offered to inquire about the Copenhagen exhibition, and a provisional executive committee began laying the groundwork for an association. Although three hundred invitations had been sent, only eleven women attended the founding meeting of the Association for the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor (Vereeniging Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid), held in Amersfoort on June 26, 1896.53 At the first general meeting, on November 26, a permanent executive committee was formed. One

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year later, the executive committee appointed a new president—thirtyone-year-old committee member Cecile Goekoop-de Jong van Beek en Donk, the wife of Adriaan Goekoop, a wealthy real estate owner from The Hague.54 This turned out to be a strategically important decision. Six months later, her novel Hilda van Suylenburg was published and Cecile Goekoop became quite a celebrity. The novel, a popular and widely discussed story of a woman’s emancipation, generated great public interest in the exhibition. The oldest member of the committee, sixty-three-year-old Scholten-Commelin, formed the executive committee’s link to the committees that had helped organize the world’s fairs in Chicago and Brussels. In a tactical move, De Bosch Kemper had also been asked to join the committee. She declined. It must have come as an unpleasant surprise to this pioneer that no one followed her lead. Her defeat marked a change of style in the Dutch women’s movement, one also visible in other countries, notably the United States.55 Lady Jeltje was an exponent of those upper-middle-class women who addressed women’s issues in a moderate and ‘‘decent’’ tone. They rejected loud, feminist protest and emotional appeals; they would never have given the likes of factory workers and servants an opportunity to speak in public. By contrast, the organizers of the 1898 exhibition set out to create a public forum where women’s issues could be exposed and opened to debate from various points of view. In so doing, the Dutch organizers obviously drew inspiration from international women’s exhibitions, notably the Vienna, Philadelphia, Brussels, and Chicago world’s fairs. O B J E C T I V E S , R E S I S TA N C E , A N D H E S I TAT I O N

The Association for the National Exhibition on Women’s Labor aimed to ‘‘promote the expansion of women’s working environment in the Netherlands.’’ 56 The first meetings in 1896 had also dealt with the idea of establishing ‘‘a permanent center of women’s labor’’ once the exhibition was over. The proposal had been made by Anna van Hogendorp’s sister, Marianne Klerck-van Hogendorp, who had cofounded the Dutch Women’s League for the Advancement of Moral Awareness (Nederlandsche Vrouwenbond tot Verhooging van het zedelijk Bewustzijn; nvvzb). Klerck-van Hogendorp explained how this center could act as a national women’s council and join the International Council of Women (icw), as the American icw representative Teresa Wilson had suggested on a recent visit to the

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Netherlands.57 Klerck-van Hogendorp urged the newly formed Association for the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor to take the lead in this matter, as it would be collecting many of the data that a national council would need later on. This proactive approach was typical of the organizers: two years before the actual exhibition, and long before it was certain to go ahead, the organizing committee was already discussing ways of following up in the years after the event. Their visionary approach also became evident in the attempt to establish an umbrella organization to keep women’s issues on the long-term agenda. This idea was part and parcel of another goal articulated ever more clearly and perhaps best expressed by executive committee member Marie Jungius, when she stated that the association distinguished itself from other women’s groups in that it acted as a hub, ‘‘a fixed point, a core, surrounded by women’s labor and thought, which is now but a mass spread out over the country.’’ 58 At the general meeting of January 1897, a member of the executive committee suggested sending a delegate to the following July’s icw preparatory meeting ahead of the council’s 1899 convention. Rotterdam feminist Martina Kramers was chosen and asked to investigate whether a national women’s council should be founded in the Netherlands.59 Only six months after its inception, the association was indeed creating cohesion among existing women’s organizations. But first, all efforts had to be focused on the immediate goal of getting the exhibition off the ground. There were several priorities: to draw up an organization chart; recruit staff members, coordinate all activities; and raise funds. The organizers initially targeted middle-class women only. It was these women, reasoned the organizers, who needed their professional horizons broadened. This could be achieved by increasing girls’ access to education, by creating new professions for women, and by transforming women’s traditional tasks into paid jobs. Soon, the agenda was expanded to include aims such as higher wages and righting the many wrongs in agriculture and industry.60 Regarding the latter point, it is possible that the Dutch organizers had learned a lesson from the criticism that greeted the women’s exhibition in Copenhagen; the Danish press had decried the lack of attention given to working conditions. The Dutch organizers intended to address the several hardships women faced in brickyards, peat pits, and sweatshops: long workdays, often up to eleven hours per day; lower wages than men; dangerous equipment; monotonous work in badly ventilated rooms; and

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supervision by foremen who would often sexually harass women employees. Although the exhibition did address these issues to some extent, it was still mostly middle-class women who stood in the spotlight.61 The 1898 women’s exhibition shared many of the commercial, aesthetic, and nation-building objectives of other nineteenth-century industrial and applied arts exhibitions. The main difference was that the 1898 exhibition put more emphasis on political goals. The organizers wanted to argue, persuade, prove and teach—both by illustration (the visible goal) and by influencing public opinion (the invisible goal).62 They wanted to give women a chance to achieve something and make a worthwhile contribution to their fatherland, a notion that drew on the views of left-wing liberals such as Samuel van Houten. He believed that women, like men, could be productive members of society and that both sexes should enjoy the right to paid labor.63 To achieve this, the organizers reasoned, it was imperative to remove all political, legal, and moral obstacles. Therefore they decided that the exhibition would display what women had achieved ‘‘in the fields of Industry, Arts and Sciences, and in the field of Social Work.’’ 64 They would allow women to show the public how their companies conducted business, to demonstrate their skills, and to sell their products. Women would also get an opportunity to give evidence of how well-developed ‘‘their skills, their intellect, their artistic sense’’ were.65 In its first annual report, the association rephrased its initial objective as follows: ‘‘The study of women in the Netherlands and its colonies . . . , an investigation of their circumstances where these need improvement, and of their sphere of labor where this can be widened.’’ 66 Visually striking trade exhibits and serious debates would be used as tools to expand women’s domain and improve their working conditions throughout the Dutch kingdom. The exhibition gave priority to promoting women’s economic independence and freedom of movement, but the organizers also set their sights on inequalities in the domain of public debate. Freedom of speech, education, and labor conflicted with the pervasive double standards of that day. ‘‘Decent’’ women who worked for pay encountered numerous restrictions. Women in state-regulated prostitution were branded as immoral, while men who frequented brothels remained beyond reproach. With this exhibition, the organizers aimed to create their own forum, or counterpublic (to borrow Fraser’s term), where they could discuss social issues and gender relations without fear of losing their virtuousness.67 They attempted to bring about a change in public attitude, a cultural transformation, allow-

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ing the sexes to participate in the public domain on a level playing field for the first time in Dutch history. To achieve this, they explicitly linked their appeal for more high-level jobs for women to the promotion of ‘‘public decency.’’ In her novel Hilda van Suylenburg, Cecile Goekoop had drawn a connection between decency and paid labor. Another influential text was a brochure written by Marie Jungius, the brains behind the organizational structure of the exhibition.68 The brochure basically constituted an extended plea for the economic independence of ‘‘decent’’ women. Jungius sought to debunk the prejudices against women who worked outside the home. Her background as a school principal led her to compare the Dutch public to a slow child, unable to grasp a reading lesson without an accompanying illustration. The public at large was both ignorant and disdainful of women’s labor and could only be persuaded by means of illustration, she believed: ‘‘What has actually been accomplished by the warehouses full of books and brochures stacked up for half a century, creating a sort of beacon highlighting women’s labor and conditions? The masses, who determine public opinion, have been sadly unimpressed. That is why our Exhibition aims to be an illustration, a large image visible to all, to accompany the fifty-year-long reading lesson, so that finally the public will understand!’’ 69 In a similar brochure, Suze Groshans, Jungius’s close friend and fellow organizer, pointed out that wages were not based on productivity but on gender. In her view, nonworking women had to act as a guiding light to overburdened, underpaid working-class women, helping them improve their labor conditions. This involved not only wages and working hours but also ‘‘dangers to morality.’’ This problem was high on the agenda of the Labor Inspectorate (Arbeidsinspectie) founded in 1890. The inspectorate considered it a threat to the social and sexual order for men and women, sometimes scantily clad because of the heat, to work in the same room.70 In other words, the decency issue legitimized the call for the expansion of ‘‘civilized’’ women’s better paid labor. Wrongs could be averted by allowing women to work in higher positions, a notion previously unthinkable because of women’s lack of education and a ban on the ‘‘weaker sex’’ in many professions. The organizers hoped to create a new domain of labor ‘‘appropriate to our national needs and born from progress.’’ 71 Organizers Jungius, Groshans, Marie Sparnaay, and Elise Haighton had specific professions in mind: foreworker in factories and workshops, labor inspector, housing inspector, and prison guard. By filling these positions, women

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would be able to protect moral standards in their fatherland and its colonies. The organizers saw the ‘‘overseas territories’’ as a new arena for Dutch women. The notion that women should act as the moral guides of the Dutch empire would be developed in greater detail in the decision-making process on the colonial exhibits and in the exhibition conferences. Linking economic independence to virtuousness created a new point of view on women’s participation in the public sphere. This viewpoint coincided with the political stance of some women’s organizations after 1890, such as Dowager Marianne Klerck-van Hogendorp’s radicalized Dutch Women’s League for the Advancement of Moral Awareness, Wilhelmina Drucker’s Free Women’s Association, and Annette VersluysPoelman’s Women’s Mutual Protection League (Vereeniging Onderlinge Vrouwenbescherming; vov), an organization whose aim was to protect unwed mothers. These groups held the opinion that expanding women’s labor domain, improving their working conditions, and removing the legal impediments to labor would reduce the dangers of prostitution.72 It was especially women from these groups—organizers, spokeswomen, and reporters—who would influence the representation of gender during the exhibition. seriousness a priority No sooner had preparations started than a debate arose about the name of the event.73 Some feared the term exhibition would evoke images of fairgrounds and sideshows; after all, most late-nineteenth-century exhibitions were geared toward amusement rather than serious education. In Evolutie, Dora Schook-Haver expressed hope that the exhibition would be ‘‘a continuous series of instructive examples’’ and not a repetition of its predecessors, ‘‘with little news and lots of entertainment, the latter being the great attraction.’’ 74 The organizers decided to keep entertainment and commercialism to a minimum by emphasizing the event’s conference-like nature. At the general meeting of March 17, 1897, Anna Fles, who had worked on the Dutch contribution to the World’s Columbian Exposition, suggested that it might be better to call the event a conference. The president agreed that conference better reflected the event’s main objective. Nevertheless, the women decided to stick with exhibition and to have all promotional material refer to the event as an illustrated conference.75 For the sake of graveness, executive committee member Worp-Roland Holst objected to awarding participants medals; she could not have foreseen that Queen Regent

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Emma would later decide to award medals to commendable organizers and participants.76 Seriousness constituted a priority. Visitors would be confronted with the reality of women’s professional labor and would be able to attend debates on the issues working women faced. Terms like hobby and amateur were excluded from use in all promotional materials. The aim was to create serious workers and to advocate respectable work.77 In September 1897, Cecile Goekoop declared before a packed audience that the entire exhibition would be ‘‘one continuous conference’’ and a befitting illustration of the work of some five hundred women who together made up the various section committees. In addition, there would be separate conferences or debates devoted to such issues as alcohol, prostitution, and philanthropy.78 The organizers were intent on presenting themselves as professionals. To screen for amateurism, many of the section committees devised strict standards that all contributions had to meet. Quilts and knitwear were refused, for instance. The press erred a few times, referring to the event as the Exhibition of Ladies’ Handicrafts, but in most cases called it the Exhibition of Women’s Labor or the Women’s Exhibition.79 In order to fill the need for an exhibition poster reflecting the serious tone of the event, a competition for best design was held. In February 1898, a panel of judges selected Suze Fokker’s poster showing a life-size beehive surrounded by bees and sunflowers. Other industrial exhibitions had also used the bee as a metaphor for industriousness and serious labor, though in this case the symbol proved particularly apt. The most important bees in a hive are female, and these worker bees are headed by a queen—after all, the inauguration of Queen Wilhelmina as the first female head of state had inspired the exhibition’s organization.80 To ensure the dignified character of the exhibition, the women decided to keep the grounds open during daytime only and after twelve noon on Sundays. However, once the construction of the Kampong Insulinde was completed, the executive committee thought it appropriate to have this exhibit stay open until 10 p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. On these evenings, the kampong was abuzz with entertainment and leisure activities, allowing visitors to experience that side of ‘‘indigenous life’’ as well.81 In other words, the representation of the Dutch East Indies was explicitly linked to an atmosphere of commercialism and entertainment. Keeping this exhibit open ‘‘after hours’’ was considered risky because the exhibition might turn into a form of cheap entertainment. Respectable

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women could only venture into the public domain with their ‘‘morals’’ strictly guarded. It was the Regulation Committee, the exhibition’s management team, that held responsibility for the physical and moral protection of the exhibition grounds. Its subcommittee on personnel was in charge of executing its policies. This group was headed by Willemina van Gogh—artist Vincent van Gogh’s favorite younger sister—who worked in The Hague as a religious school teacher.82 The personnel subcommittee appointed three uniformed officers—one chief inspector and two guards, all female—to conduct daytime guard duty. The guards and the supervisors of individual exhibits were accountable to the chief inspector. After sundown, four male night watchmen patrolled the entire grounds. As a backup, a policeman and a fireman stood on call around the clock.83 The guards were to ensure ‘‘the maintenance of order, the protection of persons and property, and compliance with prohibitions or regulations.’’ In case of theft or embezzlement, they were to ‘‘arrest the criminal at once,’’ if necessary with the help of others, and to warn the police.84 This was not the first time women acted as guards. At the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, women had also been hired to protect morals and ensure the safety of women and children. Neither they nor the guards in The Hague held the full powers of police officers.85 The 1898 exhibition gave these women a chance to practice new skills that would prepare them for paid work in the future. The female guard was one of the professions the organizers deemed suitable for women; the exhibition provided a venue where these new role models could be presented to the public. The organizers also found suitable and decent housing for the women who worked on the exhibition premises during the day. The local chapter of the League for the Advancement of Moral Awareness arranged for the guards to be put up in boarding houses, some of which were inspected in advance for safety and quality. power struggle One reason why the organizers emphasized the serious nature of the exhibition was the fair amount of resistance, insinuation, and even overt opposition they faced. Not that the press played a part in this. Numerous media covered the preparatory meetings and reported in a neutral tone. Ultimately, local and national newspapers even gave a moderately positive assessment of the exhibition. Not all newspapers showed equal enthusiasm, but that was due to their different political and religious allegiances.

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As journalist Henriëtte van der Meij put it, ‘‘our daily newspapers have in general taken note of the preparations for the exhibition with a favorable disposition, albeit sometimes du haut de sa grandeur.’’ 86 Nevertheless, the public was not without prejudice. In 1897, Cecile Goekoop addressed an Amsterdam audience including many ‘‘lady students’’ about the misconceptions that kept surfacing. One of these was that the exhibition served as an expression of women’s hatred of men, to which Goekoop replied that most of the organizers were married women. This was actually not true, since about 65 percent of the women organizers were single! She also dispelled the notion that the organizers were out to make a strict distinction between men’s and women’s labor. The exhibition, she said, purported to be nothing but ‘‘a study of women in their homes and society; an attempt to show the nation, analogous to teaching by example, which forces are present and which are up and coming; and at the same time [it is] an appeal to support these forces and to alleviate those needs.’’ 87 Similarly, the organizers denied rumors that the exhibition was ‘‘red’’ (meaning socialist), royalist, or antireligious. The association had no color ‘‘but the beautiful colors of our country, red, white, and blue!’’ 88 The event’s neutrality was evident, Goekoop stated during the January 1898 general meeting, from the warm cooperation between ‘‘strictly Protestant . . . women, devout Roman Catholics and Israelites, pious followers of one of the modern branches of faith, and women who belonged to no church at all.’’ 89 The fact that the exhibition—which also intended to represent the colonies—was organized exclusively by white women never became an issue. Instead, the organizers tried to strike a balance between the various political and denominational groups within the Netherlands. That, in itself, was quite a feat. Because the organizers relied on the help of socialists to prepare key elements of the event, the exhibition acquired a reddish hue anyway. For example, the exhibition publication Vrouwenarbeid [Women’s labor] was printed by a socialist jailed several times for subversive writings.90 As another example, the participant Vrede Printer’s hung a large portrait of Leo Tolstoy behind its exhibit in the Hall of Industry. Incidents such as these did little to create a neutral atmosphere. Vrede’s manager, a socialist and antimilitarist, had been imprisoned for defamation of a mayor and had dodged the draft in 1896. Yet this controversial character was blatantly present for all to see, printing publications for the exhibition.91 Despite these red overtones, many socialists complained that the exhibition was not red enough. In his socialist magazine De kroniek, Pieter L. Tak scoffed at the ‘‘bourgeois char-

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acter of the exhibition.’’ 92 The organizers obviously did not relish such critical sounds. However, they would also face something more unpleasant: an overt attempt by certain high-profile women to thwart the exhibition. n

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The Chicago debacle and Jeltje de Bosch Kemper’s role in its aftermath continued to cast a shadow over the preparations. First of all, it meant that the organizers found no sympathy in De Bosch Kemper’s home city of Amsterdam. While Rotterdam, Leeuwarden, and Amersfoort were busy founding committees, Amsterdam at first did nothing. The executive committee sent requests to the Palace of National Industry for a meeting, but these met with a resounding silence. The organizers reconsidered the venue. On November 6, 1896, Cecile Goekoop wrote to her sister that the exhibition would probably take place in The Hague, not Amsterdam, because the ‘‘opposition’’ there was too strong.93 At a crowded general meeting on November 26, it became clear that all of Tesselschade had withdrawn its support from the organization. The executive committee then decided it could wait no longer to settle on a venue. At a general meeting the following March, it announced that the exhibition would be staged in The Hague. There had been two decisive factors. To begin with, the organization was assured of the cooperation of women ‘‘of all classes and denominational or political hues’’ in The Hague.94 The city itself was home to some of the most important participants including the organization’s president Goekoop, the Van Hogendorp sisters and their cousins, and other prominent organizers such as Jungius and Groshans. The Groningen contingent remained indifferent because both The Hague and Amsterdam were far from their home city in the north. The second factor was an offer from the president’s husband, Adriaan Goekoop. He was willing to donate land and to put the women in touch with contractors, engineers, and architects he knew. In the spring of 1897, an increasing number of women and organizations started to offer both moral and financial support to the exhibition. Hundreds of copies of Jungius’s brochure appealing for the economic independence of women had been distributed by then. In high spirits, the executive committee decided to write to the queen, arguing that no one ‘‘could better support the exhibition than the first lady of the country.’’ 95 An Amsterdam committee was finally established in April.96 Even De Bosch

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Kemper seemed to soften a bit. Her name appeared on the list of contributing members of the Amsterdam chapter, and she agreed to help compile an exhibit from the Amsterdam School of Home Economics (Amsterdamsche Huishoudschool). As president of the school administration, she was ‘‘happy’’ to help put together a joint exhibit from various home economics schools.97 Even her own Tesselschade association had almost unanimously decided to take part in the exhibition conferences, as WorpRoland Holst excitedly reported on May 30, 1897. The latter considered this decision a triumph after Tesselschade’s initial petty opposition.98 Tesselschade members then proposed that their president, De Bosch Kemper, address one of the conferences on vocational training; she declined, however. It must have been very painful for her to then see a loyal friend volunteer for the job.99 Despite these positive developments, the association financially found itself in dire straits. By the fall of 1897, the executive committee feared it might not be able to go ahead with the exhibition. In early October, Evolutie reported on the poor cash flow situation. With only 11,000 Dutch guilders in hand and another 7,000 due from contributions, the enterprise was in danger of folding.100 Jeltje de Bosch Kemper must also have heard the ominous news. Quite unexpectedly, on October 20 and 22, 1897, three national newspapers published an open letter addressed to the exhibition’s executive committee, signed by ‘‘several Dutch women.’’ The piece claimed that the public lacked interest in the exhibition. The author, most likely Lady Jeltje, deplored the fact that many talented women were wasting their effort on an enterprise intended to prove something already obvious to everyone. If all this could be done without financial sacrifices, the letter argued, then the exhibition would be ‘‘an amusement park’’ like many others. But because a lot of money was involved and ‘‘useless costs’’ incurred, it was everyone’s duty ‘‘to make the most of what is entrusted to us.’’ If all ‘‘Dutch women’’ would put a little money aside, then that money, in addition to what had already been raised, could be channeled into a fund administered by a commission that would of course be the guiding light for the indigent, well-bred woman. Naturally, the commission would provide career guidance to the best of its ability (especially in female professions), supporting and training women for even the smallest task. It would also help sister associations such as Tesselschade or Arbeid Adelt and cookery schools if their

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own powers appeared to be insufficient, and as such it would head a movement to improve the fate of indigent, civilized women.101 The foundation, which according to the letter would no doubt have the full support of the queen and queen mother, could be called the Wilhelmina Emma Fund. The piece ended with a provocative exhortation: ‘‘Women of the Netherlands! [Those] who would be pleased to give both your Queens a token of your allegiance . . . please try along with us to move the committee in charge of the exhibition of women’s labor to spend their energies and the funds already raised on a better and—for women—more lucrative goal.’’ This frontal attack provoked an immediate response. The next day, a moderate liberal newspaper published a sharp retort by Catharina Alberdingk Thijm, who was organizing the exhibition’s conferences on public decency. According Alberdingk Thijm, a Catholic writer, those who were conducting the arduous task of putting on a ‘‘women’s labor exhibition’’ deserved better than such antagonism, which, ‘‘since it is anonymous, could hardly be of noble origin.’’ 102 Other newspapers published response after response. Evolutie breathed fire in an editorial, saying that the letter signed by ‘‘several Dutch women’’ was ‘‘mercantilism of the lowest kind.’’ The magazine fumed that the executive committee had been asked in a ‘‘greasy, mealy-mouthed, lip-licking tone’’ to forget about the exhibition and to hand over their money to Tesselschade, Arbeid Adelt, and the cookery schools. These institutions—and it was now time to call a spade a spade—were supported by the person who had displayed only ‘‘merciless hostility’’ and ‘‘injured pride’’ from the outset. On and on went Wilhelmina Drucker, for it was she who had dipped her pen in vitriol.103 Jeltje de Bosch Kemper did not achieve her goal. In fact, her stubbornness only increased her isolation and eroded her authority further. Only a few allies stood by her. One of them was the famous women’s movement pioneer and writer Hélène Mercier, for whom De Bosch Kemper had tremendous admiration.104 Fifteen years later, Goekoop explained De Bosch Kemper’s unrelenting hostility as an expression of the ‘‘burning jealousy of the older generation,’’ weakness caused by old age and an inability to comprehend the organizers’ goals.105 When historian Johanna Naber (one of the organizers and editor in chief of Vrouwenarbeid ) was later asked to write a biography of the deceased Lady Jeltje, she accepted the assignment only after much hesitation. It was to become one of her best biographies.

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While she wrote with admiration and respect for her subject, Naber did not conceal De Bosch Kemper’s power-hungry nature.106 n

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About a month after De Bosch Kemper’s anonymous attack in the press, another vicious onslaught occurred. This time, the criticism came from an opponent who dared to fight openly: Henriëtte Roland Holst-van der Schalk. She was a very different adversary in other ways as well. Unlike women’s movement veterans De Bosch Kemper and Mercier, Roland Holst was a young outsider. She had recently become a member of the sdap, which had just won its first seats in the second chamber of parliament. A salient detail was that Roland Holst was a sister-in-law of Cateau WorpRoland Holst, the Groningen-based initiator and organizer of the exhibition.107 On November 23, 1897, the Free Women’s Association, the Seamstress Union (Naaistersbond), and the Association of Diamond Cutters (Vereeniging van Roosjessnijdsters) had convened in Amsterdam to be informed about preparations in The Hague. Unaware of the serious challenge she was about to face, Cecile Goekoop explained the exhibition’s construction and floor plan. She took the audience through the various halls, the atrium, and the conference room. A debate ensued. The first to speak was the then-unknown Henriëtte Roland Holst-van der Schalk. She described the exhibition as a ‘‘trap’’ set by the bourgeoisie for working-class women to rise up against men. And quite matter-of-factly she called on working-class women not to cooperate, saying the exhibition was not in their interest. Proof of this, she said, was the fact the executive committee did not include one working-class woman. According to Goekoop, Roland Holst delivered this attack in great anger, the speaker stamping her feet and her eyes ‘‘ablaze with hatred and scorn’’ while she shouted insults at the president herself. Goekoop, who was not in the habit of retorting, remained speechless.108 The two working-class women attending the meeting were not intimidated, however. Both Roosje Vos, chairwoman of the Allen Een (All United) seamstress union, and Betje de Beer-Lazarus, chairwoman of the Association of Diamond Cutters, protested against Roland Holst’s allegations.109 The two women, both from the exhibition’s Amsterdam chapter, said they felt far from ‘‘trapped.’’ The meeting broke up after a vehement debate, but the matter did not end there.

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On November 27, Roland Holst lashed out again in a strongly worded article in De Sociaaldemokraat, a socialist newspaper. This time, she accused Goekoop not only of pursuing a bourgeois agenda but also of possessing ‘‘a large measure of vanity.’’ It was only ‘‘the hopeless spiritual darkness in which Mrs. Goekoop gropes about’’ that prompted her to alert the public to ‘‘the cruelties of sweatshops and blood wages.’’ Roland Holst felt it was high time the social democrats agitated ‘‘against the hypocritical, forktongued, cowardly performances of these middle-class feminists.’’ 110 After De Sociaaldemokraat refused to publish Roosje Vos’s response, she posed some critical questions in Het Volksdagblad, another socialist newspaper:111 ‘‘Were not all prominent socialists from the middle class? Were they therefore unfit to lead the workers’ movement? And why were these accusations being directed at the organizers?’’ The exhibition had to be given a chance, Vos wrote. Rather than sowing discord, Roland Holst should be helping out. ‘‘If you indeed want to help us,’’ Vos argued on behalf of her workingclass peers, then ‘‘you should do this with deeds, not words.’’ But Roland Holst remained uncompromising. Roland Holst’s views caused great commotion even in her own circles.112 The sdap therefore called a meeting in Amsterdam on January 4, 1898, with Roland Holst slated as the only speaker. No one could accuse her of cowardice, since many well-known feminists were to attend and would definitely talk back. According to Evolutie, her thesis for the evening was ‘‘women’s labor is worse than unemployment.’’ She ridiculed the exhibition organizers’ initiative to expose what went on in sweatshops. The ‘‘little ladies’’ were mistaken, scoffed Roland Holst, if they assumed the public was unaware of what went on there.113 Her lecture begged a counterattack. The speaker was accused of being a rich ‘‘bourgeoisie [sic] lady’’ herself, seeing as she had contributed twenty Dutch guilders to the association’s account. Roland Holst was indeed on the membership roll. When she replied that she had contributed this amount ‘‘without giving it much thought,’’ the audience jeered.114 Roosje Vos said she could not understand why Roland Holst was so opposed to women’s labor and asked rhetorically whether she had ever felt pangs of hunger. One suffragette stood up and said that Roland Holst was condemning women without knowing their history. She was referring to the pioneers, women who had fought and paid for their principles. It was not working-class women, the suffragette said, but the speaker herself who had been trapped and tricked into defending men’s interests against women.115

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Despite these counterattacks, the young socialist would continue to campaign against both the exhibition and feminism. Like De Bosch Kemper, she opposed a separate camp for women, but for a very different reason. Roland Holst feared that division along gender lines would weaken the powers of the proletariat and believed that both men and women needed to form a front to fight for a classless society. She saw feminism as a movement for middle-class women who did not recognize the class struggle and was convinced that socialism offered the only hope for working-class women. She published her arguments in an anti-exhibition pamphlet. Less than a decade later, Henriëtte Roland Holst had become the most influential Dutch ideologue of the international communist movement and had close ties with Lenin, Trotsky, and Rosa Luxemburg.116 In 1898, however, her antifeminist criticism was not taken very seriously. Few socialist women in the Netherlands dared to speak up at that time. Unlike their British and German counterparts, Dutch social democrats did not command a mass movement with a prominent role for women until after the turn of the century.117 Be that as it may, Roland Holst’s anti-exhibition pamphlet was for sale at the exhibition itself. ‘‘Mrs. Roland Holst was simply walled in by her dogma,’’ wrote Evolutie laconically.118 Within the sdap, however, the pamphlet had great impact. Party leader Pieter Jelle Troelstra later used Roland Holst’s arguments in his campaign against women’s suffrage.119 Yet for the time being, the socialists were moderately conciliatory. They intended to visit the exhibition and to speak at various meetings and conferences. financial woes There was evidently no lack of interest in the exhibition in the fall of 1897, and the preparations seemed well on course. What was lacking, however, was sufficient funding, the basis of the whole endeavor. Even though Adriaan Goekoop had made his land available free of charge, it required extra money and effort to construct the exhibition in the dunes on the outskirts of The Hague. The choice of an open area in the dunes meant that a number of primary facilities had to be built, including a sewage system. Gas and water mains had to be laid for general use. Meanwhile, plans for the exhibition kept expanding. While the original plan had been small—it was estimated that the whole exhibition would fit into one hall of the Palace of National Industry—the organizers kept adding various live demonstrations to the

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program (see chapter 3). Some of these would require extra floor space, others needed separate connections to the gas and water mains. The Pharmacy Exhibit needed gas in its laboratory; the Hygiene Exhibit was to install a bath and connect a wash basin to the sewage system. In addition, special permits had to be obtained for a steam engine, a generator, and two gas engines: the steam engine in the Hall of Industry powered the generator for two electric motors; the laundry ran on a gas engine; and the dairy plant relied on an electric motor.120 Safety regulations required the executive committee to build a shed twenty yards from the main building to house the large steam engine. The committee also had to insure the buildings against fire and theft. The Hall of Industry needed a lead roof covering because of the fire hazard inherent in the hall’s structure: iron beams clad with wood.121 These safety measures still did not satisfy Evolutie, which in May 1898 warned of the dearth of emergency exits in the building. ‘‘In case of a fire, its courtyard . . . is not large enough to harbor a sizeable crowd of . . . nervous, excited people. A few sparks falling among those taking refuge there would be enough to drive hundreds into the flames.’’ 122 Organizer Cato Pekelharing-Doijer reassuringly pointed out that almost every room had its own emergency exit. There was a minor scare, however, when a small fire broke out in a storage room adjoining the Hall of Industry shortly before the July 9 opening. As it turned out though, there were enough extinguishers. ‘‘Thanks to the ladies’ skilled handling of these,’’ the blaze was put out without assistance from the fire department.123 Yet it was impossible to find female volunteers to handle all the work that was necessary. Unlike their counterparts in the United States, no women in the Netherlands had ever been trained as architects, lawyers, or engineers. Therefore the executive committee had no choice but to rely on male architects, mechanical and civil engineers, and lawyers. For legal assistance, the association hired lawyer and parliamentarian Jacob Dirk Veegens, a prominent left-wing liberal who would later become minister of agriculture, trade, and industry. The men the committee hired had to be paid, of course, though not all charged the full rate.124 Some, like engineer J. F. R. van de Wall, were personal friends of Cecile and Adriaan Goekoop. The total required budget was estimated at 80,000 Dutch guilders.125 To raise the initial capital, donations and membership fees proved crucial. Donors paid at least fifty guilders, members paid twenty, and contributors ten. By bringing in new members, the association hoped to raise some 20,000 guilders. The organizers traveled to the far corners of the coun-

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try to give promotional lectures. Marie Jungius addressed audiences in ten cities in 1897. Others who held speaking engagements included Cecile Goekoop, Cateau Worp-Roland Holst, Elise Haighton, Suze Groshans, and Margaretha Meijboom. The organizers used the lecture tours to raise funds and to recruit new volunteers. They believed explaining their plans to audiences around the country in person was the best way to gain public support. In this way, they began to create a feminist counterpublic. Many of the women had never before spoken in public. It must have been quite an adventure for them to explain the objectives of a women’s exhibition to unfamiliar audiences. This was precisely the kind of training the initiators had had in mind when they decided to organize the exhibition without the help of men. The women’s public engagements proved successful; it was apparently no longer controversial for women to take to the podium and deliver a political message. There was a new openness in the public sphere, and the women who took advantage of this were able to influence the style and content of public debate. According to local and national press reports, the speeches and discussions sparked greater interest in the exhibition. Jungius, for instance, managed to kindle enthusiasm at a well-attended gathering in The Hague. Four hundred ‘‘well-to-do’’ ladies were there, as were some gentlemen including Arnold Kerdijk, a left-wing liberal parliamentarian. After the meeting many people signed up as members and donors.126 One way of drawing new donors and members was to offer them free entry to the exhibition; tickets to special performances were offered at half price. Contributors were granted daily access except on Tuesdays and other days with higher entry fees. The organizers also established a guarantee fund by selling shares of 100 guilders each, totaling a maximum of 60,000 guilders. Later, the association would gain additional income from the sale of single-day tickets, group tickets, catalogs, and lottery tickets. In their first year of existence, however, the organizers had their hands full just trying to get the exhibition off the ground. To get started, the women did all they could to secure a large sum of capital. What they desperately needed were state subsidies and sponsors. The application for funding from the national government seemed to be progressing smoothly. Dutch minister of the interior Samuel van Houten had earmarked 5,000 guilders of the supplementary budget for the current year as the first half of a government subsidy for the exhibition. However, after the elections in September 1897, the new government led by

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moderate liberal prime minister Nicolaas G. Pierson decided not to grant any further sum.127 The responsible cabinet minister, Hendrik Goeman Borgesius, tried to appease the organizers with a tenuous rationale: ‘‘The undersigned is of the opinion that an exhibition of all that pertains to the labor and industriousness of women can be very beneficial to the development of women’s social situation. It is only financial considerations that prevent the Minister from allocating an amount equal to the one intended in the proposal of his predecessor in office.’’ 128 A request for financial support from the municipal council of The Hague had received a blunt refusal on July 2, 1897.129 A second request was made on October 28, just when the organization was getting bad press from Jeltje de Bosch Kemper. The organizers called the municipal council’s attention to the commercial benefits the exhibition would have for the city. The association also reminded the council that it had granted thousands of guilders to similar events such as the Sports and Fishery Exhibition of 1891 and the Agricultural Exhibition of 1897. On November 22, the mayor and city aldermen advised the council against allocating money to the women’s exhibition because ‘‘the City will not benefit enough from that Exhibition to warrant a subsidy from the municipal coffers.’’ 130 But this time the council went against the city executive’s negative recommendation. At a council meeting on December 7, councilman L. J. S. van Kempen argued in favor of a grant, saying he liked the women’s plans ‘‘all the more because the Committee is composed of ladies of different backgrounds and classes.’’ Another councilman joined him, not because he felt financial support was necessary—he was convinced the exhibition would go ahead anyhow—but out of a desire to lend moral support. After all, he said, this was not an ‘‘exhibition of handicrafts, as perhaps it was thought to be, but an enterprise of much greater scope and size’’ that would draw visitors from all over the country. At that point, alderman J. Th. Mouton joined the discussion. He felt the exhibition could be in the city’s interest because its annual report showed that the program included topics and interests similar to those of earlier exhibitions. Kempen’s proposal was accepted; in case of a shortfall, the Association for the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor would receive 1,500 guilders from the city of The Hague.131 The organizers looked on this decision as proof that the exhibition was gaining wider support. This, however, turned out to be too optimistic. Somewhat later, the province of South-Holland refused to grant money on the grounds that the enterprise fell ‘‘outside the circle of provincial con-

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cerns.’’ 132 All in all, the state subsidies turned out to be far smaller than the organizers had hoped for. In December 1897, the executive committee’s financial worries remained unabated. Tension mounted when the committee discovered that it had to cough up 28,000 guilders in down payment for the buildings. The funds raised so far amounted to 51,000 guilders, barely enough to cover the down payment and the 20,000 guilders reserved for the various exhibits. It seemed far too precarious a situation, and the committee found itself in a crisis. Months earlier, the treasurer had wanted to warn members that plans were in jeopardy due to a lack of funds. But her proposal had been voted down amid fears that the volunteers would give up and not a single entry would be sent in.133 The treasurer apparently resigned in December, fearing a possible deficit. Then the secretary refused to approve the builder’s estimate. And to top it all off, Jungius became overworked.134 Goekoop later recalled how she poured her heart out to Pekelharing-Doijer: ‘‘I feel these days as if we are miniature Columbuses, that we are like him. He self-assuredly sailed for the unknown country, whilst his crew despondently muttered that he should turn back when the coastline was almost in sight.’’ The executive committee had to decide whether or not to go ahead with the exhibition. On the day the decision was to be made, ‘‘the charitable friend of our work . . . who had given us land’’ saved the day, as Goekoop wrote in her memoirs.135 Someone had stood surety for any financial setbacks. The stalemate had been broken, and the treasurer revoked her resignation. On January 12, 1898, Cecile Goekoop could address the general meeting with confidence. At the meeting, she made an impassioned appeal to go ahead with the exhibition. The women, she said, could not throw in the towel. Fortunately, there had been enough gifts received and guarantee shares sold to allow the exhibition building to be constructed with only one adaptation: the facade flanked by a tower on either side had to be dropped. Not all the required money was available, but there was no reason for panic. Just like Columbus had reassured his men by telling them ‘‘another three days before we give up,’’ so the association would have to tell themselves ‘‘another four months and we’re there!’’ according to the inspired president. Loud applause greeted her words.136 Construction began, and soon the leveled area in the dunes bustled with activity. Meanwhile, Jungius had begun to recuperate. On January 16, Cecile Goekoop dashed off a letter to her sister Elisabeth: ‘‘Everything is going fine here with the business, 63 shares

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in the guarantee fund.’’ 137 In the next few months, the local chapters went door to door to collect money. The exhibition had been saved. Although there is no written proof of who the guarantor was, it was almost certainly Adriaan Goekoop. It is also probable that he lobbied the city council of The Hague to give the women’s exhibition financial support, for no one knew local politics as well as he did. Who was this man who gave so much support to the exhibition? adriaan goekoop Adriaan Eliza Herman Goekoop was born in 1859 and grew up in The Hague. His family’s politics were liberal, their religion Dutch Reformed. On August 25, 1890, Adriaan married twenty-four-year-old Lady Cecile de Jong van Beek en Donk.138 Rumor had it she consented only after his fourth proposal.139 Both Adriaan and Cecile had lost their fathers that year. This meant a drop in living standards for Cecile, whose father had been attorney general in the southern Dutch city of ’s-Hertogenbosch.140 He had bequeathed his entire estate to his only son. His wife (an active member of Arbeid Adelt) and daughters Cecile and Elisabeth had to make do with disbursements from his life insurance policy. The Goekoop family was wealthy and owned a large amount of real estate. Many of the Goekoop men had been magistrates.141 Adriaan’s mother died when he was a young boy. His father was a successful businessman who had devoted his considerable energy toward expanding and developing his landholdings. Adriaan had a poor relationship with his father, who looked down on his son’s predilection for Greek writers and had no faith in him whatsoever. In 1880, Adriaan entered law school in Leiden, but he made little progress. He was an introverted student, withdrew from fraternity life, and was plagued by freeloaders who sought his friendship purely out of self-interest. Ultimately, Adriaan returned to The Hague to live with his father and sister. When he failed his final exam, he plunged headlong into a deep depression.With the help of the artist Pieter de Josselin de Jong, his only friend at the time, he slowly pulled himself together.142 The two friends went to live on an estate just outside ’s-Hertogenbosch and took a few trips to Paris. He must have met Cecile during this period.143 In 1887, he finally passed his exam, and a year later he earned his Ph.D. with a dissertation entitled ‘‘The State as Landholder.’’ The fourth thesis in his dissertation read ‘‘Factory labor for girls and women should be forbidden,’’ 144

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reflecting the public outcry over the atrocious conditions in factories and workshops brought to light by the 1887 parliamentary inquiry into labor. Adriaan’s father sneered at his son’s accomplishments. Having seen the title of his son’s dissertation, he called Adriaan a socialist. Actually, Adriaan had argued against socialism, concluding that neither the individual nor the state benefited from joint ownership. When the elder Goekoop died, it became painfully clear how little faith he had had in his son. Instead of Adriaan, he had named engineer J. F. R. van de Wall (who later became involved with the exhibition) trustee of his estate. Remarkably, and despite the father’s machinations, Van de Wall and Adriaan became lifelong friends. Adriaan turned out to be an excellent businessman. As a real estate owner and developer, he played a crucial role in the late-nineteenthcentury urban expansion of The Hague. He worked very efficiently, reserving enough time for his true passion—studying the history of ancient Greece. He collected plaster casts of Greek statues and bronze copies of Mycean antiquities. After 1899, he met archeologist Wilhelm Dörpfeld and Heinrich Schliemann’s widow and funded various archeological excavations in the search for Ithaca, the kingdom of Ulysses. He received several awards for this work.145 The large lots of real estate he acquired and developed lend evidence to Adriaan Goekoop’s success in business. He purchased almost the entire Laan van Meerdervoort on the outskirts of The Hague, now one of the city’s major thoroughfares, and settled there with Cecile. At their home, Cecile had an office where she provided visitors with information about the national exhibition.146 Before the turn of the century, Goekoop bought various country estates in the vicinity of The Hague, including Zorgvliet. He bought these properties—they amounted to 180 acres of sand dunes altogether—for 5.25 million guilders from Grand Duchess Sophie van Saksen-Weimar. The grand duchess had inherited Zorgvliet from her father, King Willem ii.147 This was where the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor was held—on land that had belonged to Queen Wilhelmina’s aunt. As a progressive liberal, Goekoop was a man of wide interests. He supported various social institutions and cultural events, predominantly in his beloved city of The Hague. His often anonymous donations consisted of money, land, and housing. As it were, he ‘‘constructed’’ the public domain. For example, he donated land for a public swimming pool and a playground

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founded by pioneer educator Elise van Calcar.148 He also financed exhibitions and conferences beneficial to The Hague. Goekoop showed generosity toward his friends and family as well. He gave a monthly stipend to the famous musical composer Alphons Diepenbrock, who had married Cecile’s sister Elisabeth. This allowed Diepenbrock, who had until then earned a living as a teacher of Latin and Greek, to devote himself entirely to his music.149 Tragically, Adriaan Goekoop’s unhappy childhood was followed by an unhappy marriage. Although he and Cecile did have common interests— they both loved classical music and literature—historical sources suggest their fundamental incompatibility. It seems that Cecile, a spirited and driven extrovert, was poorly matched with the reticent, somber, and introverted ‘‘Paul,’’ as she called him. Perhaps he was looking for the love and attention he had missed in his childhood and expected too much from a woman who needed to develop and actualize herself. The Hague city archivist A. J. S. van Rooijen remembered Goekoop, whom he had known since 1893, as a nice man, a coeur d’or.150 Although Goekoop appeared gentle and a bit shy, he could also be awkward and ‘‘oddly arrogant,’’ according to Van Rooijen. Goekoop kept a low profile, seldom appearing in public. When his wife addressed the crowd at the opening of the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor, for example, Adriaan was ‘‘leaning against the wall halfway down the aisle, dressed in his ordinary summer clothes.’’ Van Rooijen recalled a friendly atmosphere in the Goekoop home. Cecile was a pleasant hostess and gave a warm reception to a club that came for tea one winter afternoon. According to the servants, however, the spouses fought frequently. It was said that they broke all ‘‘the statues [plaster casts]’’ during their fights. Adriaan Goekoop once told the city archivist: ‘‘It can’t go on like this, Van Rooijen.’’ 151 In their nine years of marriage, the couple took many trips, often staying away for extended periods of time. Cecile felt that life in The Hague— ‘‘a bad breath from a bad environment’’—did her husband no good.152 In Europe, they traveled to Paris, Athens, Constantinople, Wiesbaden, and Florence. Their trip across the United States lasted from August 30, 1893 to January 4, 1894.153 While Cecile was writing Hilda van Suylenburg, often with feverish dedication, she and Adriaan grew estranged. By the time she became involved in the exhibition, the differences between them had become irreconcilable; neither felt able to improve the relationship. Goekoop

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did not want a feminist ‘‘star.’’ He wanted attention from Cecile and a quiet life. In February 1898, Cecile poured her heart out in a letter to her sister Elisabeth: Don’t worry about me, my love. At the moment, there is a truce of misery, and I am taking advantage of that to gather my scattered and weakened troops. . . . Sunday I had a terrible scene, I could not go on any longer. And now everything is much better again, only . . . the trust, and therefore all happiness and lightheartedness, is gone. But much of the unbearable tension is over too. Paul was very dismal and kept sobbing. Elisabeth, it was terribly, terribly sad. But deep in the heart of this peculiar, tortured, sometimes I am wont to say ‘‘possessed’’ man, there is still a great, and also peculiar, but at any rate not sensual, love for me. At present, that is what has brought back a little light into my soul.154 That summer Cecile was so caught up in the excitement of the exhibition that she forgot the misery on the home front. After the exhibition, it became clear that her marriage was a complete disaster, so she fled to Rome to look up Pier Pander, a sculptor and friend of the couple.155 In November and December 1898, Adriaan traveled through Italy, Egypt, and Greece. On this trip he broke down and cried for days on end. Finally, on January 4, 1899, he met Cecile in Rome, where they decided to give their marriage another try.156 Their reconciliation did not last. Adriaan Goekoop filed for divorce, and on October 26, 1899, the childless marriage was dissolved for good with a fixed annual income for Cecile. The president was discretely reported absent for health reasons from the general meeting of the Exhibition Association that year, and it was chaired by Cato Pekelharing-Doijer instead.157 Adriaan Goekoop was not one to harbor resentment. Shortly after the divorce, he undertook to have a commemorative plaque fixed on the spot where the exhibition had been held. The plaque was unveiled on July 20, 1900.158 Goekoop remarried on April 27, 1905. His new bride, Johanna de Jongh, had earned her art history doctorate in Berlin in 1903. A year later, she was taken on as an unsalaried teacher at the University of Utrecht. She stopped teaching when she married Adriaan Goekoop. They had three children, and their marriage appears to have been harmonious.159 However, their happiness was cut short on September 24, 1914, when Goekoop suddenly

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died under mysterious circumstances. An assistant pharmacist found Goekoop’s body at around noon, submerged in the brook that ran through his estate.160 Although drowning was determined as the cause of death, it never became clear whether he had suffered a stroke, committed suicide, or been murdered. The assistant pharmacist later described how she had seen a gentleman lying in the water, ‘‘wearing a hat, his thumbs—his righthand thumb, it was later determined, had been broken—hooked in his vest pockets. By this peculiarity, and other outward appearances—the wedding ring on his left thumb and his golden stickpin,’’ she had immediately recognized ‘‘the body as belonging to Mr. A. E. H. Goekoop who she knew so well.’’ She had been particularly struck by his ‘‘calm and peaceful look.’’ 161 A N E V O LV I N G O R G A N I S M

Early on in the preparatory phase, the organizers divided the exhibition into three broad categories: trade exhibits; conferences and lectures; and sporting, musical, and theatrical events. The preparations remained steeped in vagueness, but that, according to Cecile Goekoop, was one of the secrets of the exhibition’s success. The manifestation had been ‘‘an absolutely collective endeavor, a cooperation of thoughts and deeds. Everyone, in his [sic] own small circle, had performed acts of creation, had shaped, changed, adapted, completed his plans within financial, spatial, temporal, and personnel constraints. . . . it was a community effort, born from the drive, the impassioned collaboration of many.’’ 162 This idealistic description of an organic process was perfectly in tune with the communal thinking of the 1890s. In response to the aestheticism and extreme individualism of the eighties movement (artists who proclaimed ‘‘l’art pour l’art’’), there emerged a countermovement of writers, intellectuals, and artists who felt community spirit and came to the defense of the downtrodden. Political commitment and compassion for others characterized this nineties movement. A similar shift occurred in politics. While the socialists had always propagated communal issues, the liberals also began to emphasize community spirit and social responsibility.163 The rise of feminism in many ways formed part of this trend. However, to characterize the exhibition as an amorphous event that had grown organically did injustice to the plans drawn up by Marie Jungius in early 1897, at a time when over one hundred women were already involved in the project.164 Her ingenious concept assumed that the exhibition would

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be a complex and ambitious project involving many organizers, high operating costs, and a large number of visitors. She had modeled her organizational structure roughly on the Women’s Exhibition in Copenhagen.165 marie jungius’s concept Unlike the Dutch exhibition, the Danish event had had the state and monarchy’s full endorsement and strong commitment. Queen Louise of Denmark had served as the patroness of the event, while the Danish crown princess had acted as its honorary president. In addition, the government had sponsored the organization and provided ample financial support.166 At the exhibition’s opening ceremony, organizers addressed attending members of the royal family.167 The Women’s Exhibition was housed on two floors of the so-called House of Industry in Copenhagen. The layout resembled that of other industrial expositions.Visitors first entered an industrial section, which in this case also featured colonial exhibits, and then walked through cultural, historical, and home economics exhibits. The upper floor housed more exhibits on industry and cultural history, as well as on education, handicrafts, and hygiene. There was a reading room modeled after the Chicago exposition, albeit far smaller. Instead of conferences, the exhibition offered lectures on nursing, philanthropy, child rearing, women in science, and equal rights. The well-known Swedish author Ellen Key discussed jobs for mothers. Visitors were presented with special supplements to the Danish women’s magazine Kvinden og samfundet [Women and society], and there was also a catalog and an exhibition calendar. A group of Danish women delegates who had attended the World’s Congress of Representative Women at the World’s Columbian Exposition conceived the idea for this unique exhibition. The initiative received encouragement from Queen Louise, who seemed disappointed that the Danish national committee for the Chicago exposition had excluded women. Following this, Laura Kieler, Sophie Oxholm, and a few others devised a plan for a national women’s exhibition in Denmark. Oxholm became president of the enterprise. The organizers timed the exhibition to coincide with the crown princess’s upcoming silver wedding anniversary in 1894. They, like their Dutch counterparts a few years later, saw the potential of the monarchy to provide an attractive framework for their event. The Danish executive committee headed ten departments and various committees that collected information from all over the country. Before long, members of the organizing committee and certain departments began to bicker about

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the exhibition plan. These conflicts proved so divisive that the exhibition had to be postponed for a year. Kieler and Oxholm, the more feminist members of the organization, wanted to highlight the appalling working conditions women faced. They aimed to link their exhibition to the international women’s movement by adopting the Chicago women’s congress motto: ‘‘Not for herself but for humanity.’’ 168 The moderate faction, including writer Emma Gad, was more concerned with the future of middle- and upper-class women. In the end, Oxholm resigned while Kieler stayed on but kept a low profile. Through their Scandinavian connection, Margaretha Meijboom, the Dutch exhibition’s initiators knew of the crises that occurred before, during, and after the Danish exhibition.169 The row over how to spend the profits could hardly have escaped their attention. Opinions were so deeply divided that the money was not used until 1936 to set up a Women’s Building (Kvindernes Bygning) in Copenhagen. Yet it was mainly the positive reports on the Danish exhibition that made the Dutch press. The papers often cited Copenhagen as a paragon of harmonious cooperation between women. Perhaps Meijboom’s reports allowed the Dutch women to avoid the mistakes made in Denmark. While the Dutch modeled their rules and regulations on the Danish, they deliberately opted for relatively autonomous subcommittees rather than a top-down hierarchy. The Dutch subcommittees were allocated money and could spend it as they saw fit. For example, they were free to choose whether the guards at their exhibit would be volunteers or paid workers (although the Regulation Committee preferred paid guards).170 Any profits were to be handed over to the central executive committee, a matter that led to conflict in some subcommittees. Marie Jungius had drawn an organization chart in the shape of three concentric circles.171 The innermost circle represented the executive committee that had ultimate responsibility for managing and staging the exhibition. Three supporting committees aided this central body: the Regulation Committee, which placed objects on display, hired personnel, negotiated concession contracts, and handled all submitted entries; the Financial Committee, which managed the association’s budget; and the Invitation Committee, which hosted lectures and performances. The second circle on the chart represented twenty-four independent subcommittees that designed exhibit sections and trade exhibits, subdivided into Industry, Social Work, Agriculture and Dairy Processing, Education, Arts and Sciences, History, Pharmacy, Nursing, and the Dutch East and West Indies. In

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terms of content as well as organization, the Insulinde Committee, which dealt with the colonial exhibits, had a relatively large degree of independence (see chapter 5). Although every subcommittee received money from the central executive, its success greatly depended on its own resourcefulness. Each member of the central executive sat on at least one subcommittee. Panels of judges assessed the materials submitted for contests. The General Conference Committee coordinated all conferences and lectures. The outermost circle consisted of the sixty-nine local chapters and correspondents from across the Netherlands. They gave the exhibition its national character by collecting data on women’s labor in workshops, businesses, and factories throughout the country. The two inner circles of this organization chart comprised 230 women, while the outer circle represented some 300 others. This proved a sizable project when compared to its Danish counterpart and to other events organized by the Dutch women’s movement. Limited funds and time pressure necessitated efficiency. Early on, local chapters sometimes functioned poorly because they lacked information from the central organization. Communication was improved when the central committee started distributing a newsletter.172 Eventually, the subcommittees began receiving data on women’s labor. Endless patience and painstaking effort finally paid off as a picture of labor patterns began to emerge. Statistics came in revealing how many female bakers, weavers, cigar makers, and teachers there were; how many women owned businesses (these were mostly widows); how many were employed by businesses; and how many volunteered in philanthropy and social work. There now emerged a clear picture of who worked where and what they earned, which companies qualified to submit objects for display, and who could be persuaded to contribute objects and employees. The exhibition archives show that the network of women grew steadily. It evolved from informal discussions in private homes to official meetings in conference rooms. Committees, subcommittees, local chapters, correspondents, and advisors sent circulars and met at lectures and general meetings. Some encounters were friendly, others adversarial. Organizers and workers exchanged information and support. Gradually, women from all over the country found themselves inspired. Shop owners and manufacturers began sending in registration forms. The managing director of a paint factory in Rijswijk offered his movable steam engine, which was needed for the Hall of Industry, the dairy factory, and the laundry.173 A to-

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bacco and cigar manufacturer from Amersfoort saw a newspaper ad for the exhibition in the Haagsche Courant and decided to train a female cigar maker just for the occasion. Under the registered trademark Vrouwenarbeid (Women’s Labor), he also put a cigar on the market ‘‘made exclusively by women.’’ 174 And the Streetcar Company of The Hague (Haagsche Tramweg Maatschappij) promised to put up free promotional posters for the exhibition in all of its trams.175 In the meantime, everyone involved in the event worked tirelessly, sometimes around the clock. According to Evolutie, the association had deployed ‘‘an army of intelligent women divided into twelve battalions,’’ who courageously and passionately fought ‘‘for that one, powerful factor of women’s emancipation: the economic independence of women.’’ 176 Who were these women? And what did they have in common? main protagonists The figureheads of the organization were Cecile Goekoop-de Jong van Beek en Donk and Marie Jungius (respectively aged thirty-two and thirty-four in 1898). Both were members of the central executive committee and the Regulation Committee; both were experienced lecturers who had reached a large audience through their writings. Goekoop, an aristocrat, was the more famous of the two because of the critical acclaim for her novel Hilda van Suylenburg. The book became a bestseller, reprinted four times in the first eighteen months. Goekoop definitely had the gift of the gab. Newspapers reported that her lectures captivated audiences all over the country. Even members of the executive committee were often swept up by her impassioned pleas, and many admired her tact.177 All evidence indicates that Goekoop’s charisma not only held together the internal organization but also drew in people from outside. The second figurehead, Jungius, was the daughter of a clergyman from Deventer. She was the brains behind the practical side of the exhibition. Six months before Goekoop’s novel saw the light of day, Jungius had published a brochure explaining the structure and goals of the exhibition in succinct, accessible prose. This brochure, her organization chart, the exhibition map, and the mountain of work she did for the prestigious Hall of Industry made her one of feminism’s rising stars. Like Goekoop, Jungius was called ‘‘the soul’’ of the exhibition more than once.178 While Goekoop was preoccupied with her divorce in 1899, Jungius energetically worked out an organizational blueprint for the National Bureau of Women’s Labor

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(Nationaal Bureau voor Vrouwenarbeid) to be established with the profits from the exhibition. The Netherlands’ most famous feminists—Aletta Jacobs and Wilhelmina Drucker—remained conspicuously absent from the enterprise. Although Jacobs in 1899 acknowledged that Hilda van Suylenburg and the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor had given a significant impetus to the Dutch women’s movement,179 she had not gotten involved in the event. Most remarkably, she did not even become a member or donor. Jacobs spent the summer of 1898 cycling through England with her husband, also a feminist. They had left on July 18. Perhaps they saw the exhibition before they crossed the Channel, but there is not a shred of evidence that Jacobs had any interest in the exhibition. Her only, rather tenuous, connection to the exhibition was the display of her writings, including her doctoral thesis, in the library.180 Wilhelmina Drucker had shown great interest from the start. Even though she formally remained uninvolved in the organization, her magazine Evolutie promoted the exhibition extensively.181 During the exhibition conferences, she spoke up many times, though she was never an official lecturer.182 She carried out no administrative or executive tasks for the exhibition. Drucker obviously considered the events in The Hague very important, but as a journalist she wanted the distance to report on it independently. Her reports in Evolutie were committed but critical. Not only newcomers organized the exhibition; several established names from the Dutch women’s movement invested their time and effort. Among them counted veterans like Elise Haighton, Anna van Hogendorp, and Hendrina Scholten-Commelin, as well as women in their thirties and forties such as Martina Kramers, Dora Schook-Haver, and Annette Versluys-Poelman. It hardly comes as a surprise that 65 percent of the approximately two hundred central organizers were unmarried and that they averaged forty years of age.183 Our study, therefore, confirms the notion that the modern women’s movement in the Netherlands owes its existence largely to unmarried women over the marriageable age.184 Remarkably, 15 percent of all organizers employed during the exhibition were mothers. One of them gave birth shortly before the opening and went right back to work. This was the (clearly indefatigable) Clazina Dekker-Fortanier, president of the Industry Committee.185 Although the exhibition marked a changing of the guard as a new generation of women sought to enter the public domain, the event also served

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as a bridge between the pioneers of the movement and modern feminists. Old tactics mingled with new ideas and practices. As Goekoop put it, the ‘‘bourgeois’’ met the ‘‘open-minded.’’ 186 In other respects, the exhibition organizers formed a fairly homogenous group. Almost all were members of the urban elite from the western and central parts of the Netherlands (the provinces of North- and SouthHolland, Utrecht, and Gelderland). Ten percent belonged to the Dutch aristocracy. Most came from families in the political elite (parliamentarians and cabinet ministers), the clergy, banking, the arts, music, education, journalism, and academia. Their families were often well-acquainted, and many were even relatives. Their backgrounds opened another channel to publicize the exhibition: many women (12 percent) worked in education (all of them unmarried); some were principals at home economics schools. Only two organizers came from the working classes: Roosje Vos, a seamstress, and Dientje Auwerda, who worked as a domestic servant. Although both Catholic and Jewish women took part, the majority of the organizers were (Dutch Reformed) Protestants. n

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In other words, the exhibition was not truly national because the organizers did not really cross the boundaries of class, religion, and ethnicity. Yet they did manage to attract a large and diverse female audience. This nationally focused forum also belonged to an international tradition of exhibitions and put its organizers in contact with the growing international women’s movement. Like most other nineteenth-century national exhibitions, this one confirmed class differences in an imperial context. Five hundred white women, mainly from a Protestant, upper-middle-class and aristocratic background, orchestrated an event where working-class women could be seen ironing, cutting diamonds, and rushing chairs. Javanese women could be seen dancing, weaving, and making batiks, while a Surinamese woman sold lemonade. The really extraordinary thing about this exhibition was that the organizers had put the differences between women on public display, creating conditions for a public debate that could address them.

CHAPTER 3 n

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In July of 1898, the showpiece of the women’s movement opened to the public. The exhibition had finally become a reality. In this chapter, we take a closer look at the opening ceremony, the arrangement and distribution of the exhibits, and the participants who contributed to them. In particular, we will focus on the Hall of Industry and the social work exhibits. Their layout—and the division of tasks between them—reveal the organizers’ views on social relations, labor, and citizenship. The organizers did not agree on everything, but like many of their contemporaries, they had an unshakable belief in progress and the benefits of modern industrial society. The resulting exhibition often failed to question the existing class differences between women. Taken as a whole, however, the event offered a counterrepresentation of gender that provided new insights, new even to the organizers themselves. THE OPENING CEREMONY

Overcast skies plagued The Hague on Saturday, July 9, 1898. It was not the bright summer day the organizers had hoped for. Nonetheless, there it stood, the fruit of often relentless labor: a building resembling a white ship, with a row of Dutch national flags proudly flapping in front of the facade. This was the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor in all its glory. The grounds outside were tidy, and inside the exhibits were ready and waiting. Hired hands and volunteers stood at their posts with the opening ceremony about to begin. Just before 1 p.m., six hundred invited guests entered the Conference Hall. The front rows were filled by the board, a representative of the royal court, the cabinet, the royal commissioner of the prov-

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ince of South-Holland, the municipal aldermen and councilmen of The Hague, military representatives, and members of the diplomatic corps. Behind these dignitaries sat the organizers, donors, and sympathizers. The audience waited until Pangeran Ario Mataram, the prince of Solo, donning the uniform of lieutenant colonel in the Royal Dutch East Indies Army, had taken his place. Then Cecile Goekoop-de Jong van Beek en Donk took to the stage; the organizers held their breath in anticipation.1 The president soon had the audience in the palm of her hand. As she spoke, she reflected on the effort that had created this ‘‘revelation’’ of strength and solidarity laid out before the community. She stressed that every committee had shown dedication and sacrifice when necessary. Even so, she admonished Dutch women of the ‘‘civilized classes’’ for being insufficiently committed to working for the community, and she ascribed this to their ‘‘one-dimensional’’ upbringing. Goekoop sternly added that even the organizers had not always had enough wisdom, knowledge, and experience to do the job; despite their willingness and enthusiasm, many had no idea what it meant ‘‘to work.’’ They had found themselves short of time, money, and sometimes staff, she admitted, but all the same ‘‘the idea of ‘taking responsibility for your job,’ of completing tasks in the fastest, most accurate, and intelligent way possible, despite potential obstacles or tempting diversions, this is what so many women lack.’’ 2 After briefly setting out the exhibition’s aims, President Goekoop went on to thank those who had helped the organization, in particular the queen and the queen regent who had ‘‘shown their High interest in this important national matter devoted to the interests of all Her Majesty’s female subjects.’’ 3 At no point in Cecile Goekoop’s speech did she, in keeping with his request, mention her husband. After she spoke, an eight-year-old girl— symbolizing hope for women’s future—was called to the stage to officially open the exhibition. When the applause had died down, composer Cornélie van Oosterzee came to the stage to conduct a performance of her own cantata for choir and orchestra. Its lyrics called on women to step out of the darkness: The light of free development, of science and art, the light of independence did not shine on her. Women dared not speak out loud; they bowed their heads before the night. And in their weakness they united, whispering still. But the light will shine, daylight will conquer days and night.4

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During the performance, the audience greeted the soprano solo with a loud ‘‘bravo.’’ Both the lyrics and musical score echoed the romantic grail motif from Wagner’s last opera Parsifal (1882), an allegory of Christianity’s triumph over ‘‘heathendom.’’ 5 After the closing fugue—with the lyrics ‘‘Listen, sisters, listen!’’—the performers received a standing ovation. As trumpets blared and the audience cheered, the composer and the lyricist were inundated with flowers. Next, Marie Jungius invited everyone present to follow her to the Hall of Industry where the female laborers were silently waiting in place. Then, when Jungius gave a sign, all the machines started thumping, clacking, humming, and ticking. Dressed in freshly starched aprons, the seamstresses, weavers, goldsmiths, diamond cutters, and typesetters began to use the tools of their trade. In one corner, a woman produced rushbottomed chairs, while another spun wool. From modern manufacturing to the traditional trades, all were united in the Hall of Industry, where machinery droned and rattled, but tidiness and order reigned. Moving away from the noise, the party continued through an adjacent arcade and the East Indies Exhibit to the outdoor Kampong Insulinde. President A. S. Lucardie-Daum of the East Indies Exhibit committee welcomed the dignitaries. She expressed hope that the exhibit would reflect the Dutch nation’s fondness for the East Indies.6 Then a Javanese gamelan began to play, and the guests went off to explore the kampong. Later they visited the Hall of Arts, which featured a portrait of Queen Wilhelmina in ceremonial dress painted by Thérèse Schwartze. After a marching band performed the Dutch national anthem, the grounds were opened to the general public, and large crowds soon filled the exhibition halls. THE EXHIBITION OF EXHIBITIONS

The casual visitor happening on the 1898 exhibition might well have found it confusing. Its exhibits varied greatly in size and constituted no coherent whole. Although the grounds were immaculately clean, the display of objects looked haphazard and somewhat stiff. To be fair, the same could be said of other expositions of that day; the art of effective displays simply had not yet been mastered.7 What made the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor special was what one newspaper called its ‘‘fluidity,’’ the special atmosphere that linked all its disparate components. This exhibition on the outskirts of The Hague was seen as a ‘‘trend exposition’’ whose importance

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lay in its very existence, rather than in its actual exhibits.8 Nonetheless, the exhibition’s exterior and interior both exuded a certain harmony and transparency. feminism per square foot The entire exhibition grounds covered 335,834 square feet, 63,507 of which were reserved for the Kampong Insulinde (18 percent of the total grounds). The forecourt featured a bandstand where a ladies’ music group performed, a small building where Blooker’s Cocoa products were sold, a portrait photographer’s tent, and concession stands offering dolls, cigars, and cookies for sale and distributing propaganda for the teetotalers.9 Marie Jungius had designated the two largest buildings as the main exhibition halls. The first and main room housed the Hall of Industry and Trade (14,639 square feet). Two parallel arcades connected it to the Conference Hall (5,511 square feet), which had a stage and a seating capacity of about 1,000; it was designed to hold conferences, lectures, contests, and performances.10 Jungius had roughly based her exhibition plan on the design of the 1891 Sports and Fishery Exhibition in The Hague.11 Instead of a covered courtyard, she had opted for an open one with a planted garden.12 On one side, the arcades provided a view of the courtyard garden, and on the other, they opened onto small exhibition rooms. Actual exposition space amounted to 32,819 square feet.13 The allocation of this floor space to the various exhibits clearly demonstrates the exhibition’s urban nature. No less than 15,166 square feet (46 percent) were devoted to industrial labor.14 Although many women still worked in agriculture, this sector was granted only 2,476 square feet (7.5 percent of total exhibition space). Government labor statistics from the following year, 1899, had shown that nearly the same number of women worked in agriculture as in industry.15 In fact, these statistics probably underestimated the number of women in the farming sector. They assumed that a married woman devoted most of her time to household chores unless her occupation was clearly independent from her husbands’ job. However, this did not reflect the lives of farming families. Family labor was very common on the small farms with poor soil in the northeastern and southern Netherlands, so women were probably responsible for a larger share of agricultural production than the statistics suggest.16 Yet the organizers flippantly justified the limited space devoted to agricultural exhibits with the assertion that ‘‘women’s labor in that field [is] always so subordinate that it is next to

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impossible to show much of this at an Exhibition of Women’s Labor.’’ 17 The organizers could not ignore dairy production, however, because this constituted a traditionally female field and a ‘‘truly national branch of industry’’ not put on display for years. Therefore, cheese and butter making were allotted the most space in the agricultural exhibit. But even there, the industrial side of dairy production received the greatest emphasis; the exhibit included a small-scale dairy factory featuring a separator powered by an electrical engine.18 The organizers clearly believed the future of most female workers lay in machine operation, in other words, in modern industrial labor. Originally, the exhibition organizers had intended to provide ample space for arts and home crafts, as was the tradition at women’s expositions.19 But after Jungius joined the organizers in November 1896, the exhibition’s emphasis shifted to productive labor: industry and trade, agriculture and dairy production, social work, education and the sciences, pharmacy, hygiene and nursing. The organizers were concerned that they would be unable to put together a high-quality arts and crafts exhibition. If everyone were free to contribute, protested one female artist, this would promote the quantity but not the ‘‘artistic content.’’ She suggested that the organizers ‘‘entirely eliminate’’ both categories.20 The organizers heeded her advice and integrated ‘‘aesthetics’’ into the exhibits of textiles and decorative art, flowers, the visual arts, and history. As a result, only four of the twenty-three exhibits were at least partly devoted to artistic forms of labor. The organizers did attempt to create aesthetically pleasing gardens and halls. They paid meticulous attention to the graphic design of panels, slogans, illustrative material, statistical graphs, exhibition posters, the letterhead, and all exhibition publications.21 Artist Cornelia van der Hart designed the logos used for the letterhead, catalogs, and Vrouwenarbeid newsletter; Suze Fokker designed the exhibition poster.22 Jan Toorop’s poster was designed only in late August and printed to promote the exhibition raffle.23 Although some of the rooms were too fully packed with exhibit material, the exhibition as a whole exuded a spacious atmosphere—exactly what the organizers had envisioned. taking the tour Most visitors arrived by steam tram. From the tram stop they walked to the ticket booth, through the turnstile, and into the forecourt. The main entrance and entrance hall led to the vaulted Hall of Industry. Its walls

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boasted optimistic slogans, such as ‘‘Labor is worth the pay’’ and ‘‘Love thy labor.’’ Unlike some of the smaller halls that many visitors probably skipped over, the Hall of Industry was a must-see exhibit teeming with activity. One national newspaper claimed it demonstrated ‘‘ ‘la morale en action’: not only women’s labor, but women at work.’’ 24 On Sundays the machines were switched off, and only the goldsmiths of the Jewish-owned Jacob B. Citroen firm and the Javanese in Kampong Insulinde continued to work. There is no evidence that Jewish and Islamic Sabbath days were taken into account.25 On weekdays, the beam machine boomed, hands flashed through the looms, quick feet worked the iron treadle while axles and wheels spun. This industrial setting immediately told visitors that they had not come to see an exposition of embroidery and other handicrafts. A large industry poster and other visual overviews displayed the numbers of women employed in industry, trade, and agriculture. These statistics and the physical presence of female laborers and working machinery greatly surprised and impressed many visitors. The Hall of Industry soon became ‘‘the temple of labor.’’ 26 The Hall of Industry displayed the contributions of ninety participating factories and workshops, nineteen of which included live demonstrations by some sixty women and a few men in total.27 As elsewhere in the exhibition, the laborers worked six days a week, eight and a half hours per day (including breaks). The Industry Committee, headed by Clazina DekkerFortanier, feverishly had had to negotiate with various participants about the layout of all the machines, tools, laborers, and objects that had to be crammed into one hall. Of course, every participant vied for the best spot, and the result could not possibly have satisfied them all. To visitors, the layout of the hall appeared imposing yet quite cluttered. Many found themselves confused and overwhelmed by the sheer abundance of impressions there.28 In the center of the Hall of Industry, beside displays of glass and copperware, light bulbs, tropical helmets for the Dutch East Indies Army, and ties, three female employees of J. H. Molkenboer’s company operated the looms, bobbin winders, and warping mills manufactured by Tattersall & Holdsworth Globe Works. The three weavers, alongside eight girls operating Singer sewing machines, worked in a cordoned-off and well-lit area. Elsewhere in the same hall, workers demonstrated traditional crafts. To the right of the entrance, several women made rush-bottomed chairs, while another spun wool on a spinning wheel. Further on, visitors could see five

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women manufacturing gimping, another two working a small machinepowered ribbon loom, four diamond cutters, and a display of jewels. There were also eight young girls from a carpet factory hoisting and lowering a heavy block that compacted the woolen threads of their rugs. In the same part of the hall, there was a typist, a watchmaker, and a woman mending fishing nets. The back right-hand corner was reserved for the printer, his wife, two girls, and two apprentices who operated Vrede Printer’s presses, typesetting machines, and cutting machines. The agricultural contributions, including a steam-heated incubator, various products, and photographs, came to the immediate left of the entrance. In the back, visitors could observe the skills of a cigar maker, a cobbler, an engraver, a woman working a handloom, and three goldsmiths. Also off to the left were two separate rooms: an exhibit of sports and gymnastics and another on trade. After this busy section, visitors could exit the Hall of Industry to the left or right. To allow smooth traffic, organizers asked them to continue their tour through the right-hand arcade. Supervisors and members of various committees were on hand to answer visitors’ questions. The first exhibit on the right, Dairy Production, demonstrated cheese and butter making in minute detail. One women’s magazine wrote that the pale cheesemaker in no way resembled the stereotypical rosy-cheeked Dutch farm girl. The complexion of her ‘‘pinched face’’ was likened to the pale yellow fluid she had to stir for hours on end. ‘‘It’s as tedious as darning,’’ commented one kindly woman onlooker. But the writer of the article disagreed, describing the work as far more tiring and monotonous.29 The next exhibits were devoted to medicine: Chemical Research and Pharmacy, Nursing, Science, Doctors and Midwives. The space included a complete replica of a pharmacy and a small pharmaceutical laboratory full of test tubes, microscopic slides, and instruments submitted by female pharmacists and pharmacy students. Visitors could watch a woman pharmacist and a certified pharmacy assistant go about their tasks.30 The Nursing Exhibit was housed in a spacious room displaying photographs, books, nursing equipment, an antique delivery room, and a field hospital with a first aid doll on a cot belonging to the ‘‘Red Cross Women’s Committee.’’ A list showed the names of active Dutch nurses, their education, and the sectors in which they worked.31 The next room contained the Hygiene Exhibit, where visitors learned how women’s labor could be used to combat human suffering and social injustice. Here too, maxims and rhymes decorated the walls. One such

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verse, hung over a demonstration washbasin, read: ‘‘Grime on your skin so fair, makes you a chimney that can draw no air.’’ 32 The next exhibit, the Kitchen and Home Economics School, included a model kitchen and classroom. The kitchen was used to give open lessons to ‘‘ladies,’’ domestic servants, deaf-mutes, sailors, and soldiers, while the classroom was used to teach theory, notably on nutrition. Beyond this exhibit was the Vegetarian Restaurant, which drew a few curious visitors but was generally passed by in favor of the following exhibit on the West Indies. There, visitors met Louise Yda, a black woman from Paramaribo in the Dutch colony of Surinam. Donning a koto, the traditional dress of the Creoles of Surinam, Yda ‘‘had a kind word—in Dutch—for everyone,’’ as one national newspaper commented with surprise.33 The next room housed the Social Work Exhibit, which depicted women’s battle against the moral and material evils of poverty, alcoholism, and prostitution. The quiet Reading Room with its photography exhibit provided visitors with a break from all the bustle. A restaurant next door sold food and drink. At this point in the tour, visitors had arrived at the far side of the inner courtyard. Here, directly across the courtyard from the Hall of Industry, the arcade opened onto a vestibule leading to the Conference Hall. The vestibule was flanked by a cloakroom, a post office run by female postal workers, and a press room.34 The Conference Hall was used for serious lectures and debates, musical and theatrical performances, chess matches, and dance and bicycle demonstrations. Before circling back through the other arcade, visitors could enter a small, separate building off to the right that housed the Historical Exhibit. Under the slogan ‘‘Woman’s Virtue is Her Offspring’s Pride,’’ the exhibit displayed a national history of women consisting of ‘‘the Religious, Home and Social Life of Dutch Women, including professional and business women.’’ 35 The sheer number of objects and images here might have overwhelmed visitors, but the exhibit proved historiographically unique. ‘‘Religious Life’’ showed paintings of medieval convents, beguinages, and portraits of spiritual women. The Social Life Exhibit was devoted to the queens and princesses of the House of Orange, countesses, governesses, and pioneers of the women’s movement. The exhibit included handwritten and printed works by famous Dutch women writers such as Anna Maria van Schurman. Also on display were eighteenth-century letters, christening dresses, regional costumes, spinning wheels, children’s hats, and toys.36

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Circling back through the left arcade, visitors came to the Visual Arts Exhibit, which displayed the work of famous Dutch artists like the Schwartze sisters and Sientje Mesdag-van Houten. Continuing further down the arcade, they passed the Flower Exhibit, the conservatory, and the Clothing Exhibit displaying prizewinning costumes. Then they arrived at the Crafts display, which showcased samples of simple home industry and offered for sale promotional crafts souvenirs: bookmarks, pin cushions, and book covers imprinted with the words ‘‘National Exhibition of Women’s Labor.’’ 37 Halfway down the left arcade visitors found the East Indies Exhibit. This room, which opened onto Kampong Insulinde, surprised visitors with its richly embroidered drapes, blue walls with decorative paintings, dark red cabinets, and unusual objects. From there, they could opt to follow the sounds of the gamelan and explore the East Indies village beyond, or continue down the arcade to the Textile and Decorative Arts Exhibit, which included a display of vestments from various convents. The next three rooms housed exhibits on the Industry School, education, and needlework training. These rooms contained mainly books, brochures, statistics, and needlework samplers. The tour ended at the Washing, Drying, and Ironing exhibit. In this laundry, machines were constantly washing, rinsing, and spinning. Dirty napkins, aprons, and tea towels brought in by exhibition workers and private customers were cleaned, ironed by the twelve ‘‘ironing girls,’’ and then delivered to their owners’ homes. participants The various exhibits, excluding Kampong Insulinde, were made possible by the participation of some 1,400 participants who had submitted machinery, tools, products, photographs, or people.38 As we saw in chapter 2, the various subcommittees had gone to great lengths to secure the cooperation of businesses, institutions, associations, and private individuals. Obviously, getting a working pharmacy on the premises took a different approach from setting up a historical exhibit or arranging flowers and plants for a display. Therefore one committee would contact hospitals, while another ferreted out archives, and a third was busy calling on nurseries. The board drew up job contracts for those hired to work for the exhibition participants.39 All other agreements—about the objects to be displayed, the allocated floor space, transport, insurance, sales premiums, and contract negotiations—were handled by the individual section committees within the bounds of centrally established rules.

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The Industry Committee had made by far the greatest achievement. Its showcase, the Hall of Industry, housed the largest and most dangerous displays. Soon after its inception, the Industry Committee requested information from the Labor Inspectorate. This institution sent them a list of 3,000 companies that employed female workers. These figures formed the basis of the large industry map drawn up by Marie Jungius and displayed in the Hall of Industry.40 Jungius’s next step was to select 380 professions in which women worked according to the 1889 government labor statistics. She collated this information with data compiled for the 1889 Labor Law, figures from Labor Inspectorate reports, the 1890 labor survey, and data from local chambers of commerce throughout the Netherlands. In addition, Suze Groshans supplied Jungius with data from the government Central Statistics Commission.41 Using all this information, Jungius created a national inventory of female labor also ultimately displayed in the Hall of Industry. The Industry Committee’s next step was to write to the women’s employers to gather more detailed information about their working conditions. Jungius initially intended to provide a comprehensive graph of women’s wages, but she ran out of time. According to Jungius, the Hall of Industry exhibit aimed to present a few facts, to rouse interest, and ‘‘to acquaint the public with’’ the idea that women were already employed in all sorts of professions.42 This was the angle taken in the simple ninequestion survey sent out in July 1897 to the 3,000 companies employing women.43 The Industry Committee clearly placed great emphasis on statistical information about women’s labor, as did several other committees, notably the committees on trade and education, which were also headed by Jungius. The Education Committee even had a separate Education Statistics Group to chart female teachers’ salaries, working hours, and labor conditions.44 Not only did these data provide an excellent basis for selecting participants; they were also collected and combined into overviews then made ‘‘public.’’ In various exhibits and catalogs, visitors could consult the line and bar graphs, tables and charts that provided concise information about the women who worked in professions, social work, health care, and philanthropy.45 The organizers hoped the objects on display, the live demonstrations, and the statistics would serve as an instant eye-opener to the unaware visitor. Like the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, the 1898 National Exhibition of Women’s Labor used statistics to legitimize the re-

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forms it hoped to instigate. This modern research method gave the nation a window on women’s working conditions. Thanks to statistical data, all citizens—male and female—could see for themselves whether these conditions were just. In Dutch politics, the liberals had been calling for the use of statistics to improve the quality of public opinion.46 Through statistical data, women’s labor issues became a new item on the agenda of public debate. This approach underwent professionalization in 1901, when the Dutch National Bureau for Women’s Labor was established under the leadership of Marie Jungius. The Industry Committee had great expectations for the questionnaires mailed in July 1897. In September, President Clazina Dekker-Fortanier enthusiastically reported to the president of the chamber of commerce in The Hague: ‘‘Some local industrialists have already agreed to participate, and a few have even shown interest in allowing their female employees to demonstrate their tasks at the exhibition. We prefer the latter because it attracts a great deal of attention and will best further our goal of opening more companies to women and allowing them to make a living.’’ 47 Despite her optimism, only fifty companies actually responded. Therefore, two hundred company managers were approached again, this time with a personal letter. Jungius later recalled that it took ‘‘thousands of questionnaires, personal letters, and visits . . . to get a result.’’ 48 This ordeal resembled the experiences of the women in Chicago, who had also faced great difficulties persuading manufacturers to contribute to the Woman’s Building.49 As it turned out, Dutch companies hesitated to participate in the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor because of gender stereotypes: they feared losing customers if it became known that their products were made by women, or they were afraid customers would demand lower prices because women could work for lower wages. One of the exhibition’s correspondents suspected cigar manufacturers in her part of the country of hiding the fact that they employed women. The cigar makers insisted they only employed men, while it was public knowledge that many married women helped out their husbands in the factories.50 But the Industry Committee was not easily deterred. For example, Diderica Molijn-de Groot, one of the committee’s particularly active members, single-handedly sent out letters to seven hundred company managers in the northern provinces.51 Diderica Molijn was a socialist and one of the exhibition organizers. She was also a participant in the Hall of Industry. Along with her hus-

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band, Molijn headed the Veluwe Society (Maatschappij Veluwe), a cooperative that included a chemical factory, a laboratory, a dairy, and a laundry.52 In the Hall of Industry, they exhibited various types of paint. François A. Molijn Jr. came from a Rotterdam family of varnish manufacturers specializing in Japanese lacquer. In 1895, he and Diderica had left the flourishing family business to found their cooperative in the eastern part of the Netherlands. Their idealistic aim was to create ‘‘better working conditions for men and women.’’ 53 The cooperative stood out with its effort to treat male and female workers as equals, for Diderica Molijn was a strong advocate of women’s emancipation. She also played an important role in the local chapter of the National League against Alcohol Abuse (Volksbond tegen Alcoholmisbruik), and later helped to found the local Adult Education Center. By the spring of 1898, three hundred questionnaires had been returned to the Industry Committee, and the selection process began. The committee applied three exposition criteria: the companies had to be Dutch, they had to employ women or be willing to employ them, and the manufacturing process had to be innovative or interesting (basic manual labor and overly familiar labor was not included). The first criterion was fairly selfevident. The first circular appealed to ‘‘the Residents of the Netherlands’’ to support this ‘‘national cause’’ as best they could. Dutch women were called on to contribute the products of their labor, and the organizers hoped participants ‘‘would feel, by delivering the best work they were capable of, that they paid the ‘highest tribute’ to the young woman about to set foot on such a large field of labor, our young Queen Wilhelmina.’’ 54 Under the second criterion, priority was given to factories that employed women only—for instance an Arnhem cologne factory headed by a widow. The owner said it was the only Dutch factory whose products, even the packaging, were all manufactured by ‘‘civilized’’ young girls. Her eau de cologne and perfumes were displayed in a glass case in the Hall of Industry, and her eighteen-year-old daughter demonstrated the manufacture of hair lotion and toothpaste.55 A perfect example of the third criterion, a modern manufacturing process, was the Van den Bergh shoe factory in the southern city of ’s-Hertogenbosch, which employed two hundred women and girls. The president of the ’s-Hertogenbosch chapter of the Industry Committee tried everything to convince Van den Bergh to take part in the exhibition, but tem-

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porarily moving the sizeable production process simply proved too costly and the company declined.56 n

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In order to facilitate the placement of contributions in the Hall of Industry, the Industry Committee sent Marie Sparnaay to various factories and workshops in May and June 1898. She traveled to the cities of Gouda, Delft, Leiden, Arnhem, Nijmegen, ’s-Hertogenbosch, Dordrecht, and Amsterdam. Sparnaay was considered eminently qualified to assess whether companies were suitable participants in the exhibition. In 1881, at the age of twentyfive, this teacher’s daughter started doing social work with factory workers in Leiden—much to the dismay of her parents.57 She studied the employees’ working conditions and home situation. Sparnaay had a certification to teach needlework, and some enlightened factory owners asked her to teach the skill to their factory girls in the evenings. Before long, she had set up a night school with one hundred women. Sparnaay also helped her students renovate their squalid homes and taught them to cook. She wrote about her experiences in The Life and Times, the Suffering and Struggling of Our Factory Workers (1898), a moralistic dime novel probably printed at the exhibition. Sparnaay must have been a hardworking if somewhat naively idealistic woman. After her factory visits, she enthusiastically reported on the various types of women’s labor she came across.58 Her reports are steeped in optimism about modern industrial society, but she seemed unaware that modern industry only offered fairly well-paid job opportunities to middleclass women, not those belonging to the working classes. She collected her findings in a special Hall of Industry catalog, available to visitors under the title Souvenir. It provided a detailed description of each contribution displayed in the hall. Because of her experience, the industrious Sparnaay became one of the main supervisors of the Hall of Industry.59 From letters, questionnaire responses, and reports on factory visits, the organizers discovered another reason why some companies refused to participate. Aside from simple prejudice and a reluctance to disclose low wages and poor conditions, there was also a fear of revealing trade secrets. For this reason, Sparnaay was sometimes denied access to a factory altogether, for example a bottle cap factory.60 It was also why the manager

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of a Leerdam glass factory declined to put the production process on display and would only contribute glass made by factory girls.61 Still, nearly one hundred businesses willingly participated and were represented in the Hall of Industry. A quarter of these participants were female entrepreneurs, mostly widows. One interesting participant was the widow Hermanna Elisabeth Molkenboer-Trip, owner of a linen and cotton factory in Oldenzaal.62 She would later be chosen to manufacture linen for Queen Wilhelmina’s wedding in 1901. Her factory employed not only men but also sixty-seven women. The factory girls were taught needlework at a convent three times a week, a course paid for by the company. The widow sent three of her female workers to the exhibition. The three had to work fifty-one hours per week in the Hall of Industry, instead of the customary fifty-five at the factory. In cooperation with Tattersall & Holdsworth Globe Works, Molkenboer-Trip sent various textile manufacturing machines to The Hague. Tattersall & Holdsworth Globe Works bore responsibility for the transport of heavy equipment to the exhibition and ultimately proved crucial to the success of the Hall of Industry. Tattersall & Holdsworth Globe Works equipment manufacturers produced warp dressing, dyeing, and bleaching machines for the textile industry. The company was owned and run by John Tattersall, a self-made former textile worker from Burnley, near Manchester in England. In 1876, he moved to the Dutch city of Enschede, near the German border, and imported British textile machinery under the name Tattersall & Holdsworth. In 1881, he married a German woman.63 In 1888, he and his half-brother Richard Holdsworth started their own machine factory, which rapidly expanded in the 1890s. In 1897, the Enschede factory employed more than a hundred people, and the brothers opened a second factory across the border in Gronau, Germany. Tattersall’s talent lay mainly in warp dressing. Prior to weaving, the warp yarn was dressed with a starchy paste. The sized yarn could then be used as a warp thread on the power looms without breaking as the weft yarn shuttles shot back and forth. Tattersall was responsible for several inventions and innovations in this field. The dynamic Englishman was also a mechanical engineer who designed and built entire textile factories, from the steam engines down to the workbenches, in the eastern Dutch province of Twente and Germany’s Westphalia and Hannover provinces. Tattersall was also personally involved in the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor. After reaching an agreement with Molkenboer-Trip, he

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oversaw the placement of various weft-winding machines, power looms, and spinning frames in the Hall of Industry.64 He also reached an agreement with Singer sewing machine manufacturer to turn woven fabrics into clothes at the exhibition. The photographs show the workers wearing aprons made from cloth woven in the Hall of Industry. There were eight machine-powered Singer sewing machines and twenty-six treadle Singers.65 Tattersall himself provided much needed supervision; he oversaw the placement of heavy machinery and instructed workers on how to operate the machines. One organizer worried that the workers lacked expertise. She felt the girls in the laundry were ‘‘totally incapable of handling machinery’’ because they had not yet received ‘‘calm instructions.’’ She especially dreaded the big wringing machine.66 Tattersall not only instructed the workers before the opening but was personally present a few days a week for the duration of the exhibition to check on the machines and answer questions.67 It is particularly interesting that this factory owner showed so much personal interest in the exhibition because he was not new to the game. He had also participated in the 1883 World Exposition in Amsterdam, for instance. His wife was a member of the Exhibition Association, but there is no record of what role she played. Obviously, Tattersall had a commercial interest in the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor. Like other participants, he hoped to attract prospective buyers. After the exhibition, he used pictures taken during the event as promotional material. Tattersall included five pictures of the equipment he put on display at the exhibition in a company photo album. Among these is the photograph showing the Surinamese Louise Yda and two factory workers from Twente standing between the power looms. Tattersall also published an English-language brochure entitled Cotton from Field to Fabric. In this he described the global system of the cotton industry: from the harvest on American plantations to the factory work done by women in the Netherlands. The brochure is optimistic, even somewhat feminist, in tone: ‘‘The National Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid marks a notable event in the history of Holland, namely the assumption for the first time of the regal position, power, and privileges by a woman.’’ Although Tattersall overstated the role of Queen Wilhelmina and her mother in the organization of the exhibition, his message was clear: ‘‘The enlightened interest her Majesty and her Royal Mother have always taken in efforts to promote the well-being of her people, and especially of the female portion, is shown by the patronage she

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has so graciously accorded to this Exhibition, one of the primary purposes of which is to bring before the inspection of the community the details of industries specially adaptable for female employment.’’ 68 Cotton from Field to Fabric praised the ‘‘light and simple’’ labor that women performed in cotton factories, suggesting that it increased the wealth of the nation. The brochure’s photographs show that huge numbers of black women worked in cotton fields, but the text does not even hint at the abominable working conditions on plantations both before and after the abolishment of slavery. n

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A great variety of organizations, businesses, and individuals took part in the exhibition. Not only did they vary in nature and size; they also had different reasons for participating. While some had volunteered, others were invited by the Industry Committee. The Industry Committee also commissioned the sculpting of a statue depicting a barrow woman hauling bricks to be placed in the Hall of Industry. The idea was born when the committee discovered that the task of assistant bricklayer—hauling and stacking bricks—was derided as a ‘‘woman’s job’’ in the province of South-Holland.69 The statue was intended as an indictment of this contemptuous attitude. Suze Groshans turned to the director of the Academy of Visual Arts in The Hague, who suggested sculptor Minca Bosch Reitz. To prepare herself, Bosch Reitz visited brick factories to see women at work. The resulting work of art, modeled after women at a brick factory near Nieuwerkerk aan de IJssel,70 deeply impressed visitors. Several feminist memoirs recalled the barrow woman with awe.71 The organizers cleverly made use of the stake that businesses, institutions, and prominent individuals had in the exhibition, notably, status and name recognition. One Rotterdam-based firm exhibited a Hammond typewriter in the Industry Hall, allowing the organizers to use it for all their typing. From May 1897 onward, all official correspondence mailed by the organizers included the statement ‘‘typewritten on a Hammond Typewriter.’’ 72 Several participants submitted photographs of their factories or premises as promotional material. In some cases, the organizers had requested this—of Verkade confectionery works, for example, or Chabot & Andres coffee roasters, and the Society for the Preservation of Food Products.73 In the hall, pictures of clean production facilities and neatly dressed

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factory girls were hung side by side with photographs of women working in brick factories doing a ‘‘man’s’’ job—and dressed accordingly. The organizers tried to make visitors aware of their own prejudices, in this case by revealing the diversity of women’s labor and negating the distinction between men’s and women’s work. To emphasize the serious, noncommercial nature of the exhibition, the organizers had decided not to award any medals. In retrospect, this may not have proven a very good move, because medals would have made for ideal mementos and lent a certain status to prizewinning participants. Many winners proudly proclaimed their medals from other expositions, specifying the event and date on their official letterheads.74 Despite the decision not to award medals, contests were held. The Industry Committee held a competition for ‘‘healthy and practical yet tasteful women’s clothing.’’ Contestants were to submit a complete set of ‘‘rational’’ undergarments and three types of outerwear: working clothes, leisure wear, and evening attire.75 When the exhibition closed, the Industry Committee decided to present all participating manufacturers with a certificate of honor as an expression of thanks for their cooperation.76 For many participants, direct profit motivated their taking part in the exhibition. They used the event not only to display but also to sell products. The exhibition benefited directly from this: in exchange for the facilities, the organization took a 10 percent commission from the sale of goods and services. This turned out to be quite profitable. Mats, plates, glassware, and earthenware were fast-selling items. A manufacturer of coronation insignia emerged as one of the top retailers, selling thousands of products. The laundry also made a substantial profit delivering cleaned and ironed bed linen to boarding houses in The Hague. A female engraver successfully sold small exhibition medals engraved with the buyer’s own name. Many visitors also purchased bottles of eau de cologne. Tradewise, the exhibition did well.77 But how did the workers and saleswomen themselves fare? CLASS DIVISIONS IN THE HALL OF INDUSTRY

‘‘There is a happy atmosphere in our Hall of Industry. Everything is alive and buzzing with power and energy,’’ Suze Groshans rejoiced in Vrouwenarbeid, the exhibition newsletter. To her, Tattersall’s power looms represented a miracle. She saw mystique in the workings of the generators, triumph in the hissing of the steam engines, and, in the Hall of Industry

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itself, ‘‘a cathedral of labor.’’ In Groshans’s eyes, the workers were the gears of a perpetually moving, living machine.78 Yet the organizers were aware that the companies represented in the hall were the rare few with generally favorable working conditions.79 The participants could not possibly constitute a representative cross section of working women. In a series of articles published with Groshans in Vrouwenarbeid, Jungius acknowledged that work ‘‘in the real world’’ was much heavier and unfit for public viewing at an exposition. While the women rolling cigars in the Hall of Industry looked ‘‘well,’’ for instance, many cigar factories employed men and women who ‘‘appeared unhealthy or even sickly.’’ One correspondent suggested conducting an inquiry into the health effects of cigar making. She also recommended that cigar makers at the exhibition wear masks to block dust. As far as we know, neither of these recommendations was followed.80 Another manufacturer had warned the organization that a woman could not knead butter or bend over a cheese vat all day long. Jungius brushed this aside, however, exclaiming triumphantly that visitors could see with their own eyes how ‘‘cheerful’’ the cheesemakers looked.81 Although the live labor and statistics displayed by the Industry Committee were not complete enough to warrant any final conclusions, Jungius saw a gender-specific pattern in the Dutch labor market: men usually processed raw materials either chemically or mechanically, while the finishing, handling, and packaging of products was almost exclusively a women’s domain.82 Whether the former was ‘‘a man’s job’’ and the latter ‘‘a woman’s,’’ remained a moot point, however. Jungius preferred having machines do as much of the heavy work as possible, especially the physically demanding work of weaving. She also warned against the selfishness of men ‘‘who exclude women wherever they might become competitors.’’ Furthermore, she felt, women had to decide for themselves what sort of work they found suitable.83 In the Hall of Industry, women’s labor was displayed in order to foster a ‘‘sense of shared responsibility,’’ since many ladies enjoyed a life of comfort, oblivious to the sacrifices made by factory and workshop employees to make that possible.84 One wonders whether the Industry Committee realized its own paradox: that in demonstrating women’s labor, it perpetuated the process of exploitation. In their zeal to open up all professions and jobs to women, Jungius and Groshans painted too rosy a picture of working conditions in the Hall of Industry. The hall was meant to display clean and modern work, not to reflect the harsh conditions of factories and workshops. How-

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ever, reality encroached on the exhibition anyway since ‘‘real’’ employees working for ‘‘real’’ manufacturers and patrons participated. So when young teenagers were put to work in the Hall of Industry, it could hardly escape the label of exploitation. Those working for the carpet factory were very young indeed. Eight girls, aged twelve to fourteen years, were hired to hoist and lower the heavy compactor block.85 Several others were barely sixteen.86 The Industry Committee never took a clear stand on this dilemma. During preparations for the exhibition, opinions on this issue were divided. Discord also existed on other matters, for instance the slogans displayed in the Hall of Industry. Some organizers wanted to use slogans propagating the link between citizenship and the virtue of productivity. Reasoning that the poor were at least partly to blame for their own plight, they planned to hang up a banner reading ‘‘Whoever does not work, shall not eat.’’ This met great resistance from left-wing liberal and socialist organizers, who found support in Henriette Roland Holst-van der Schalk’s antiexhibition propaganda.87 One organizer indignantly wrote to the Industry Committee: Does the entrance to the Hall of Industry read ‘‘whoever does not work, shall not eat’’? . . . Why this negative approach to work? Why represent it as a threat for all to escape hunger? Why not mention the beauty, the constructiveness of labor and industriousness? Industriousness and work are the cornerstones of all earthly happiness. So, if one wants to exalt something in a motto, than let it be the intrinsic value of labor first and foremost, the self-satisfaction it brings. And then its usefulness should be mentioned and lastly its joy! That pessimistic maxim can only demoralize those girls working in the Hall of Industry who have to devote all their time and effort to working for a living, while its goal should be to uplift. The opponent in question had already said that it should actually read: ‘‘We work twice as hard so that others can eat.’’ 88 Perhaps the motto ended up in a corner somewhere, because it received no further mention in the press except by socialist Floor Wibaut. He scoffed that the maxim would have fit nicely with the sweatshop display in the Social Work Exhibit because irony and sarcasm proved most effective when accompanied by illustration.89 Balancing between a ‘‘harsh reality’’ and the ideal construct of women’s

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labor was a tricky business. This became clear when the organizers began negotiating contracts with the participants and arranging housing for factory workers. Problems arose, sometimes because committee members lacked the necessary tact or managerial skills and sometimes due to active resistance. In both cases, the Industry Committee could be quite awkward. A letter of complaint from a cobbler’s employer, about the fact that her employee had to pay in advance for lodgings in The Hague, lends evidence to this gaucherie: Dear Miss Groshans, In response to my letter to the Director of the ‘‘home’’ at the gr. Hertoginnelaan, I received word from Mrs. de Fremery-Hisser last night that C. D. has to pay for her stay in advance. I am sorry that I did not know this any sooner, as I would have asked for a larger loan for her. Her journey, purchasings, tools, clothes (I myself had to secure underwear for her, since she would have been short of those), used up all of the ten guilders I received. As I mentioned before, she is poor and cannot save anything from her small earnings, and now it appears that she must pay five guilders just to enter this boarding house—which she does not have. So there is no alternative but for me to lend (or give) her the amount. It will not come as a surprise to you that I am far from pleased by the costs that I am incurring from this matter after all this correspondence about it when it is not really my responsibility. I have to work for a living too; just like other women and girls. Please do not hold this letter against me. Yours faithfully, J. van Buuren.90 The letter illustrates the organizers’ painful lack of insight into the socioeconomic circumstances of employees in the Hall of Industry. Clearly, the workers’ interests did not always coincide with those of the organizers, to whom a successful exhibition was most important. A warning by an Industry Committee correspondent not to let the laundry girls operate the wringers and other machines at the July 9 opening exemplified another such instance. She felt this sort of activity would be ‘‘very dangerous’’ in such crowded conditions and was ‘‘dead set against’’ risking an accident: ‘‘Just imagine an accident with a female worker at the Exhibition; everything would be ruined. Mr. de Vries [the laundry boss] suffers, I feel, from a lack of responsibility in this.’’ 91 But it is difficult to say exactly who held responsibility for such problems. Although no mechanical accidents occurred during the exhibition, the Hall of Industry did experience two labor

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conflicts: a short-lived strike by carpet factory girls and the early departure of the diamond cutters. strike Among the youngest exhibition employees were eight carpet factory workers who demonstrated the manufacturing of woolen Smyrna carpets. It remains a mystery why the Industry Committee invited the company run by J. G. Mouton to take part in the event. His interest in participating was clear; it was an opportunity to promote his durable, elegant carpets by displaying them publicly and advertising them in Marie Sparnaay’s catalog. Sparnaay had visited the factory and concluded that the new manager was doing his best to help the girls develop into good employees. It was no easy task, she wrote, because ‘‘factory workers in Amersfoort are among the most uncivilized, least developed folk and indulge in all the evils associated with a city where hundreds of military men are stationed.’’ If Sparnaay was impressed that the young girls could operate such heavy machinery and beams, she certainly managed to conceal how she felt. She called the girls ‘‘recalcitrant’’ when they refused to join her for a stroll on their lunch hour. Sparnaay reserved her admiration for the employer who managed to organize their tasks. It seems Sparnaay was primarily concerned with revealing the ‘‘rich scope of labor’’ that lay open to Amersfoort’s middle-class women if they found the energy and skills to keep factory girls off the streets.92 The girls were lodged in a guest house where many exhibition workers had found low-cost accommodation. Because they had never before taken the train and would travel from far away to stay in a strange city for several weeks, the organizers feared they would be ‘‘exposed to all manners of temptation.’’ Therefore, they decided, these girls needed moral protection.93 Furnishing the guest house had been a penny-pinching affair. The weekly Sociaal weekblad sneered when the organizers ran newspaper ads soliciting donations to pay for furnishings. The paper called it disgraceful to put on a display of women’s labor while allowing employees’ lodgings to depend on the ‘‘charity’’ that could be ‘‘drummed up’’ under the pretext of protecting the girls from the temptations of the big city.94 The organizers mainly felt responsible for protecting the morality of the workers and had sought assistance from the Dutch Women’s League for the Advancement of Moral Awareness. Working conditions were felt to be the employers’ responsibility. As long as the girls looked prim and proper in their neat uniforms, the organizers were happy; no one asked

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whether the workers received adequate pay. And they did not, as Betje de Beer-Lazarus later admitted. The girls ‘‘earned’’ 6.25 guilders a week, part of which went directly to the guest house and to their parents. The girls themselves received a quarter for six days of work. De Beer-Lazarus, one of the few organizers to have personally spoken to the girls, explained to the Industry Committee president that it did not suffice to survive on in a strange city.95 To make matters worse, one of the girls, a thirteen-yearold, fell ill, they were not allowed to go out without a chaperone, and at the first sign of ‘‘obstinacy,’’ they were threatened with removal from the exhibition. Irritation mounted steadily. On August 17, the Amersfoort carpet workers went on strike. They demanded better pay and marched out of the hall. Naturally, the image of young girls on strike did not fit the organizers’ wishes as to how to illustrate women’s labor. And to their dismay, the conflict made the national newspapers as well.96 A factory supervisor was quickly brought in from Amersfoort to mediate.97 She said the grievances behind the strike were based on a misunderstanding. By the next day, all eight girls were back at work. This did not stop the socialists from claiming that this carpet manufacturing firm practiced the ‘‘shameless exploitation of children’’: ‘‘Honestly, ladies and gentlemen, visitors to the Exhibition of Women’s Labor . . . I assure you that in the Hall of Industry soft, downy carpets are made with the blood and sweat of almost totally demoralized children.’’ 98 Afterward, factory manager Mouton wrote the exhibition board a letter asking them to convey his special thanks to ‘‘the lady supervisors in the Hall of Industry’’ for their ‘‘kind treatment of the personnel of our factory.’’ 99 Remarkably, the youngest employees of the exhibition had staged the strike. Unlike the diamond cutters, they did not have a strong union tradition. In many other respects, they did not fit the image of the modern factory worker. At the exhibition they were treated as nameless objects of moral concern, a role they managed to escape for one day. What prompted them to strike is unknown, but perhaps they were influenced by a group of socialists who protested to the supervisor when they learned of the ‘‘shamefully low wages’’ the girls received. According to them, the ‘‘poor little workers’’ had remained silent—they were not allowed to speak with visitors—but were pleased that someone had lodged a complaint.100 It is true that their wages were low. The carpet girls received the lowest pay among the exhibition employees. Most received about ten guilders per week, half of which went toward lodgings and meals. The Surinamese woman Louise

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Yda earned fifteen guilders per month, plus free room and board. The Javanese who lived on the grounds earned twenty-five guilders each per month.101 Another factor that may have led to the work stoppage was the fact that the eight carpet girls formed a group, and could therefore rebel as such. Many other women employed at the exhibition were contracted individually. The Javanese who performed in Kampong Insulinde, a much larger group than the carpet workers, also went on strike. We discuss this conflict, which bore many interesting similarities to the carpet girls’ strike, in chapter 5. First, we will deal with the other labor conflict that erupted and lead to the premature departure of the diamond cutters. Here, too, it became clear that the organizers had no grasp of labor relations beyond the individual and personal contact between ‘‘master’’ and servant. exit the diamond cutters The idea of female employees representing the diamond cutting business in the Hall of Industry had come from Clazina Dekker-Fortanier, president and treasurer of the Industry Committee. While she correctly anticipated that a diamond exhibit would greatly interest visitors, it is unlikely that she foresaw all the financial and technical consequences of such an exhibit. In addition, her letters contained anti-Semitic remarks, which did little to create a positive climate surrounding this exhibit. Diamond cutting, which in actuality includes cleaving, cutting, polishing, and adjusting, requires great skill. Cleaving the gems is not only demanding work; a great responsibility rests on the shoulders of the cleaver, who must judge where to make the first cuts so that a minimum of the original weight is lost. Dutch diamond cutters had been united in the General Dutch Diamond Cutters Union (andb) since 1894. Under the leadership of Henri Polak, this union, representing both Jewish and gentile diamond workers, quickly became the largest and one of the most modern unions in the Netherlands.102 The exhibition featured two diamond cutting exhibits. Three professional diamond workers from Amsterdam’s Citroen company demonstrated diamond setting in gold and silver jewelry. In another exhibit, andb members hired via Polak and De Beer-Lazarus displayed a nearly complete overview of diamond cutting. Equipment such as a diamond lathe and a cutting and adjusting bench were set up in the Hall of Industry. Aside from one male adjuster, all the employees were female: the cleaver, the brilliant and rose cutters, and the polishers.103 The glass case in this exhibit dis-

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played a collection of very expensive jewelry. The high risk of theft meant Dekker-Fortanier had to go to great lengths to secure the cooperation of the diamond industry. To make inroads, she consulted an acquaintance of hers, an independently wealthy man who had made his fortune as a cutter and trader of diamonds. This ‘‘rich Jew of the right kind,’’ as she called him in a letter to Suze Groshans, was a business acquaintance of her husband’s. He advised her not to have the women work for half their normal pay. He also foresaw major problems setting up a complete diamond cutting line at the exhibition, but he promised to help Dekker-Fortanier raise 2,000 guilders by seeking donations from his own circles. If they succeeded, he said, he would volunteer to recruit female workers for the exhibition.104 The sources give no further clues as to his involvement. The initiative was taken up by Betje de Beer-Lazarus, president of the Association of Female Diamond Cutters. She managed to convince Henri Polak of the importance of presenting the diamond industry at the exhibition.105 Polak agreed, probably because he regarded this as an excellent opportunity to promote ‘‘his’’ General Dutch Diamond Cutters’ Union. Negotiations with Citroen proved much tougher. Dekker-Fortanier disliked him and spoke of him in anti-Semitic terms. On one occasion, she and her husband paid him a visit that took all afternoon. ‘‘It would be hard to describe that to you,’’ she confessed to Groshans. ‘‘But let me tell you one thing. He is a thoroughly clever Jew with a real Jew’s build, who knows how to play chess with you.’’ 106 At first, Citroen seemed unwilling to cooperate. But when Dekker-Fortanier explained the layout and goal of the Hall of Industry and the reason for organizing the exhibition in the first place—Queen Wilhelmina’s inauguration—he changed his mind. Citroen had won various medals at earlier exhibitions and had also attracted the attention of the Dutch royal house. Perhaps Dekker-Fortanier knew that Citroen had also displayed his work at the Leeuwarden women’s exhibition. Although she initially distrusted him, their dealings soon became straightforward and businesslike.107 By contrast, relations with Polak started out fine, but they soon deteriorated. Polak told the Industry Committee he needed 1,000 guilders to stage a proper demonstration of the diamond industry. That amount and ‘‘not a cent less’’ would suffice, he assured them. The committee’s response is unknown, but it probably stalled. In the meantime, Groshans informed the participants in the Hall of Industry that all machinery had to be in place

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by June 15, a deadline which the diamond cutters’ union could not possibly meet. De Beer-Lazarus proposed holding a meeting in The Hague on June 16 to prevent the whole endeavor from falling through: ‘‘Perhaps together we can think of a way to work everything out after all.’’ And indeed they did, signing a contract stipulating that the Industry Committee would provide a 1,000-guilder subsidy and that the skilled diamond cutters would be in place on time for the opening.108 But only three days after the festive opening ceremony, Polak wrote an angry letter to Marie Jungius, deeply hurt by the contempt he sensed in the ‘‘words, looks, and gestures of you and several other ladies.’’ Polak felt he was looked on as though he were only out to make a profit from the exhibition. Did the ladies not realize, he asked, how hard he had worked to get the diamond cutters, equipment, and rough diamonds in place on time? 109 And now that he had completed that arduous task, he only received rebukes in return, ‘‘albeit courteous rebukes, but rebukes all the same,’’ whenever something was not done exactly on time. He had been treated with disdain, he felt, and was considered ‘‘not worth inviting to the opening ceremony.’’ Again, the organizers had showed a remarkable lack of sensitivity in failing to invite this hardworking participant. It appears the Industry Committee indeed saw Polak as a mere profiteer. On top of that, he had found it insulting to be presented with a contract to sign. Did the committee fail to understand, he asked, that Henri Polak, the president of the General Dutch Diamond Cutters Union, was no merchant? ‘‘I am more of a journalist than anything else,’’ he wrote, ending his bitter outburst with the assertion that he had participated in the exhibition at great moral and financial risk. This final point proved painfully true. Jungius wasted no time refuting the allegations, and three days later, Polak took back his words with an apology. In Souvenir, he cheerfully reported: ‘‘The diamond exhibit is the main attraction of the Exhibition. It is incessantly under siege from a throng of people, most of whom are catching their first glimpse of the diamond industry in practice, an industry made famous in large part by the role of the General Dutch Diamond Cutters’ Union.’’ 110 The exhibit’s popularity prompted a national newspaper to devote an entire article to it. The journalist wrote that the brilliant cutter and adjuster did the most difficult work and quite arrogantly answered questions from onlookers.111 After the problems encountered earlier, all seemed to be going smoothly at the diamond exhibit. But trouble was brewing again. In early August, the diamond workers informed Polak

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that Jungius urgently wanted to speak to him. Dekker-Fortanier had also tried to reach Polak and left him a note that barely concealed her irritation: ‘‘Sir, at your request, I was present at the exhibition last Wednesday. . . . I would also like to point out to you that the girls have no work, stroll around, and make no money, while we still have to pay them. And the public, to their amazement, get to see nothing. Would you put a stop to this? You did assume responsibility for this.’’ 112 Idle diamond workers in the Hall of Industry? The organizers would have none of this loitering about and wanted it stopped immediately. However, a solution failed to materialize; two weeks later, Polak signed a document waiving the organizers of all obligations, effectively dissolving their contract. The humiliating wording of the text shows that Polak was relieved of his responsibilities at his own request due to his ‘‘inability to fulfill his obligations to the committee.’’ He was also forced to thank the committee for their ‘‘lenience toward him while he violated the terms of the contract.’’ 113 Polak was disgraced, and the diamond cutters exited the exhibition without further ado. The whole episode hardly found mention in the national newspapers.114 To understand why this debacle occurred, it is helpful to look at the stinging letters Betje de Beer-Lazarus wrote later that year to the exhibition organizers.115 At a meeting about the formation of the National Dutch Women’s Council, she had spoken out against the assumption that such a council would represent ‘‘all women’s interests.’’ De Beer-Lazarus felt that whenever ‘‘the bourgeois class put their ideas into action,’’ it always cast working-class women as inferiors, ‘‘hence that eternally foolish and presumptuous attitude of having to protect, care for, and guard those poor wretches.’’ She went on to explain that the whole exhibition would have been impossible to fund if the employees had been well paid. She mentioned the diamond industry as an example; because the wages in this sector were good, the money had simply run out before the exhibition ended. If all employees had demanded such wages, the organizers ‘‘could have never have met these demands.’’ And this, the union leader suggested, would have eaten up all of the exhibition’s profits. Such a public swipe was grist for the socialists’ mill—and it proved Henriette Roland Holst-van der Schalk right after all. One organizer, a Mrs. D. (probably Dekker-Fortanier) defended herself. She wrote to De Beer-Lazarus, telling her it was she, not herself, who was ill-informed. In her reply, De Beer-Lazarus reveals the accusations the organizers had

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faced. The diamond cutters had been by far the highest-paid employees in the Hall of Industry. Polak had hoped to earn back part of these labor costs through the sale of jewelry, but had failed to do so. His funds eventually ran dry, and he was unable to pay the diamond cutters their wages. After working another week without pay, the workers raised the matter with the Industry Committee. And at that point, according to De BeerLazarus, the committee became disrespectful toward the workers, calling them ‘‘opponents’’ and ‘‘unmannerly’’ for mentioning their unpaid wages. The Industry Committee had then reneged on its side of the contract, insisting it was no more than a ‘‘pro forma’’ arrangement. Continuing her argument, De Beer-Lazarus wrote: ‘‘You still owed [Polak] part of the [contractually agreed] sum, and therefore had no grounds to withhold wages for completed work. But then . . . and this again demonstrates my point, you would not know what it is like to have done work and be unable to collect right away.’’ She felt the workers had been treated as second-class citizens, or, at the best of times, as little children, dependent on ‘‘their moms, the committee, and supervisors.’’ Considering how few sources mention this conflict, it is impossible to judge who was right, but some conclusions can be drawn. The Industry Committee was clearly unrealistic, thinking these skilled laborers would work for half their normal pay. Polak, for his part, made the mistake of not negotiating properly, probably because he was too busy dealing with Dutch and international trade union affairs. He may have sensed anti-Semitic prejudices, or perhaps his male pride was wounded by so much female power. Meanwhile, the organizers had not realized that they were dealing with a mediator, not a merchant. It seems they were too rigid in their dealings with him. As Beer-Lazarus pointed out, either the Industry Committee or the board should have ensured the diamond cutters’ payment. Why did they fail to do so? Distrust, perhaps rooted in anti-Semitism, certainly played a role. The organizers’ attitude also reveals their incompetence, their lack of hands-on experience with labor relations. Dealing with skilled workers did not resemble teaching schoolgirls, and supervisors were not teachers; these were lessons the organizers learned the hard way. marie sparnaay’s tactics The organizers had included live labor demonstrations in the Hall of Industry primarily to focus attention on a new job opportunity for women— the position of factory or workshop supervisor. This was not the place for

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claims of exploitation or appeals for unionization; these were relegated to the Social Work Committee and the Conference Hall, respectively. The Hall of Industry was meant to put the organizers in contact with entrepreneurs. The organizers wanted to show entrepreneurs that women were valuable employees, ‘‘more accurate, neater, quicker, more skillful and reliable, less prone to alcohol abuse, easier to train, etc., etc.’’ 116 Such rhetoric was not only aimed at promoting women’s labor; its ultimate goal was to secure supervisory positions for ‘‘civilized’’ women. The odes to women employees always included remarks on the effectiveness of female supervision. The propaganda always listed the many wives of patrons, ‘‘women of mature age,’’ and any other woman somehow involved in the supervision of female workers.117 Working-class women were thought to lack the necessary authority to supervise, while male supervisors supposedly jeopardized the decency of female factory workers.118 Middle-class women were the obvious choice for the job. Dutch bourgeois women emphasized their traditional expertise in the areas of decency and morality in order to gain access to a domain ruled by the laws of capital and the market economy. The organizers repeatedly and emphatically distanced themselves from the pretense that women had technical insight or business sense. All they claimed was the right to add a new dimension to rational entrepreneurship. A man might prove a competent technical supervisor, but groups of girls working together eight to eleven hours a day needed the guidance and education of ‘‘civilized, diligent women, with a heart for the interests of the work and the workers alike,’’ stressed Suze Groshans.119 Her colleague, Marie Sparnaay, explained in her initial reports that she did not seek to criticize industry as such: ‘‘It is not the machine, that vast and great symbol of human inventiveness, which is a disaster, but everyone’s way of greedily grabbing for its rewards [and their] lack of insight into how to use it for the happiness of all.’’ 120 By the time she compiled the Hall of Industry catalog, Sparnaay had dropped any reference to the greed of employers and focused instead on the high quality of the products for sale and the job opportunities for female supervisors. Even children’s labor seemed acceptable, as long as the business exuded a ‘‘cozy atmosphere . . . cheerful happiness . . . industriousness and cleanliness.’’ These were the features that had struck Sparnaay so favorably during her visit to the laundry also represented at the exhibit.121 Moral concerns provided the organizers’ main legitimization for seeking access to industrial management. This required careful maneuvering

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when describing the ‘‘moral standards’’ in factories. On the one hand, the organizers needed to paint a picture that showed how factories, without female supervision, deteriorated into hotbeds of immorality. On the other, they did not want to suggest any explicit sexual danger because that would render factories unsuitable territory for ‘‘civilized’’ women. One way out of this was to quote patrons who would not allow any mixing of the sexes in their factories for fear of ‘‘immoral and rude behavior.’’ For them, female supervision offered an easy solution. This is the strategy Jungius and Groshans chose in a series of articles about the Hall of Industry published in the exhibition journal. ‘‘A peek into the sad state of morality in our factories’’ had made it clear to the Industry Committee that manufacturers often held female employees responsible for the moral decay occurring in mixed workshops. The two organizers rightly concluded that there was no objective reason to fire only the women for this.122 However, they seem not to have realized that in advocating female factory supervision, they upheld the same double standard: that women largely held responsibility for morality. Jungius did not let the middle and upper classes off the hook; as long as they kept ‘‘paid prostitution [sic]’’ going, she argued, it should surprise no one if factories followed their example. ‘‘There is still a long way to go before we have a free exchange of thought between the sexes!’’ In the meantime, ‘‘civilized women’’ would be able to take advantage of ‘‘the openness many employers have shown on this issue’’ and assist them in the battle against immorality in factories and workshops. Segregation of men and women on the work floor was a crucial part of this struggle. Sparnaay asserted the same opinions in her lecture on female supervision at the Vocational and Professional Training Conference.123 She told the audience of factories with shared locker rooms and bathroom facilities, where male and female employees clocked out and changed clothes at the same hour. What happened there, said Sparnaay, was too shocking to repeat in public. She spoke with horror of dirty and unkempt girls not ashamed to change their clothes in front of the men. The foremen were fresh with the girls, she asserted, and used coarse language. Sparnaay argued that a separate work space would protect young girls from the rude behavior of men. With female supervision, there would be no undesirable contact between male and female workers, even after work: ‘‘On the streets, in a bar, or in a dance hall,’’ for instance.124 In the evenings, supervisors could teach factory girls how to run a proper household. When Wilhelmina Drucker objected, saying young girls should not have to attend

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lessons after a long day at the factory, Sparnaay shot back that ‘‘girls are well capable of taking lessons after seven hours, in fact they are so cheerful and unruly they need to be calmed down.’’ She said that instructional and supervisory tasks would provide ‘‘energetic, civilized, and educated’’ women with honorable and often lucrative jobs.125 Remarks about the ‘‘rudeness and indecency’’ of the factory girls were intended to spur into action potential supervisors. Their imaginations might have gone wild when they heard about the ‘‘evils’’ that young girls would fall prey to. They must have been driven not only by indignation but also by a fascination with such a raw, depraved world.126 Although Drucker pointed out that factories did not promote indecency any more than ‘‘gala balls or dinners,’’ most organizers seemed to disagree. It was as if different laws applied in the unfamiliar world of factories. Good manners meant nothing there. Sparnaay told the audience a story about a factory for the preservation of food products, where the city girls were ‘‘of the lowest caliber . . . two very proper girls, who had better manners . . . simply had to leave.’’ 127 Based on her lecture, three manufacturers asked Sparnaay to find them a female supervisor.128 The organizers used the same arguments to advocate the introduction of female inspectors at the Labor Inspectorate. Several women’s magazines had reported on women inspectors in England and other countries. In 1898, Dutch parliamentarian Arnold Kerdijk volunteered to represent the exhibition’s views on this issue. Speaking in the Second Chamber of Parliament, this left-wing liberal enumerated the merits of appointing women as deputy labor inspectors. In July he addressed a packed exhibition conference.129 Groshans was enthusiastic about Kerdijk’s speech and about the news from Amsterdam that Jeltje de Bosch Kemper and others were training women to become labor inspectors.130 The proceedings of the exhibition conference also reached the ears of Kerdijk’s opponents, however. In parliamentary debates, they refused ‘‘to consent in any way to notions of equal rights for women as advocated at recent conferences in The Hague as part of the exhibition of women’s labor.’’ 131 They vowed to vote against any proposal for female deputy labor inspectors if that allowed women to fill positions intended for men. They also opposed a double team of labor inspectors consisting of men and women. Kerdijk assured them that female deputy inspectors would not be equal to male deputy inspectors. Other members of the Second Chamber were willing to go along with Kerdijk’s proposal since it was only an experimental project. A proposal was made

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to conduct the trial in an area with a strong clothing industry because that sector employed many women. The Second Chamber passed the proposal in November 1898. The First Chamber followed suit in the confidence that ‘‘everything possible would be done to steer clear of the ambition expressed at recent conferences to emancipate women in every way, in terms of employment, etc., which shows a lack of insight into human nature.’’ 132 And so the first female deputy labor inspector was appointed.133 It must have come as a disappointment to Sparnaay and others that the Dutch parliament discussed this issue in such negative terms. They had invested a lot of time and energy in pleasing the business community, only to be obstructed by politicians. Feminist participation in the public debate on labor laws remained fraught with difficulties; gender and class differences were played off against each other, causing repeated disillusionment. Still, the idea of employing female labor inspectors at least received a trial run. As we saw in chapter 2, the exhibition itself also functioned as a training ground for supervisors, who were needed for the various exhibits. This gave a number of women an opportunity to get acquainted with paid labor. Vice President Geertruida van Zuylen-Tromp of the East Indies Committee put in a good word for her niece, Miss Van der Jagt, who became one of the two uniformed guards (the other was Marie Sparnaay). These two, along with thirty-six-year-old chief inspector Catharina Lubach, kept an eye on the entire exhibition.134 To guide these three, the Personnel Committee had drawn up a set of instructions closely resembling those given to guards a year earlier at the National Exhibition of Industrial and Applied Art, held in Dordrecht.135 Just as they had then, the guards in The Hague were instructed to be polite and tactful toward visitors. They were also expected to dust the objects on display, which the Dordrecht guards had not been required to do. The instructions also defended the interests of the exhibition as an employer; in case of a labor conflict, the guards were to abide by board decisions. ‘‘Legal claims’’ would not be tolerated. All the appeals made for the hiring of female supervisors and labor inspectors were an encouraging sign to those women with a ‘‘serious calling’’ to supervise or inspect women’s labor. The exhibition gave visitors, the Dutch business community, and the country’s government a chance to see for themselves how well women performed these tasks. They kept the rooms spotless and supervised female employees who lodged in neat boarding houses. The entry of ‘‘educated women’’ into this new public domain of labor curtailed working-class women’s access to the public domain

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of ‘‘streets, bars, and dance halls.’’ This was not accidental. The organizers proudly announced it as a mainstay of their strategy. WOMEN’S LABOR, SOCIAL WORK

The Social Work Committee had had thousands of cards carrying the following message printed for visitors: ‘‘The Exhibition of Women’s Labor is not a solution for all social ills,’’ some read. ‘‘A solution?’’ we said. ‘‘What gives you the right to think that we, who have worked at this so seriously, would be simplistic enough to believe we could provide a solution?’’ What we wanted was to wake you up, to appeal to your interest and your sympathy, to investigate and make you think! Only time will tell whether we have failed in our endeavors.’’ 136 The precise wording of this card had been hotly debated. Originally, the committee had used the words a solution to the social issue and the complicated, terribly difficult social issue, but in the end they had settled on the much less political term social ills.137 Social issues were a minefield where choice of words alone revealed one’s political affiliations. Even the term social became a point of debate: some associated this with socialist or social democratic, while others pointed out that the word social referred to ‘‘societal’’ and ‘‘could not be misleading or confusing.’’ 138 In setting up its exhibits, the Social Work Committee continually had to weigh how political it should be. How would it represent the relationship between class struggle and women’s rights? Would this section, which to many represented the heart of the exhibition, reveal the true colors of the women’s movement in the Dutch political spectrum of that day? Or would it manage to maintain neutrality? 139 The Social Work Exhibit constituted one of the main sections in the exhibition; it occupied the top center position on Jungius’s organizational chart. And Cecile Goekoop headed its organizing committee. It was considered especially important to achieve political neutrality in this section, for failure here would cast a shadow over the entire exhibition. Still, what did neutrality mean in the face of what Jungius called the ‘‘ailments of our society’’? The list in her brochure—encompassing ‘‘material and moral misery caused by abject poverty, drinking, prostitution, war, abandonment and exploitation of children, class oppression, and cruelty to animals’’—

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would surely leave no one unmoved.140 The Social Work Exhibit would show what women could do to fight all these evils. There is little indication of competitiveness between Goekoop and Jungius, who often worked in close cooperation. Yet the Social Work and Industry Committees did vie for the attention of visitors; both wanted their exhibit to emerge as the main attraction for the crowds. a collection of social ills Dutch socialists felt the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor would do little to achieve a ‘‘just’’ solution for social issues. To them, it was a case of typical ignorance that the Social Work Exhibit lumped the class struggle together with issues such as cruelty to animals and children. They regarded unionization and universal male suffrage as the only right response to the capitalist division of wealth and the social evils it spawned. Therefore, the only socialist member of the Social Work Committee, Cornélie Huygens, insisted that the committee ‘‘show its true colors.’’ President Cecile Goekoop, however, felt it should refrain from endorsing ‘‘any one party or dogma.’’ Instead of striving for economic and political power for the working classes, she advocated a position based on ethics and knowledge. She wanted to be just and to ‘‘understand how the puzzle fits together.’’ ‘‘Everything,’’ she wrote, was ‘‘contained in that word ‘understanding.’’’ 141 Or, in the words of the first annual report, the only ‘‘moral law that will ever be able to enlighten and bring order into the dark chaos of working conditions is this: the need for mutual understanding and appreciation.’’ 142 Goekoop’s ideas convinced the committee, so it remained ‘‘neutral.’’ 143 Since all members of the committee lived in The Hague, contacts with local chapters throughout the Netherlands were maintained by mail. Except for Cornélie Huygens, none of the women involved had close political ties. The committee phrased its objectives in supposedly neutral terms. The aim was to play on people’s emotions, encouraging them to seriously consider and investigate social problems. This did not truly constitute a nonpartisan position, however. It was a revival of the very same line that left-wing liberals had until recently followed. The emphasis on serious study and personal involvement was particularly reminiscent of the vision of Dutch writer Hélène Mercier.144 Her many articles, later compiled in books, had guided an entire generation of women down the path of social work. Jungius strongly praised Mercier in her brochure.145 The organizers must have been terribly disappointed by Mercier’s unwillingness to

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become actively involved in the exhibition, and her absence from the Social Work Committee was conspicuous because of her large contribution to that field. It is unknown why she did not join the committee. In any case, her absence did not result from any lack of interest in the subject. She did write a letter to the Home Crafts Committee about the ‘‘really horrendous sweatshop system.’’ 146 Despite her unwillingness to participate in the exhibition, her ideas had a tremendous influence on the Social Work Exhibit. Initially, the Social Work Exhibit seemed linked mainly to traditional forms of charity. This proved a strategically clever move because charities were the areas of the public domain where Dutch women had the most (organized) influence. In Mercier’s words, ‘‘philanthropy’’ was ‘‘the link’’ that middle- and upper-class women had used ‘‘to connect their domestic life to public life.’’ 147 The committee decided to highlight this tradition in its exhibit. They compiled lists of associations and institutions for which women actively did social work. In 1898, relief for the poor was formally the prerogative of church and private institutions. The Poverty Act stipulated that the government could only act in support of charitable organizations or to maintain public order. ‘‘Elevating and educating the paupers’’ was left to philanthropic institutions.148 In the 1890s, there was a movement to improve relief for the poor; many new local associations lobbied for a modernization of the standards and regulations of poverty relief. In philanthropic associations, women typically acted as the managers, administrators, and hands-on social workers who visited the poor. However, they seldom held administrative positions in those associations where both men and women were available.149 Marie Muller-Lulofs, cofounder of the Utrecht Association for the Improvement of Relief for the Poor (Utrechtse Vereeniging tot Verbeetering van Armenzorg), had found that taking an active and innovative approach did not automatically earn women an administrative position. It took ten years before she was even allowed onto the board of the very association that she had conceived of. She had learned her lesson, however. In November 1896, she asked the Exhibition Association whether it would also include social work done by ‘‘women and men together.’’ 150 The board decided that this would be acceptable as long as it was clear what part women played in it. This flexibility remained present in the policies of the Social Work Committee. Its aim was to secure the participation of as many women in philanthropy as possible, including upper-class and aristocratic women. Their strategy must have worked; one

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journalist attending a lecture about a school of social work mentioned he had seen many ‘‘exquisite gowns worn with great distinction.’’ 151 The exhibit was not limited to relief for the poor in the strictest sense. In fact, the term social work did not yet have the specific connotations it would later acquire when it became a profession. In 1897, when plans for the exhibition were announced, it was said the event would encompass ‘‘the fields of applied art, the arts and sciences, and would generally include any type of social work women were involved in.’’ 152 The flexibility of the term allowed the organizers to invite not only the institutions involved in poverty relief but also a host of other organizations in which women were active. The only institutions excluded would be those represented in their own exhibit, for instance, district nursing, which was relegated to the Hygiene and Nursing Exhibit.153 The Social Work Exhibit included organizations such as Arbeid Adelt, Tesselschade, and the Dutch Women’s League for the Advancement of Moral Awareness.154 There were also various contributions from institutions ‘‘for elderly men and women’’ and for children. The new settlement houses in community centers were represented, as were local associations and various small clubs with limited aims (the distribution of nourishing food, bringing flowers to the sick, etc.) or unlimited objectives (the World League for Peace and Free International Traffic). There was also room dedicated to the nation’s first day care center. A scale model of the Association of Day Care Centers in The Hague represented this center. It showed how an entire group of children could be sat at a circle of small tables around one supervisor. The plaque accompanying this contribution proudly proclaimed that the day care center was only available for children whose mothers worked outside the home out of financial need. As a rule, children born out of wedlock were not admitted. Cecile Goekoop’s own experience in the field of social and philanthropic work was represented by the League for the Eradication of Cruel Fashion (Bond ter Bestrijding eener Gruwelmode), which she had cofounded with her mother and sister in 1893. The league’s articles of association were on display in the exhibit.155 The organization protested against bird breeding for the production of feathers and down, and had provided the sisters with an excellent opportunity to develop their organizational and promotional skills. They became thoroughly acquainted with the tedious but necessary work of fund-raising and mailings. The Social Work Committee continued to stretch the limits of the

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term social work. They invited not only associations with an exclusively female active membership but also those which acted ‘‘in the interests of women.’’ 156 This second category referred to traditional charitable associations in which men could also be active. This is how the exhibit also came to include participants such as a Jewish association for the support of indigent mothers with infant children and an association that taught needlework to the daughters of railroad employees. Because the feminist Dutch Woman’s Suffrage Association also acted ‘‘in the interests of women,’’ it, too, was seen as an organization carrying out ‘‘social work’’ and was therefore asked to participate in the exhibit. The Woman’s Suffrage Association gratefully accepted the opportunity to promote its cause, and so the ‘‘neutral’’ Social Work Exhibit came to feature a painting of a woman struggling to cast off the yoke of constitutional oppression. The committee had commissioned artist Johan Thorn Prikker to paint the portrait.157 He accepted the commission, but relations with the committee were strained. He confessed to a friend that the postcard he received from Miss Gallé, one of the organizers, struck him as ‘‘a bit arrogant. I won’t answer it. She can drop dead.’’ The painting itself seems to reflect his dislike for Gallé: ropes restrain the struggling woman in a painfully tight grip.158 Many visitors did not understand the painting. The Woman’s Suffrage Association recognized its ‘‘strange intention.’’ 159 While its aesthetic value was certainly debatable, the public’s incomprehension probably stemmed from its message, which contradicted the rest of the Social Work Exhibit. Thorn Prikker’s work did not invite sympathy or serious investigation. Instead, it represented a political solution. The artwork was accompanied by a large poster on the wall, which read: ‘‘Only Suffrage can guarantee a lasting restoration of an oppressed class or gender.’’ 160 The Social Work Exhibit had become a Trojan horse: under the guise of social work, explicit political feminism was included in the same category as a range of traditional philanthropic institutions. In the meantime, the Social Work Committee had done its part to collect the data for the statistics provided at the exhibition. Hundreds of institutions had received a short questionnaire that asked them whether their administrative board was exclusively female and, if not, what tasks women fulfilled. They were also asked whether they would take part in the exhibition. And at the very least, the committee requested the articles of association and the latest annual report from each institution.161 Municipal gov-

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ernments were asked to provide a list of old age homes, orphanages, and other institutions for abandoned and neglected children. These lists were put on display at the exhibit. The committee’s attempt to provide a complete, neutral overview proved quite successful; 173 institutions had sent in annual reports or brochures. In the belief that a picture is worth a thousand words, the committee requested that institutions also send in visual materials. Anything, ‘‘as long as it is suitable and characteristic’’ would do.162 This, too, proved a success. Photographs and drawings, a doll’s house made by children in a settlement house, baby linen baskets, and floor plans of dozens of institutions turned the Social Work Exhibit into quite an interesting spectacle. The walls supported posters with provocative images and slogans. The most spectacular items in the exhibit were visual representations of poor labor and living conditions intended to expose social evils. These displays had been designed at the committee’s request. The organizers decided in 1897 to include these issues in the Social Work Exhibit. From the very start, they had wanted the exhibition to reveal the harshness of factory and domestic work, but they had to decide which section should present these wrongs. At the general meeting of May 1897, Cecile Goekoop stated that the Industry Committee ‘‘did not wish to investigate the sweatshop system.’’ 163 From then on, all cases of ‘‘social evil’’ were channeled to the Social Work Committee. This proved more than an organizational matter. The question was from which angle and in which context women could claim the right to speak about subsistence wages, bad housing, and long hours. In what capacity would they enter the public sphere on these issues? The Dutch public debate had long included the issue of poor working conditions for women and children in particular. Socialists and left-wing liberals had placed these and other ‘‘social issues’’ on the political agenda. Goekoop’s father had been one of the founders of the left-wing liberal Committee to Discuss the Social Question (Comité ter Bespreking van de Sociale Quaestie) in 1870.164 This became the first forum for working-class people and dignitaries to jointly discussed labor laws. In parliament, representatives of various political movements proclaimed themselves spokesmen for labor conditions. In 1897, some denominational parties appealed for more social legislation.165 Later, socialists and liberals who wanted the government to assume social responsibility debated the question of expanding the 1889 Labor Act that had restricted working hours for women

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and children.166 These parliamentary debates excluded women. The exhibition provided one of their first opportunities to speak out on social issues in public. By diverting all the social ills of industrialization away from the Hall of Industry and into the Social Work Exhibit, the exhibition depoliticized the misery caused by industrialization. Deplorable working conditions were portrayed as a form of human suffering that women could have a positive impact on; capitalism and exploitation did not find any mention. By framing social problems in the context of ‘‘caring for individuals who needed help and support,’’ the exhibit predetermined the solution; rich women should come forward to assist their less fortunate sisters.167 To spur middleand upper-class women into action, the committee looked for shocking and provocative images. The exhibit featured a miniature replica of a ‘‘sod hut’’—these small, sod-covered holes in the ground constituted the homes of entire families in the poor northern province of Drenthe. The exhibit also had a ‘‘sweatshop table’’ displaying sewn clothing and detailing the unimaginably low pay seamstresses earned for each garment. The exhibit also included a scale model of a street vendor’s stand where newspapers and candy were sold. Visitors discovered that girls worked fourteen-hour days at these stands without a break.168 To spark even more indignation, the committee displayed a typical working-class family’s budget.Visitors could do the math and see for themselves how hard life was for families dependent on underpaid sewing work.169 The consciousness-raising effort was not intended as merely informative, so the display drew an immediate link to the responsibility of middle-class women. The committee hung up two panels illustrating the point that young, upper- and middle-class girls could no longer while away their time with idle pursuits. One panel, entitled ‘‘Working Materials of the Educated Young Lady,’’ showed the trifles girls busied themselves with: festive dinners, dancing, and playing the piano. The other panel showed the types of social work ‘‘urgently in need of workers’’: community work, nursing, assistance in day care centers, poverty relief, and so on.170 This representation of social problems was neutral in the sense that it did not explicitly endorse any one political ideology. Yet the exhibit did reveal certain political convictions, and quite dramatically so. The shocking images on display constructed a sharp division between the victims and those in a position to help. The visitors, it was assumed, belonged to the latter group. If they were shown the horrors of working-class life, the

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organizers reasoned, they would resolve to personally lend a hand. As consumers, they could verify whether the embroidered nightgown they were about to buy had been manufactured under proper working conditions. After learning that poor women worked punishingly long hours, these young, rich women could devote their energies to redressing serious social problems. For the victims of social evils, the exhibition offered nothing new. Working-class women were not invited to speak or take action. The portrait of ‘‘the errand girl,’’ who, due to hard work and low pay, ‘‘had twice been found unconscious in the streets,’’ shocked only those middleclass women who never looked any further than their own limited horizons. To seamstresses, the sweatshop table held no secrets, and workingclass women were all too familiar with the budget on display. The Social Work Exhibit was not for working-class women—it was about them. Sometimes the committee even seemed unaware of the fact that their exhibit concerned real people. When the Hygiene Committee proposed that folding chairs should be provided to the saleswomen at the various exhibits, one of the organizers replied that it was an excellent plan—as long as the Hygiene Committee ordered the chairs and footed the bill.171 The Social Work Committee apparently saw this proposal merely as a ‘‘reminder of the fate of saleswomen’’ and forgot that in their section, too, there would be a real saleswoman to answer questions and sell items.172 The Social Work Exhibit was conceptually arranged in such a way that some visitors, but not all, could identify with it. As the exhibit began to take shape, however, it became clear that not all organizers agreed with the division of roles between the working and wealthy classes. Some of the women questioned the messages put forward by the displays and had a different understanding of ‘‘women’s social work.’’ A month before the opening, one member of the Social Work Committee asked whether there would be a separate day for domestic servants to visit the Exhibition. It seems the committee suddenly realized that the visitors might include people of the working classes, and not only the well-to-do ladies they had in mind while devising the exhibit. Did this mean the selection of objects on display had to be adjusted? A proposal was made to display ‘‘not only a working-class budget . . . but also the budget of a well-off family,’’ so that visitors could compare the two.173 This was a radical proposal; until then, the organizing committee had not anticipated attracting visitors who had to struggle to make ends meet. Without an example of a wealthy family’s budget, these visitors would be unable to compare. If approved, the proposal would also

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turn upper- and middle-class women into objects of display, opening up to scrutiny and derision not only their unimportant pastimes but also their lavish living conditions. It would undermine the asymmetry the exhibit had established between wealthy and poor women—a discrepancy which could also be seen, for instance, in the fact that visitors could purchase copies of the working-class budget as exhibition souvenirs. In the end, the organizers did not approve the idea, so a middle-class budget was not put on display. However, the whole episode provides an example of how the act of displaying social evils exposed the class-determined barriers that seemed self-evident in the field of social work. The organized workers put up more effective resistance, refusing to be straight-jacketed into an objectified narrative to arouse public pity. When the General Conference Committee asked President Roosje Vos of the Allen Een seamstress union for data on the subsistence wages earned by seamstresses, she gave a resolute and self-confident reply: ‘‘Would it not be better if I discussed these at the conference?’’ 174 Vos indeed became one of the speakers, not at the social work conference, but at a discussion devoted to ‘‘women’s social situation.’’ Her plea for trade unions belonged there, alongside other speeches advocating unionization and lectures presented by the Groningen Women’s League and the Woman’s Suffrage Association. Vos, a woman of the working classes, spoke to the middle-class women in the audience about their responsibility for social injustice.175 Her lecture busted the middle-class women’s monopoly on the moral admonishment of their own class and implicitly laid bare the limits of social work at that time. pale with shock How did the public experience the many visual representations of social evil? In a retrospective written in 1913, Cecile de Jong van Beek en Donk recalled that some visitors had left the Social Work Exhibit ‘‘pale with shock.’’ 176 Several journalists wrote about the emotions caused by this exhibit: ‘‘Every day, thousands of people exclaimed in horror’’ at the sight of the sweatshop table, and each visitor ‘‘was touched in the depths of his heart.’’ 177 This kind of emotion is precisely what the organizers set out to evoke. However, other sources suggest that visitors did not always respond in such a way and in fact remained unwilling to empathize. Ida Heijermans (the sister of a famous socialist playwright) wrote that she sometimes saw the public ‘‘pass the subsistence wages table with stupid indifference,’’

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while others only wept ‘‘tears that were quick to well up, but were wiped off even quicker.’’ This she did not mind, however, as long as ‘‘the [visual] expression of indignation’’ brought contemplation and insight to even a few people.178 Others appeared more skeptical. One journalist fumed about visitors who felt the whole exhibition was so ‘‘nice.’’ He heard a visitor looking at the replica of the sod hut ask another woman ‘‘whether she would like to take that ‘cute’ dwelling home as a doll’s house.’’ 179 Yet another observer wrote that some visitors were well informed about current social problems and realized that a wide variety of participants had submitted the ‘‘jumble of contributions’’ on display.180 To them, the exhibits merely confirmed what they already believed. The Social Work Exhibit functioned as an eye-opener, but its impact was hard to measure. It was certainly innovative—never before had there been such a large-scale visual representation of social problems in the Netherlands. It seems the sheer number of displays and the diversity of social work exhibited prompted visitors to think rather than feel, which does not mean that it was less effective. The many different approaches led the women in the audience to think about their own ambitions. They were encouraged to consider their options and decide what type of work appealed to them. This was what turned a stroll through the exhibit into an important event for some visitors; to them, it offered an opening through which they could enter the public domain. The notion that women would need to be educated to do social work developed in the course of 1898. It proved a hot topic at the social work conferences. In the debate, it became clear that the keynote speaker had only vaguely heard of the Women’s University Settlement in London, an institution that trained women as housing inspectors. Again, Hélène Mercier’s absence was sorely felt; she had written about the settlement in 1894.181 During the social work conference discussion, Marie Muller-Lulofs had argued that many textbooks on social relations were too difficult for young girls.182 She did not mention her discussions with Hélène Mercier and Arnold Kerdijk about founding a school of social work. She apparently felt it was too early to discuss these plans publicly, even though the conference and exhibit seemed the perfect occasion.183 The documents pertaining to the foundation of the first School of Social Work (in 1899) show that Mercier did not particularly like Cecile Goekoop. She did not want the exhibition president to become the new school’s principal because she felt that Goekoop was too feminist and not ‘‘truly social by nature.’’ 184 The people

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striving to promote training and education for social work clearly weighed the pros and cons of associating themselves with the exhibition. They opted to wait until after the exhibition before putting forward their ideas for a school of social work—for women and men. Others did use the exhibition as an explicit point of reference for further action. For example, the information provided at the sweatshop table about wages paid to seamstresses prompted an official with the Dutch Social Interest Alliance (Nederlandsche Bond Maatschappelijk Belang) to take action. He called for an investigation because the alliance simply did not believe the data provided by the Social Work Committee.185 An extended battle ensued as the alliance accused the Social Work Committee of supplying unsubstantiated and biased information, while the committee refused to name the patrons who had given them the data on condition of strict confidentiality.186 The Social Interest Alliance also accused the women of misinterpreting the figures. They were allegedly incapable of determining whether the piece rate for an apron applied to an apprentice or to a fully qualified seamstress. The fruitless squabbling went on for nearly a year. The men from the alliance were even as presumptuous as to tell the Exhibition Association how they should spend their profits, namely, to found a ‘‘Central Bureau of Social Work.’’ They suggested that Jungius’s planned ‘‘National Bureau of Women’s Labor’’ could become one of its subsidiaries.187 In the end, the alliance decided to launch its own investigation into the wages paid to seamstresses. The interesting thing about these skirmishes is the hierarchical struggle at play. The issue was whether women had a right to address social evils and whether they were allowed to propose a solution in the shape of social work. In other words: did social work fall under the category of women’s labor or vice versa? In 1899, the president of the Amsterdam chapter of the Social Work Committee objected when the committee faced accusations of showing only low wages at the exhibit. She rightly pointed out that it had not been the committee’s task or intention to give an exhaustive overview of women’s labor and women’s wages. That had been the exhibition’s overall aim. The idea behind the Social Work Exhibit was to point out the ‘‘terrible and sad situation in terms of wages, housing, etc. The specimens of the sweat system had therefore been entirely justified,’’ she asserted.188 However, her line of reasoning implied that social work was limited to the alleviation of human misery, denying the overtly political aspects of social work.

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The lasting effects of the Social Work Exhibit remained rather smallscale. Social work in the Netherlands did not receive a socialist interpretation, and no public link was ever established with the women’s movement. Women involved in social work felt they had to sever their ties to feminism. In this respect, it is ironic that even the Amsterdam chapter of the Social Work Committee, which had battled the Social Interest Alliance for so long, eventually split off from the exhibition and became a local association for social work. Its new name indicated that the association had distanced itself from a gender perspective.189 One member who voted to change the name was Hélène Mercier. She could now rest assured she was not working for the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor, but for an association who aimed its social goal at both women and men. n

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In this chapter, we have sketched an overview of the exhibition. It is now generally clear which participants contributed to which exhibits and how the various objects and demonstrations were displayed. The dunes near The Hague were supposed to offer a national and neutral panorama, but as the exhibtion began taking shape, the organizers, participants, supervisors, and workers found themselves at odds on more than one occasion. The prejudices, political differences, and divergent interests inspired critical thought and sometimes evoked vehement emotions. These led to a number of labor conflicts fought in public via the media. In this respect, the organizers were thrown in at the deep end. Their first foray into the public domain had immediate repercussions. The exhibition had numerous consequences, not all of them intentional. This resulted partly from the fact that it was a three-dimensional, interactive project rather than a museum. Visitors had their own ideas and reacted in unforeseen ways. Not everything could be steered. The next chapter is devoted to these thousands of visitors, to their gaze and their perceptions.

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The Exhibition Experience

The large exhibitions of the nineteenth century remain mysteries to the modern scholar in the sense that no one knows exactly how the visitor experienced them. Most historical sources shed light on the exhibition organizers’ intentions, not on how various groups of visitors actually perceived the events. We do know that visiting an exhibition made for a ‘‘total experience’’ involving all five senses. Not everyone felt equally charmed by this immersion. For example, one music critic complained that visitors to the exhibition in The Hague were forced to listen to ‘‘coffee house tones’’ for dilettantes and ‘‘devilish Javanese charivari.’’ He thought it unfair that the nose had been spared this sad fate—those who entered the sod hut were not assaulted by the odors of the ‘‘residents and their pigs.’’ 1 According to other reports, however, the exhibition did call on the sense of smell with a great variety of aromas. Although most visitors to the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor were women, they did not, due to their different social and educational backgrounds, have homogenous experiences. What was new and shocking to one woman may have seemed predictable or banal to another. In order to imagine how visitors experienced the exhibition in The Hague, we must therefore start with an investigation of who they were. VISITORS

Between July 9 and September 21, more than 90,000 people visited the exhibition, an average of 1,250 people per day. On some Sundays, up to 5,000 people crowded into the steam trams that transported visitors to

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the grounds. Attendance temporarily dipped during Queen Wilhelmina’s coronation on September 6 and 7, but on the whole, it was quite evenly distributed over the ten weeks of the exhibition.2 Most surviving photographs of the event show what the visitors saw: images of the Hall of Industry featuring women at work, the courtyard, and the Conference Hall. Precious few pictures exist of the visitors themselves and no pictures at all of visitors walking, talking, or crowding around the attractions in the Hall of Industry, the Social Work Exhibit, or Kampong Insulinde. One journalist complained that the Dutch typically refused to show any discipline in keeping to the right, but no photographs of the bustling mass of people survive. Available images from other exhibitions of that day are similarly static pictures of exhibits, displays, and collections. Although photographic technique was already capable of capturing a large group of people in motion, this was hardly fashionable. When exhibition organizers spent money on photographs, it was mainly to document impressive contributions, great feats of architecture, and the people on display. The organizers wanted their own achievements immortalized. Remarkably, the target audience was felt to be of lesser importance.3 Participant Tattersall & Holdsworth even went so far as to retouch the images of two visitors from a photograph of its exhibit.4 In many of the photographs of the exhibition, visitors appear accidentally. The public tends to show up on the periphery or in the background of objects and displays. Most exhibitions of that day sold souvenirs, and these were often drawings that gave an impression of the exposition in full swing. The National Exhibition of Women’s Labor did not offer such mementos. The only drawing commissioned by the organizers was a bird’s-eye view of Kampong Insulinde drawn by N. D. Koene. This drawing, made before the opening and on display for the duration of the exhibition, depicts about forty people. These people were indeed present at the exhibit, but not as visitors. They were the artists responsible for musical, theatrical, and dance performances and demonstrations of East Indies artisanship. Here, too, the curious crowd remains invisible. One illustrated magazine published four drawings not commissioned by the organization, and once again the public seems to have found its way into the images only by accident. The scenes were drawn by journalist G. B. Hooijer as illustrations accompanying his own article. His main intention was to point out how the imitation kampong differed from real villages of the Dutch East Indies. ‘‘Over there,’’ he wrote, lush green growth created a pleasant half-

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light, while ‘‘over here’’ a few shrubs struggled to survive in the cold sea breeze. Over there, meandering paths were ‘‘humid and sumptuous,’’ while here the seashells crunched underfoot as ‘‘the procession of ladies wound its way down the paths.’’ 5 Hooijer made a drawing of this procession, but he left the faces vague. With some effort, the viewer can distinguish styles of dress that betray the women’s class differences: an expensive dress, a parasol, and the crossed apron strings of a working-class woman. Why are there so few images of the 1898 public? Apart from general factors that applied to all exhibitions, gender-specific ones also come into play. A class taboo created a reluctance to portray the visitors; it was not customary to depict middle-class women in a public setting in the nineteenth century. Taking family pictures and painting personal portraits was considered acceptable, but only in the privacy of the home. Women who posed for uncommissioned paintings were seen as indecent. For lower-class women, it was more common to be visually documented for public viewing. Female workshop employees, domestic servants doing grocery shopping, women in the harbor repairing nets, and female farmhands appeared with increasing frequency in photographs and paintings of the late nineteenth century. The Dutch Labor Inspectorate photographed female workers as part of its inspection duties.6 From the late 1890s on, painter Isaac Israëls portrayed servant girls in the streets and Geesje Mesdag-van Calcar (a member of the Exhibition Regulation Committee) included farmers’ wives and farm girls in her paintings, as did many of her contemporaries in the Hague School who painted in the northern province of Drenthe.7 The exhibition drew few working-class visitors. Because the grounds closed in the evening, most women with day jobs, such as factory workers and domestic servants from The Hague, were unable to visit. For working women, Sunday became the only choice. There was an incentive: Sunday visitors paid half price (twenty-five cents instead of fifty). Still, the limited opening hours restricted their opportunities. For working-class women outside of The Hague, time and travel costs created obstacles. The railroad companies sold exhibition visitors round-trip tickets for the price of a one-way fare, which enabled some women of modest means to go to The Hague. Yet mobility in 1898 largely remained the privilege of the wealthy classes, those who could afford to take a day or two to visit the exhibition, eat in restaurants, and pay for an overnight stay. Tuesday became known as the ‘‘elite day’’: entrance fees doubled to one guilder, and the guards at the exhibits gave extensive explanations.8

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The organizers realized that being closed evenings created a barrier, but they were more concerned that staying open late would compromise the exhibition’s serious nature and reduce it to cheap entertainment.9 They did try to attract working-class women in other ways. The entrance fee was only five cents for card-carrying members of women’s unions with more than thirty members (though such unions remained rare). Working-class people and charities could apply for group entrance fees that amounted to ten cents per person. According to the records, several such group tickets were sold. On Sunday, July 24, members of the Amsterdam chapter of the Seamstress Union met the Rotterdam chapter in The Hague. Together, they toured the exhibition and ate dinner in the restaurant, singing merry songs and, as the press reported, attracting a great deal of attention. After closing time, the seamstresses went to Scheveningen. The singing women returned to The Hague by steam tram and continued their journey home by train.10 Many had never traveled by train before. In keeping with the tradition of giving workmen time off to visit industrial exhibitions, a few employers, including a laundry manager in Rijswijk, let their female employees visit the exhibition in The Hague.11 Thanks to Lena Hugenholtz, wife of a progressive Protestant clergyman who later became a member of parliament, a large group of servant girls from Schiedam also visited the exhibition. After visiting the event several times herself, Hugenholtz devised a plan to enable a group of domestic servants to do the same. Her fund-raising efforts allowed more than one hundred domestic servants from Schiedam to visit The Hague. Carriages collected them from the train station.12 Some conferences were also designed to encourage the participation of working-class women. One such conference, on the topic of simplifying household chores by means of cooperation, was organized by the Free Women’s Association, the Rotterdam Association for the Protection of Women’s Interests (Rotterdamse Vereeniging ter Behartiging van de Belangen der Vrouw), and the Groningen chapter of the Women’s League. Entrance fees for this conference were significantly lower than usual. By choosing such a practical topic and setting a low admission price, the organizing parties hoped to appeal to women from all classes and walks of life. According to Evolutie, this had worked, for ‘‘a group of Rotterdam working-class women’’ had visited the exhibition specifically to attend that conference. One male journalist also appreciated this approach. He described the conference as the first time anything of practical use was dis-

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cussed. He pointed out that a ‘‘working-class woman’’ had actually spoken up.13 Many middle-class women found it extraordinary to see their workingclass counterparts visit the exhibition. Thérèse Hoven’s 1898 novel Véva, published just after the exhibition, thoroughly describes the event as seen through a working-class character’s eyes. She views the exhibition with skepticism and amazement, for instance, when she sees aristocratic young ladies at the turnstile, collecting entrance fees, ‘‘while they really cannot have much use for a few quarters.’’ Hoven used this working-class character to express her own disapproval of the exhibition. To her mind, the event represented an overblown affectation dreamed up by spoiled ladies and girls.14 Most of those who visited the exhibition on their own came from the middle class. Many were socially active women, such as charity workers whose organizations contributed to the Social Work Exhibit, relatives of participating manufacturers, and the like. This is not to say that the middle class itself constituted a homogenous group. The women came from all parts of the country and had widely varying political and religious affiliations. There were ‘‘strictly orthodox Protestants and free thinkers, vegetarians and teetotalers as well as the indifferent; real ‘Hague’ girls mingling with women with crew cuts,’’ as well as ‘‘various female types’’ that mixed freely without regard for class difference.15 A relatively small number of visitors came from abroad, an unsurprising fact because virtually all promotional material was in Dutch.16 Aside from the diplomats who attended the opening, some high-ranking officials from the Dutch East Indies in the Netherlands to attend Queen Wilhelmina’s inauguration also visited the exhibition. Some revisited Kampong Insulinde exhibit several times. Prince Pangeran Ario Mataram of Solo, who had attended the opening ceremony, even became a member of the Exhibition Association.17 Some conferences featured foreign participants. On July 25, the first day of the orphan conference, there was a lecture by the American suffragist May Wright Sewall, on the International Council of Woman (founded in 1888).18 Twenty women attended her lecture, which she gave in English.19 A report on the event in the Algemeen Handelsblad newspaper reads like a society column, mentioning the speaker’s yellow silk dress and black velvet overgarment with lace borders. Her lecture, according to the article, was ‘‘witty and entertaining.’’

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Sewall was an experienced exhibition-goer. In 1889, she had been one of the few American representatives at the two international women’s congresses held at the Paris World Exposition; Elizabeth Cady Stanton had been invited but was unable to attend. Sewall also had headed the committee that prepared the Congress of Representative Women held at the 1893 Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition. She had even intended to turn the congress into a meeting of the International Council of Women.20 During the congress, in May 1893, she addressed the audience on the subject of clothing reform. Then too, her clothes, a dark blue serge dress with a skirt that stopped almost twenty inches from the floor, had attracted media attention.21 In The Hague, Sewall spoke of the need for women’s associations worldwide to cooperate in the promotion of peace and international arbitration. Sewall denounced the Spanish-American War, a dominant issue at that time. She also advocated the establishment of a Dutch women’s council.22 A month later, on August 30, a temporary National Council of Women in the Netherlands was indeed founded. On March 23 1899, the body gained acceptance as a member of the International Council of Women.23 Another foreign guest was French poet Charles Morice, who gave a lecture on eighteenth-century feminism based on Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Cecile Goekoop had also invited Alexandra Gripenberg, president of the Finnish Women’s Association, to come to The Hague. Several Finnish feminists at the Women’s Conference of the Brussels World Exhibition in 1897 had impressed Goekoop. Speaking in English, Baroness Gripenberg delivered an address about the situation of Finnish women.24 In September, Madame J. Hudry-Menos from Paris attended a conference on child rearing at the exhibition in The Hague. In general, it seems the exhibition held little attraction for foreigners. British and Swedish national newspapers were the only foreign press that devoted column space to the event.25 The visit by a delegation from the French Feminist Equality Group (Société Féministe ‘‘L’Égalité’’) deserves special attention. This group did not come to the Netherlands as tourists, but specifically to study the exhibition and the social position of Dutch women.26 The group, subsidized by the Paris municipal council, published a report that provides an interesting and rare foreign assessment of the Dutch women’s movement of that day.27 They mainly focused on labor and social work. They described the reasons for holding the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor, mentioning the exhibitions in Philadelphia and Copen-

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hagen and explaining how the organizers had achieved their objectives. They praised the fire safety measures and the fact that a representative of the Queen had attended the opening ceremony. However, they were indignant about the carpet manufacturing demonstration, calling it a ‘‘shameful exposition of shameful exploitation.’’ The carpet girls, orphans, according to the French report, had to work too hard for a pittance. The French also gave low marks to the tradition of church-run poverty relief, reporting that the poor in the Netherlands had to join a church in order to receive aid. Yet they were full of praise for the efforts of the exhibition organizers. The visitors from Paris also included in their report an example, in its entirety, of a working-class family budget that was featured in the Social Work Exhibit. With the report published by the French, a critical assessment of the exhibition found an ear beyond the Dutch borders. S M E L L A N D TA S T E

Aside from the salty sea air that blew through The Hague in the summer of 1898, many other aromas familiar and unfamiliar wafted across the exhibition grounds. None of the committee’s official records describe them, but they must have been there, an inevitable side effect of the activity taking place. Smells made the exhibition experience unforgettable. Some newspapers mentioned them, reporting, for instance, that the agricultural exhibits smelled of ‘‘nature.’’ The room and the conservatory housing the Floral Exhibit became places to enjoy the ‘‘fine fragrances of the flowers.’’ 28 The arcade leading to the Dairy Exhibit, where farm girls were skimming cream and making cheese, had ‘‘a real farm smell,’’ as one reporter put it, giving urban visitors a realistic impression of pastoral life.29 Most of the smells were related to food and drink. Eating was not a primary goal at the exhibition, but visitors would not have to go hungry. The organizers were keen to show that even women working for greater rights made good hostesses. As visitors toured the grounds, they smelled what the organizers had cooked up for them. In the forecourt, which some compared to a scorching African desert on warm days, vendors sold raspberry lemonade and biscuits. Blooker’s Cocoa sold a cocoa drink. Men found cigars for sale, including a type made by women, bearing the name Women’s Labor. The exhibition newsletter Vrouwenarbeid published recommendations on how to organize a day trip to the exhibition including coffee and tea breaks and lunch in one of the exhibition’s restaurants.

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Many of the smells proved mouthwatering. A man baked fresh waffles on the grounds, and the kitchen used to demonstrate the work of home economics schools was filled with a variety of aromas depending on who the demonstration was for. ‘‘Ladies’’ learned about nutritional values, while ‘‘soldiers’’ acquired the skills to make dishes based on mashed potatoes. ‘‘Kitchen maids’’ were taught how to prepare Londonderry soup and pineapple pudding, while ‘‘cooks and young ladies’’ learned the secrets of garnishing dishes and filling tomatoes. Unfortunately, visitors only got to see and smell these dishes, not sample them. There were three places where visitors could eat. The large restaurant adjoining the Conference Hall served meals for fifty cents. The vegetarian restaurant was pricier, at seventy-five cents per meal, but attracted many customers. Some praised this novelty, like the reporter from a large national newspaper who wrote that he had not gone hungry even after a whole day of eating only vegetarian food. Another journalist showed less enthusiasm and complained about the prices and ‘‘the fatal, sweet aftertaste.’’ 30 The novel Véva criticized the menu of fried eggs, home fries, cucumber salad, and semolina pudding as humdrum, adding that the low quality and bad service did nothing to promote vegetarianism. Yet the alternative menu was not what attracted most clients to this restaurant; it was the deviation from conventional etiquette. Because public interest proved far greater than anticipated, the vegetarian restaurant found itself especially busy so that exhibition organizers volunteered to help out as waitresses. As one journalist observed, this was probably the first and last time these middle-class women would wait tables. As it happened, entire groups of exhibition-goers, some of them working-class women, were served by ‘‘ladies.’’ The public’s response to this temporary role reversal shows the intricate intertwining of class and gender. It proved impossible for the volunteers to break free of the public’s expectations. Some reporters were amazed at the ‘‘amicable helpfulness’’ of the ‘‘lady waitresses,’’ from whom they had expected ‘‘royal condescension’’ at best.31 The volunteer waitresses in the vegetarian restaurant temporarily broke with the traditional female code of expressing class difference through attitude and behavior. It seemed as if the exhibition were a place where class differences could blur. Some journalists who found this distasteful, sought to express their displeasure by sneering at the waitresses’ appearance: ‘‘Most . . . female vegetarians have sallow complexions and are as skinny as stilts.’’ 32 One ‘‘middle-class man’’ in the novel Véva saw the vege-

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tarian restaurant as proof that emancipated women lacked the main requirement of a woman, namely that she is ‘‘a good hostess and provides a decent meal.’’ 33 To others, however, the atmosphere in the vegetarian restaurant exemplified the ‘‘sense of solidarity’’ characterizing the entire exhibition. Once again, the physical appearance of the volunteers was cited as evidence. A brochure written by journalist and bookstore owner Vermeeren lauded the modern atmosphere in the vegetarian restaurant, contrasting the intelligent spark in the eyes of an upper-class lady with the ‘‘stupidly slack bottom lip’’ of the working-class woman she waited on.34 The most unusual aromas must have come from the third eatery, Restaurant Insulinde, which served East Indies meals such as rijsttafel, a selection of culinary delights still unknown to many Dutch people in 1898. Rijsttafel’s origins lay in the Dutch colonialists’ habit of ordering a large number of Javanese dishes all at the same time. It became one of the biggest crowd-pleasers at the exhibition, providing an opportunity for people who had never been to the East Indies to sample the unfamiliar herbs and spices of colonial cuisine. A taste of the exotic, the fashion of the new, and simple entertainment—all of these came together in Restaurant Insulinde. Not everyone appreciated colonial cuisine, and many a former inhabitant of the Dutch East Indies enjoyed watching the faces of unsuspecting Dutch women tempted to try sambal (hot chili pepper sauce).35 The restaurant also served European dishes, but interest in East Indies cooking rapidly caught on. The management decided to serve dinner as well as lunch, and to accommodate the crowds, the organizers allowed Kampong Insulinde to stay open after 6 p.m. every evening of the week. Evening visitors to the kampong did not even need to buy a ticket to the exhibition. In the exhibition’s last week, all restrictions were dropped; the section that produced all the exotic aromas became directly accessible every day and evening. Restaurant Insulinde was housed in the so-called Javanese dwelling. The waiters were mainly Javanese, but to the irritation of some people, a few Dutchmen also waited tables. These men had probably visited the Dutch East Indies as soldiers or sailors.36 Adjacent to the dining room was a separate area where one Javanese woman demonstrated batik, the ancient art of waxing and dyeing fabric. Here, women’s labor had been reduced to an illustration accompanying a commercial colonial enterprise, a tendency we will discuss in greater detail in chapter 5. The exhibition’s Colonial Exhibit became one of the main attractions for those who sought to eat, drink, and find entertainment. Descriptions of the entertainment teemed with

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colonial and ethnic distinctions. Gender was not an issue, except in the context of the norms extrapolated from colonial relations. To ensure guests that meals were authentically exotic, women referred to as Indische dames (of mixed Dutch-Indonesian descent) supervised the cooking. Thus the exhibition’s Colonial Exhibit, a commercial enterprise, became one of the sites where ethnic and racial differences were made explicit. HEARING AND LISTENING

While the public’s olfactory experience of the exhibition was purely accidental, an impressive musical program intentionally targeted their sense of hearing. Cornélie van Oosterzee’s cantata had been a key contribution to the opening ceremony, and the beginning of a summer of musical performances intended to support and enrich the feminist exposition. Cecile Goekoop and her sister Elisabeth (who was married to composer Alphons Diepenbrock) were deeply fond of music.37 Cecile had involved her younger sister in organizing the exhibition from its earliest stages and managed to have Elisabeth appointed president of the Music Committee. The musical program consisted of ten matinees for which enthusiasts could buy subscription tickets. Members of the Exhibition Association could purchase them at a reduced price. One of the matinees featured pianist Emma Koch from Berlin. A Music Committee member explained that Koch had offered to perform at the exhibition out of fondness for the Netherlands and sympathy for the Dutch women’s cause. The organizers preferred Dutch contributions, or contributions from people who, like John Tattersall, lived and worked in the Netherlands, but ‘‘a sense of national identity should not degenerate into chauvinism.’’ 38 Aside from the matinees, visitors could enjoy individual performances and recitals. A special singing technique was demonstrated, and the Middelburg Settlement House girls choir gave a performance.39 The musical program attracted plenty of attention. The music weekly Weekblad voor muziek publicized the committee’s plans a month before the opening, and music stores in The Hague and Amsterdam sold subscription tickets. Music was one of the fields in which women struggled to improve their social position. Cecile Goekoop had called attention to the hypocrisy surrounding the public performance of female musicians in her emancipation novel Hilda van Suylenburg. As long as women were not paid, they could take the stage to sing or play an instrument. As soon as they became

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professional and received payment, performing in public was considered unseemly. It comes as small wonder that the exhibition’s Social Work Exhibit portrayed obligatory piano lessons for upper-class girls as a pointless pastime that should be replaced by serious and useful social work. As reports in the press indicated, public concerts by women were still controversial at the time of the exhibition. A vindictive review in De Kroniek called it improper for women to perform in public. The publication lashed out at the performances of women’s compositions. These did not belong at an exhibition of women’s labor, De Kroniek argued, since good female composers remained rare. To suggest that women could compose music would only instigate ‘‘fruitless competition’’ with male composers. Women lacked the creativity of male musical giants, the writer contended.40 The same reviewer also rejected the less ambitious musical performances, such as the daily concert given by an ensemble at the entrance to the Conference Hall. Although the orchestra had two male members, the reviewer still lamented its ‘‘scratching and piping.’’ He was particularly disturbed by the fact that a woman played ‘‘the big drum.’’ The writer compared the group to the women’s orchestras in café-chantant and coffee bars where female musicians were hired because they cost less and male customers enjoyed ogling them. The comparison was a malicious condemnation of those who had done their utmost to organize respectable performances by women. Clearly, women’s battle for access to the public domain was far from won. The exhibition also saw the staging of a musical premiere, a children’s operetta composed by Hendrika van Tussenbroek especially for the occasion. Because of the summer recess from school, Three Pixies had to premiere a week before the exhibition officially opened. People with a subscription ticket to the exhibition’s musical program were invited to attend the premiere at the city theater in The Hague. Those who could not afford a subscription were encouraged to attend a ‘‘popular performance’’ in September.41 The heavy emphasis placed on music education (Tussenbroek and Oosterzee themselves rehearsed their children’s compositions with the children) reinforced the notion that female musicality was legitimate as long as it formed part of children’s upbringing. The music at the matinees stayed within the bounds of the expected and familiar: pieces for piano and strings, choir music, and duets. Other music at the exhibition was less accessible to European ears. The sounds produced by the Javanese gamelan in Kampong Insulinde bore no resemblance to the tonal and rhythmic patterns of Western music. Most visitors

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found them strange, mysterious, and melancholy. The soft but penetrating sounds of these copper percussion instruments produced no recognizable melody. To inexperienced ears the music seemed endless. This was not the first time that gamelan music had been performed in the Netherlands. In 1857, some students of Indology in Leiden had played gamelan instruments from the Ethnographic Museum. Javanese gamelan musicians from Solo had performed at colonial expositions in Arnhem in 1879 and in Amsterdam in 1883.42 These performances had been regarded as ethnographic demonstrations. The audience took a scientific interest in them, not an artistic one.43 Eurocentric prejudice stood in the way of aesthetic appreciation; gamelan music was judged to be primitive and nonartistic.44 While this musical genre was denied recognition in the Netherlands, gamelan performances in the Dutch village javanais at the Paris World Exhibition of 1889 inspired French composers—including Claude Debussy—to innovate their music.45 At the exhibition, Javanese music was performed almost every day from the early morning until closing time—and it was probably audible in the main building too. This must have helped give visitors the illusion of entering a different world. Some hated it. One journalist put it bluntly; to him, the sounds coming from the kampong simply did not constitute music. In his opinion, the thousands of Dutch visitors would have preferred a Carmen fantasia or a Washington Post.46 The East Indies Committee had wondered whether a gamelan would prove a success. For variety’s sake, the organizers had also hired an Italian street choir. However, the public steadily lost interest in the Italians, while they filled seats to capacity for theatrical performances accompanied by gamelan music. The public clearly wanted to hear gamelan; this music from the colonies became an important attraction. The concerts at the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor came at a turning point in the appreciation of Indonesian art. Around 1900, Dutch public interest in gamelan music grew rapidly. Some enthusiasts were of Eurasian descent or had lived in the colonies. Progressive writer Augusta de Wit, for instance, recalled hearing gamelan as a child in the Dutch East Indies. In 1898, she was living and working in The Hague. Three years later, she wrote in De gids, a cultural magazine: ‘‘Gamelan is a being, a singing soul that has given people a life apart from their own existence.’’ 47 Apparently, this music fulfilled some people’s need for an element of mystery to deepen their musical experience. It also exemplified the orientalism

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that crept into the popular appreciation of colonial culture at the turn of the century.48 One connoisseur explained that the wrong type of gamelan had been performed during the plays at Kampong Insulinde. Instead of gamelan pélog, he explained, it should have been gamelan slendra, ‘‘which the Javanese consider the most beautiful and valuable.’’ 49 Such expert criticism remained meaningless to the untrained ears of most Dutch visitors. Many were simply charmed by the music. Like the smells and tastes of the rijsttafel, the ‘‘exotic’’ sounds of the gamelan had not belonged to the underlying concept of the exhibition. The music was meant to evoke the atmosphere of the Dutch East Indies. While it appealed to the nostalgia of Eurasian and Dutch visitors who had lived in the colonies, it also satisfied the curiosity of those who had visited. This combination laid the foundation for a mass market of Indonesian culture in the Netherlands. The orientalist charm also found its way into the imagination of Dutch feminists. As Ida Heijermans wrote: ‘‘I have listened to the gamelan so many times, and every time I have come under its spell. Those Javanese stir my imagination.’’ 50 SUBJECT AND OBJECT OF THE GAZE

Perhaps more than anything else, the exhibition offered an opportunity for people to feast their eyes on visual attractions. The organizers had done their best to make the exhibits pleasing to the eye. They strove for total control of the visitor’s visual experience. All who went to the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor—sympathizers, doubters, and opponents—were bound by a shared visual experience: the gaze. Exhibition visitors shared the privilege of the gaze, the power and freedom to meander, to choose where to look. Spectators could opt to see a particular exhibit and to stay when they liked what they saw or to pass it by if bored. All visitors continually made such choices, and not always on the basis of conscious, explicit political convictions. We will focus on this unreflecting aspect of the gaze. As we know from newspaper reports, the exhibits of people (at work) were among the most popular attractions at the exhibition. About one hundred people had found employment in such exhibits, twenty of them men. Aside from those who worked as guards and saleswomen, many were hired solely to demonstrate a particular type of work or artisanship. Being able to see female carpet makers, textile workers, cheesemakers, pharmacists, diamond cutters, and Javanese artisans at work turned the exhibition into

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a unique manifestation of feminism. This experience differed fundamentally from belonging to an association, reading emancipatory novels, or attending meetings. Visitors regarded the Dutch women working in exhibits as objects on display. As such, the workers conveyed a double message. While demonstrating the kinds of labor women could perform, they also proved that it was decent for working women to be in the public eye. This was why the women, as we know from the surviving photographs, were so neatly dressed. The gimping women wore bright white, starched aprons. The carpet girls were dressed in spotless dresses and caps. Nothing in their attire indicated these young girls’ capability of organizing a strike. Although they were living, working human beings, in the eyes of others they functioned merely as symbols of one ideal of women’s labor. They exemplified a solution to a social problem: the alleged moral decay of women working in factories. Through the gaze, spectators for a moment could feel as if they were in charge of social policy. Feminist Wilhelmina Drucker found that the simple carpet factory girls remained wholly unaware of their great industrial value. She described them ‘‘giggling and working, as thoughtless as those machines that hum and purr nearby in the Hall of Industry. Do any of them ever think about changing the way they work, or improving their job or condition?’’ 51 A physical barrier reinforced the division between subjects and objects of the gaze. Initially, the organizers had meant to separate the workers from the public by a glass wall. For financial reasons, they were forced to cordon the workers off with a rope. To ensure visitors got the message, a sign was put up: ‘‘Speaking with the girls [workers] is forbidden.’’ 52 It was highly unlikely that anyone would confuse exhibition-goers with the exhibited. Most factory workers who visited the exhibition did so on Sundays, their day off, which was also the exhibition workers’ day off.53 For middleclass visitors, gazing at the workers proved a contradictory experience of distance and proximity. British historian Peter Keating detected a similar phenomenon in the fascination of middle-class Victorian scholars who tried to chart the world of the working classes. He called this the ‘‘farnessnearness-paradox.’’ 54 To the bourgeoisie, the poor boroughs of industrial cities comprised an alien universe. Likewise, some exhibition visitors must have felt alienated while gazing at the working women. They stood close enough to touch, yet remained part of a different world. Gazing at the Javanese in Kampong Insulinde proved just as ambiguous. With some effort,

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visitors could imagine themselves in the East Indies. The Javanese men and women were so tangible that visitors and journalists wondered what they might be thinking. At the same time, the onlookers constructed an unbridgeable gap between their own civilization and the ‘‘strange’’ world of Javanese art. In the displays of indigenous people from the colony, gender did not play a prominent role. The Javanese demonstrations were not intended to prove that women’s labor and decency could coexist. In the Kampong Insulinde, the presumably irreconcilable difference between motherland and colony dominated the distance between spectators and the people on display. Gender difference was relegated to the background. But in the exhibits that displayed factory labor, the workers’ gender emerged the key issue. As described in chapter 2, the act of displaying people at exhibitions has a long history. Exhibitions of the nineteenth century, and particularly world exhibitions, were events where visitors could get a close look at people from many different worlds. They could publicly indulge in the pleasure of the gaze while remaining anonymous in the crowd. They could see without being seen. They could absorb the physical details, shudder in disgust, or identify with what they saw; they could pretend to be someone (or somewhere) else. At the same time, however, and this is the crucial point, the spectators could maintain their distance. They did not have to relate personally. They could gaze without fear of becoming the object of the gaze. A visitor could flee at any moment, turn around and walk away. This type of spectatorship has been linked to the new traditions of gazing in the late nineteenth century. Film scholar Lauren Rabinovitz has pointed to the similarities between visiting an exhibition and going to the cinema.55 The motion picture had been invented in Paris in 1895. The first moving pictures Lumière showed publicly were images of French women workers leaving a factory. Even with this potential thematic link to cinema, it probably did not occur to the exhibition organizers to plan a film screening. The only exhibit remotely connected to film was a slide show of over one hundred photographs of East Indies landscapes projected onto a big screen in the kampong.56 Historian Vanessa Schwartz theorizes that expositions of wax statues were a prelude to modern cinema. She concludes that the pleasure people took in these expositions led to the birth of a new sort of crowd in Paris in the 1880s and 1890s, a crowd united in pleasure rather than protest.57

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Anne McClintock has referred to the Western practice of visiting world exhibitions as ‘‘consumption of the globe by voyeurs.’’ 58 By this she means that visitors had the privilege of looking without being looked at. Imperial politics, according to McClintock, proved a crucial dimension of this position. Privileged invisibility formed a key part of the effort to popularize imperialism. World exhibitions invited the public to look through the eyes of imperialist conquerors and rulers. Unknown African, Asian, and American countries and cultures lay open for inspection as possible sites of colonial development. To illustrate their policies, European politicians and scholars constructed images of world history in which a look at non-Western cultures equaled a glimpse of another era.59 Civilization and development were plotted on a time line, and all indigenous cultures illustrated prehistory or preliminary stages of Western culture. This direct confrontation with a time that supposedly lay far behind the Western spectators caused a sensation. They caught a glimpse of prehistory, stepping into a time machine without running any risk.World history was reduced to a visual spectacle that could be instantly absorbed and understood. As journalist G. B. Hooijer summed it up: ‘‘I adore the East Indies—not so much for what they were, and are, as for what they can become.’’ 60 Modern imperialism became increasingly dependent on mass consumption of goods from the colonies. This became evident in the presence of coffee, tea, and chocolate houses at various exhibitions in Europe, including the women’s exhibition in The Hague. In addition, imperialism required broad political support in the mother country. This made ‘‘common people’’ an important target group for colonial exhibitions. Cheap, accessible entertainment allowed ordinary people to enjoy the privilege of the gaze. In the anonymity of the masses, they could peer into world history and feel like participants in the nation’s imperial projects. The exhibition experience led many people to migrate from the mother country to the colonies. Political scientist Timothy Mitchell believes the exhibition’s role to have been even greater; he contends that the colonial subject itself had its origins in the curious spectator at exhibitions. According to Mitchell, the distance between the spectator and the object displayed compared to the distance between what was exhibited and the reality outside the exhibition. Both types of distance proved necessary to see the world as an object of exploration and exploitation.61 The exhibition in The Hague continued the tradition of colonial and human exhibits. Here, too, visitors could enjoy the power and pleasure of

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gazing at different worlds. In the effort to illustrate their subject matter, the organizers followed the codes of the genre; their exhibition had to be spectacular and authentic. They built replicas of different worlds for visual inspection. The world of factory work came to life in the Hall of Industry. A scale model sod hut in the Social Work Exhibit symbolized ‘‘backward’’ regions of the Netherlands. And visitors to the East Indies village entered the world of the largest Dutch colony and gawked at ‘‘real’’ Javanese people. The exhibits that lacked real people made do with mannequins.62 The end of the nineteenth century saw the rise of new forms of mass entertainment.63 In the preparatory stage of the exhibition, Marie Jungius had written that the masses could only be reached by ‘‘illustration.’’ While she drew on the current tendency to entertain the masses with images, she did not want to provide empty diversion.64 Jungius, a school teacher by profession, intended to persuade, interest, motivate, and involve her public. And many of the exhibits in The Hague indeed achieved her objectives. It was inevitable, however, that when illustration became a strategic tool for the women’s movement, it would also appeal to other areas of the spectator’s psyche (aside from serious convictions). Looking at images has an inherent entertainment value. So even the ‘‘hallowed grounds’’ of the women’s movement constructed a position of privileged invisibility through visual entertainment. This is where pleasure and power converged. Spectators received an opportunity to see and judge different worlds and their inhabitants. For some women, the spectator’s gaze proved a new and pleasurable sensation. They sampled a privilege so far the prerogative of Dutch middleclass men. While they looked on, they fantasized about the worlds they would change. This pleasurable gazing sometimes blinded them to the inequality between the onlooker and the looked-upon, an inequality either overtly or implicitly being called into question. The inequality was based not only on gender but also on class and race. Clearly, this feminist experiment with the gaze had negative consequences for the female workers and Javanese men and women on display. The conflicts and problems that arose between the people exhibited and the organizers, both during and after the exhibition, lend evidence to the fact that this power imbalance was not unconditionally accepted. Not all the visitors to the exhibition could enjoy the privilege of looking on from a safe, anonymous distance. High-ranking guests attracted a great deal of attention themselves. For instance, when Queen Regent Emma and

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her daughter Wilhelmina visited the exhibition on August 29, they temporarily became the main attraction of the event. A R O YA L V I S I T

The subordinate position of women in Dutch society was underscored when, after the last crown prince of Orange died in 1884, a debate erupted in parliament about the succession to the Dutch throne. The pros and cons of a female sovereign became the talk of the day. Prominent politicians, lawyers, and journalists mainly discussed problems relating to marital law. Under current legislation, a female head of state would have to yield to the authority of her husband (who was, by law, the head of the marital union), and, living in a patrilinear society, she would be unable to pass on the royal family name. Most attempts to solve these problems were pragmatic in nature.65 For example, the constitution was changed in 1887 to secure Wilhelmina’s succession. These public debates encouraged the women’s movement to step up its campaign for change, especially in the 1890s, when the popularity of the queen regent and the young crown princess grew. Queen Regent Emma had won wide respect during her reign. She was very disciplined and well-informed. She enhanced national cohesion by visiting every province of the Netherlands with her daughter. By regularly showing the heir to the throne to the people, she made the monarchy more visible. At the same time, showing off little Wilhelmina, dressed in white, created an image of innocence and purity that served to wipe clean the memory of scandals her father and grandfather had been involved in.66 Some factions of the women’s movement expected the future queen to be instrumental in advancing women’s interests. Aside from the importance of her personality, an inestimable symbolic potential came with the fact that she would become the first woman to ascend to the Dutch throne. If a woman was deemed fit to rule, then who would dare suggest that women were unfit to be citizens? 67 Wilhelmina’s nearing coronation day inspired some feminists to come up with the wildest plans. Betsy Perk, a pioneer of Dutch feminism, had proposed to give the nation a ‘‘Palace or World Museum of Women’s Art and Applied Art’’ to mark the coronation.68 At the request of Queen Regent Emma, however, she did not follow through with this. Not all exhibition organizers were fans of the new queen. The explicitly feminist Evolutie magazine categorically rejected any ‘‘ecstatic glorifi-

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cation’’ of this ‘‘still part-child.’’ 69 Surviving documents reveal that neither Cecile Goekoop nor other members of the exhibition board adored Wilhelmina. One directive from the board even explicitly instructed the organizers to avoid using orange, as it was a political color. Still, the royalist Johanna Naber, editor in chief of the exhibition newsletter Vrouwenarbeid, published a jubilant ‘‘Orange Edition’’ of the newsletter during coronation week. The young queen had in recent years become the subject of public debate, and the labor and women’s movements also discussed her position. The direct link between the inauguration and the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor threatened to give the royal event a feminist hue. Feminists had put the constitutional and civil restrictions on women— and hence, on the female head of state—on the political agenda. To remain above the political fray, the queen regent had to be particularly cautious in her gestures toward this movement. This explains why Emma kept her distance from an event so closely associated with the women’s movement. She treated all requests from the Exhibition Association with reticence. Her attitude disappointed the organizers, since they had hoped to secure royal endorsement or support. From a public relations point of view, any kind of support from the queen and her mother would have proven most beneficial. Even the left-wing media appreciated this commercial consideration, agreeing that support from the royal court might generate funding.70 The organizers’ expectations seemed realistic. Many earlier exhibitions had received royal endorsement. In the nineteenth century, the Dutch king had been involved in, or patron of, various national exhibitions of industrial and applied arts. Elsewhere, female heads of state and their spouses had lent their support to women’s exhibitions. At the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893, Queen Victoria had openly endorsed the English women’s contribution to the Woman’s Building. The British monarch, not by any stretch of the imagination a feminist, had even submitted her own water color paintings and drawings, including one of her dog Spot.71 Queen Louise of Denmark (a distant relative of Dutch King Willem iii) had been the patroness of the women’s exhibition of 1895 in Copenhagen. Her daughter had served as the honorary president of the board.72 In the Netherlands, Queen Sophie (the first wife of King Willem iii) had taken a special interest in the Delft women’s exhibition of 1871 and in the work of Arbeid Adelt.73 At the next women’s exhibition, in Leeuwarden, the entrance hall featured a life-size plaster bust of the deceased Queen Sophie and a commemorative wreath.74 These examples indicate that the monar-

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chy and the pioneers of the women’s movement had been on good terms from the very beginning and that the exhibition organizers had reason to count on the queen regent and her daughter to show an interest in their work. They had timed the exhibition to coincide with the coronation. But they had also gone further, to some extent gearing the content of the exhibition to royal preferences. For example, in one of the first meetings, they decided to incorporate a colonial exhibit on the grounds that Wilhelmina would also be queen of the overseas territories.75 On September 11, 1897, the East Indies Committee wrote to the court for the first time, enclosing a circular letter explaining the plans for a colonial exhibit.76 In December 1897, the board requested Queen Regent Emma’s patronage for the exhibition. Emma declined; in fact, she refused all such requests for exhibitions held in the year 1898. Instead, she offered to award medals to the winners of any competitions held at the exhibition. Should such competitions be held, wrote the queen regent, then the board would have to write again to request medals, and the request would be taken into consideration.77 This terse reply deeply disappointed the organizers, who, having just entered a critical phase in their efforts to fund the exhibition, badly needed royal endorsement. A circular letter to all Exhibition Association members expressed the board’s regret that the queen ‘‘had not shown her sympathy more emphatically for an enterprise that hopes to have such a profound impact on the lives of the entire nation.’’ 78 A few months later, there was a glimmer of hope when Queen Emma gave permission to the Visual Arts Committee to display an original portrait of her daughter in full regalia. Thérèse Schwartze, the painter apparently still working on the portrait, had personally supported the request. Earlier, Schwartze had been commissioned to paint a portrait of Queen Emma together with her daughter Wilhelmina. Since then, Schwartze’s career had taken off, and she had remained a friend of the House of Orange. Her painting of Wilhelmina in ceremonial dress went on display at the exhibition on July 9, several weeks before the coronation.79 The Visual Arts Committee also managed to borrow two sculptures by Thérèse’s sister Georgine Schwartze from the royal palace, one of which was a bronze bust of Wilhelmina.80 With this display of royal portrait paintings and sculptures, the Visual Arts Exhibit continued the tradition begun in 1878 with the bust of the deceased Queen Sophie in Leeuwarden. The organizers gained ground, patiently using their network of highly placed friends. In June 1898, the board wrote to the queen regent, ask-

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ing whether she would dispatch a royal representative to the opening ceremony. The same letter humbly invited the queen regent and her daughter to make a personal visit to the exhibition in September, when the royal family was to be in The Hague for the coronation. Emma replied that ‘‘it is not well possible to determine so soon whether Their Majesties would be able to visit the Exhibition. Their Majesties hope to find the opportunity to do so, however.’’ The queen regent did show an interest in sending her lord chamberlain to the opening ceremony, asking him ‘‘to report on that ceremony.’’ 81 While his presence did give the opening day a royal flair, many regretted the absence of Emma and Wilhelmina on the occasion. According to one journalist, the women (and men) of the Netherlands would have applauded Emma as ‘‘a personification of ‘the community’ ’’ had she been allowed to address the crowd.82 The organizers were also disappointed by the level of royal support. In their hopes for endorsement, they had obviously underestimated how vulnerable young Wilhelmina was, particularly due to her sex. The visit everyone had hoped for, but few still believed in, eventually happened. On August 29, 1898, two days before her eighteenth birthday, Wilhelmina and her mother visited the exhibition. They arrived at 4 p.m., accompanied by several ladies-in-waiting, chamberlains, and military officials. It is unclear why the royal visit occurred on that particular day. The visit came not long after a three-day conference on the ‘‘East Indies possessions’’ where the Hogendorp sisters and high-ranking military men had spoken. Perhaps this had something to do with the decision, since Emma and Wilhelmina had a great interest in the colonies. A more likely explanation, however, is that the Grand Duke Carl Alexander van SaxeWeimar’s visit to the exhibition on August 17 convinced them. The grand duke, Wilhelmina’s uncle, received a tour from the president of the Invitation Committee, Baroness Henriëtte de Constant Rebecque-Hora Siccama. The baroness, whose daughter was one of Wilhelmina’s ladies-in-waiting, constituted an important link between the court and the exhibition. Newspaper articles wrote about the warm welcome given to the grand duke. Perhaps he told the Dutch sovereigns of his pleasant experience.83 However, the court must also have known that suffragette Annette Versluys-Poelman would be speaking about women’s suffrage on the afternoon of August 29. The visit by the queen regent and the future queen coincided with the only debate on women’s suffrage held during the exhibition. According to the report published in Vrouwenarbeid, Versluys-Poelman

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started her speech early, knowing full well that the audience would soon flock to see the young queen.84 Evolutie called it a ‘‘clear, calm, and collected speech.’’ A heated debate with the social democrats followed her lecture. In her closing statement, she reiterated an earlier point, saying that ‘‘upbringing and education could move people to change their condition. And because raising children was impossible without women, women’s suffrage would have to take precedence over universal suffrage.’’ According to Evolutie, the sound of famous patriotic songs drowned out Versluys-Poelman’s last words.85 As soon as the music from the ladies horn ensemble began, various conference-goers rose to their feet to catch a glimpse of the royals. But Emilie Knappert, chair of the conference, reproached the audience, saying ‘‘Please stay seated. There will be more chances to meet the Queen, but the time we waste here cannot be regained.’’ 86 The audience found itself caught between women’s suffrage and its interest in the queen. In the meantime, Emma and Wilhelmina had received a warm welcome by Cecile Goekoop-de Jong van Beek en Donk and Cato PekelharingDoijer, who presented them with flowers and gave them a tour. This began in the Hall of Industry, where the majesties stopped to watch the carpet factory girls. We do not know whether the queens abided by the ban on conversing with the girls. During their stroll through the exhibits along the arcade, they stopped for a long time at the Nursing Exhibit. Both Emma and her daughter regarded nursing as an important form of social work. Along the way, they passed Louise Yda, the Surinamese woman who presented herself in full dress to the queens. Next they visited Kampong Insulinde, where the guests were treated to a saber fight demonstration and a hastily organized Javanese wedding procession. Among the spectators were a number of indigenous dignitaries, including the prince of Solo, Pangeran Ario Mataram.87 Wilhelmina, who had met the East Indies viceroys before, recognized the prince and alerted her mother. Emma invited the high-ranking guest to ‘‘join their company’’ and moments later, Wilhelmina told Ario Mataram that she ‘‘so enjoyed’’ visiting the East Indies Exhibit. At 5:30 p.m., Queen Regent Emma and young Wilhelmina left for Scheveningen. The visit to the exhibition did not inspire Wilhelmina to take an overt interest in the women’s movement. Although the exhibition did not represent a single point of view or philosophy, Emma and Wilhelmina cannot have remained indifferent to the general idea behind the event. The organizers’ goals reflected values and ideals of citizenship that Emma

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and Wilhelmina agreed with. For instance, the organizers considered a sense of duty and social responsibility of paramount importance. They linked their effort to expand women’s labor prospects to so-called public morality. Queen Regent Emma herself had introduced a moral revival at the court, emphasizing the work ethic, austerity, and virtuousness. She also went about her daughter’s upbringing with great thoroughness. She sought above all to build her daughter’s character, to teach her restraint, and a sense of duty. Wilhelmina, who had been instilled with a conviction of the historical and moral importance of the House of Orange, would soon face a difficult task. She would have to make great sacrifices for her fatherland. In the Netherlands of the late nineteenth century, political and social relations increasingly came under discussion in terms of responsibility to society. Militancy, self-sacrifice, and a sense of duty were becoming core values in the political arena.88 The organizers of the exhibition ensured that these same values would come to the fore in the exhibits and conferences. They hoped this would help create a new and productive field of labor for women in the Netherlands and its colonies. The East Indies Committee hoped to demonstrate the many ways women ‘‘in the East Indies could earn a living.’’ Emma and Wilhelmina can hardly have disapproved of the central theme that cast women as the moral guides of the Dutch empire. At the time of their visit, neither Wilhelmina nor her mother supported the women’s movement in any way. There is no evidence that they were truly interested, aside from the reports of their one visit to the exhibition. A week after the royal tour, however, Annette Versluys-Poelman and the secretary of the Dutch Woman’s Suffrage Association had an audience with the queen. They intended to hand her a petition advocating women’s suffrage, but their hope for explicit support was in vain. After waiting for three hours in a stuffy room and seeing a whole parade of military officials go before them, they were finally shown in. They curtseyed to the young queen on a dais and were motioned to hand the petition to an unknown chamberlain, who deposited it on a table with many other documents. The suffragettes were permitted only a fleeting glance at the ‘‘face of the Constitutional monarch.’’ In the stinging assessment of Evolutie, feminists were not satisfied by ‘‘blinding purple, a few sparkling diamonds, or a string of attractive pearls.’’ 89 Other sources also suggest that Wilhelmina felt an antipathy toward feminism. The only biographer granted access to Wilhelmina’s personal correspondence quoted her as writing: ‘‘Have you read that . . . some mem-

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bers [of parliament] disapproved of the women’s movement? This pleased me so much.’’ 90 Nevertheless, we find it impossible to conclude with certainty that Wilhelmina opposed the women’s movement. After all, it is unlikely that a young queen, whose suitability as head of state had been openly questioned, would dare to show feminist sympathies. Besides, the movement itself was too heterogeneous, consisting of a wide variety of factions and people. Later, Queen Wilhelmina even supported feminist endeavors, such as the Woman, 1813–1913 exhibition. These facts, and her ties with several feminist women from the conservative wing of the movement (including Johanna Naber), paint a more subtle picture of where she stood.91 Queen Emma did show support for the exhibition, albeit in a guarded way. She awarded seventeen medals, the most important of these to Johanna Naber, the editor in chief of Vrouwenarbeid, and she gave the exhibition permission to display several objects from the royal collection. In addition, she ordered a considerable amount of batik work from the East Indies Committee on December 30, 1898. The profits earned by the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor therefore resulted partly from royal support. Emma’s purchase was kept quiet in keeping with the neutral stance the House of Orange took, especially in the very early days of Queen Wilhelmina’s reign. n

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The colonial exhibit was Wilhelmina’s favorite part of the exhibition. The organizers had asserted that this exhibit made the representation of the Dutch empire complete, and there is little doubt that this suited the young queen’s self-image. The conquests of the colonial army piqued her interest in military affairs. In her view, the Netherlands needed the overseas territories in the East Indies to compensate for its position as a small country amidst large European powers. However, Wilhelmina never visited any of the Dutch territories in the Far East or the Americas. Like many of her compatriots, she formed an image of Dutch imperialism based entirely on information received in the mother country. Her perception was constructed largely on colonial exhibits such as Kampong Insulinde in The Hague. In the next chapter, we will focus on how the Dutch women’s movement represented the colonies in 1898.

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At the end of the nineteenth century, the Dutch controlled one of Europe’s largest colonial empires. The Netherlands ruled over two colonies— the Dutch West Indies, consisting of Surinam and the Netherlands Antilles, and the Dutch East Indies, which stretched across the Indonesian archipelago and part of New Guinea. The Netherlands derived great international prestige from its control of Indonesia, a region with 70 million inhabitants. For centuries, Dutch imperialism had been based mainly on trade, with the Dutch state or its representatives claiming monopolies on the import and export of products from the colonies. In the East Indies, the Netherlands ruled through the authority of local viceroys. The West Indies colony was exploited as a plantation economy. There, slavery played a significant role until 1863. Around 1900, Dutch imperialism changed. Following a pattern set by the French and British empires, the Dutch state began to exert more direct authority over the colonial territories and gave private companies permission to exploit mineral resources and indigenous labor. This policy had a great impact on the East Indies in particular. The colonial army waged war to bring new territories under its dominion, and, in turn, the administrative bureaucracy grew. For the first time, missionary work was permitted and even encouraged. New enterprises made handsome profits growing sugar, coffee, rubber, and tobacco. This modern imperialism went hand in hand with increased international migration. A growing number of Dutch people, mainly men, moved to the Dutch East Indies to seek their fortune. For many of those who eventually returned, The Hague became an important home base. Hence The Hague had a large Indische population: people of Dutch or mixed Indonesian-Dutch descent who had lived in the East

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Indies. Their distinct accent and appearance often made these returned émigrés and their descendants quite recognizable. Javanese women wearing sarongs who had returned with Dutch families as domestic servants became a familiar sight on the streets of The Hague.1 These Javanese servants and nannies formed one of the few images that publicly confronted the Dutch population with the colonies. It was the only evidence of Indonesian labor migration visible in the Netherlands. Other consequences of modern imperialism—the masses of Javanese workers shipped to Surinam after 1889, for instance—remained unseen. Aside from migrant labor and newspaper articles about the war in Aceh, more indirect signs of colonialism seeped into Dutch public consciousness through trade. Dutch consumers bought coffee, tea, cocoa, and tobacco from the colonies. The textile industry in the eastern Dutch city of Twente produced a large quantity of cotton for the East Indies market. The stock exchange quoted shares of profitable East Indies companies. The Deli tobacco company, for instance, was the first modern corporation that annually paid high dividends. In parliament, politicians referred to a deficit in the ‘‘East Indies budget.’’ From 1899 onward, there was a call for greater government investment in the East Indies.2 Progressive liberals and socialists pointed to the benefits reaped from the colony and advocated spending on the education system and infrastructure. Generally, however, the overseas territories constituted mere footnotes in the political debate. Colonial politics were left to specialists and to the few people with a personal connection to the colonies.3 This tradition found its personification in Jacob Theodoor Cremer, the founder and main shareholder of the Deli tobacco company, who became minister of colonies in 1897. Many Dutch people regarded the colonies and their inhabitants as an unknown quantity. Paramaribo and Batavia, the colonial capitals, were far away, and communication was cumbersome. The East and West Indies seemed totally isolated from daily life in the Netherlands, untouched by big issues such as poverty, class relations, and education and suffrage rights. Few saw any connection between women’s rights and colonial politics. Unlike its English counterpart, Dutch feminism in 1898 had no tradition of critical thought on the subject of imperial relations. In England, the British empire had long been the focus of popular attention, and many feminists had spoken out on the position of British and Indian women in the colonial power structure.4 The British women’s movement had instigated debates about women’s legal position, education, and morality—issues that

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seemed to have little bearing on Dutch colonial interests, which were described exclusively in military and business terms.5 No one in the Netherlands had drawn a connection between colonial matters and women’s issues. In this sense, the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor marked a turning point. Now that modern imperialism was beginning to be no longer just a matter of waging war and making a profit, other areas of policy—such as education, health care, morality, and missionary work—might become part of the public perception of the colonies. The National Exhibition of Women’s Labor systematically dealt with these aspects of colonial relations. As a growing number of Dutch people spent long periods in the East Indies, interest in daily life in Java was rising, and women were becoming more curious about household conditions there.6 The National Exhibition of Women’s Labor—with its replica village, its East Indies restaurant, and a host of local products—gave them an opportunity to catch a glimpse of life ‘‘over there.’’ These new areas and topics of debate changed the discourse about the colonies. Aside from the traditional images of saber rattling and profiteering, the public now associated the East Indies with new themes: sexuality, girls’ schools, midwives, and sambal. Anne McClintock called the same phenomenon in Great Britain ‘‘the domestication of imperialism.’’ By this she meant that the colonies were increasingly described in terms of domesticity and its attending norms. In McClintock’s view, this trend was connected to the emergence of mass markets for colonial products and the rise of cheap reproduction techniques, particularly photography. Having received a visual impression of the colonies, a wide public in England now felt part of the British empire.7 The exhibition of 1898 also marked another change. Gender relations were for the first time perceived to have a colonial dimension. Colonial relations became part of the discourse of feminists in the women’s movement and in the general public debate about women’s social position. Discussions about women’s social position tended to focus on the mother country’s presumed superiority over the colonies. Some Dutch feminists felt that women’s emancipation entitled them to join their fathers and brothers in exerting colonial authority. To others, the comparison of Dutch gender relations to those in the East and West Indies gave new impetus to their feminist convictions. Convinced that The Netherlands was more advanced, these women saw feminism as an export product that could help their in-

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digenous counterparts in the colonies. The presumption that indigenous women suffered oppression provided an added rationalization for supporting Dutch colonial patronage.8 The National Exhibition of Women’s Labor played a role in these shifts because it managed to bring together various traditional manifestations of colonialism under a new heading. For the first time, several different aspects of Dutch colonialism became systematically linked to ‘‘the woman question.’’ Yet on close examination, it seems the colonial exhibits were not based on a preconceived or carefully devised plan to influence public opinion. The two exhibits (about the East Indies and West Indies), the conference, and the replica of a kampong covered widely divergent topics and were inconsistent with the rest of the exhibition in crucial ways. The common denominator shared by these four exhibition components was their aim to educate the public and promote interest in the colonies. The focus of each of these components differed, however. We will deal with the colonial conference in chapter 7. The remainder of this chapter will focus on the two exhibits and the kampong, which gave concrete shape to the exhibition’s colonial dimension. AN EXHIBITION OF COLONIAL SUBJECTS

From the outset, women ‘‘with tropical ties’’ had a noticeable influence on the exhibition. Cato Pekelharing-Doijer, for instance, had been born in Batavia in 1858.9 As president of the committee that initiated the exhibition, she insisted that the East and West Indies should be represented at the event. In October 1897, Pekelharing-Doijer, by then vice president of the exhibition board, became the liaison for the West and East Indies Committees. However, not all of the exhibition initiators shared her conviction that the colonies should form part of the exhibition. At the first general meeting, many women expressed the feeling that the colonies were simply too far away. The only ones who could muster enthusiasm were those with first-hand knowledge or experience of the overseas territories. The first promotional materials for the exhibition as a whole hardly mention the colonies. Jungius’s brochure (published in February 1897) stated that there would be one combined East and West Indies exhibit. Because so little was known about women’s labor and social position in ‘‘our colonies,’’ she wrote, the exhibit would display characteristic forms of (home) industry.10 The call for contributions, sent to the media that spring,

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mentioned an opportunity for ‘‘women from the East and West Indies . . . to show the mother country what they were capable of.’’ 11 At the general meetings, many women doubted the relevance of colonial exhibits to an exhibition of women’s labor. The first concrete plans date back to November 1896. As delegates debated the idea of colonial exhibits, one journalist expressed concern that the organizers may leave out East and West Indies exhibits, but she was told that this would not be the case.12 However, at the general meeting held the following spring, the reasoning behind the colonial sections was again questioned. Journalist Anna Fles argued that these exhibits would do nothing to help achieve the objective, stated by the Exhibition Association, of improving the position of Dutch women. Agatha van Zuylen-Tromp from The Hague defended the colonial presence at the exhibition by referring to the great number of Dutch women who traveled to the overseas territories. Therefore, she argued, ‘‘Dutch women’’ would benefit from learning about ‘‘the circumstances and women of the East Indies.’’ She said the exhibition would also enlighten visitors about ‘‘the work of the women from the East Indies.’’ Zuylen-Tromp reasoned from the assumption that Dutch women needed to become familiar with the situation in the East Indies and the women who lived there. Cecile Goekoop suggested that Dutch women could also help improve the ‘‘terribly unfortunate circumstances’’ there. This ‘‘altruistic’’ argument did not persuade Anna Fles. She believed that indigenous women could gain little from the exhibition. But Goekoop also explicitly referred to the benefits it would have for Dutch women; after all, they would be able to expand their field of activity to the East Indies. The meeting failed to reach a consensus on the issue of who ought to benefit from the exhibition. Consensus on the colonial exhibits was reached only after a (female) journalist argued that Queen Wilhelmina would never endorse an exhibition that excluded some of her subjects: the women in the colonies. Those in attendance greeted this argument with loud applause.13 These discussions neatly summarized the various ways in which the colonial dimension could be brought to bear on the women’s movement. Were Dutch women doing this in their own interest (to expand their field of activity to the East Indies)? Or was it all for the good of the East Indies and its women (to rectify a ‘‘most unfortunate situation’’)? Or should Indonesian and Dutch women be seen as one group, as subjects of the Dutch queen? It was the appeal to national unity that won wide support for put-

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ting the colonies on display. The term subject temporarily blurred the distinctions between Indonesian and Dutch. The women present at the meeting felt this to be a strong argument. In an era when women still had a long way to go before achieving full citizenship—they were denied both eligibility and suffrage—the female head of state offered an alternative route to become part of the nation. As subjects of the queen, all women were equal. Nonetheless, no round of applause could reconcile the differences between the women of the mother country and those living in the colonies. The nationality of those who lived in the Dutch East Indies had been established in 1892, when parliament passed a new citizenship law. From then on, Dutch citizenship became hereditary; citizenship was determined by the parents’ nationality rather than the subject’s place of birth.14 The lawmakers then had to decide who would receive full citizenship rights. They granted full rights to men of Dutch ethnic origin, but limited rights to women of Dutch ethnicity and inhabitants of the colonies. On marriage, women automatically acquired their husband’s nationality; they could not opt to either assume or decline Dutch citizenship. ‘‘As long as . . . [woman] does not have the right to vote and is not eligible for military conscription,’’ the legislators reasoned, then ‘‘the issue of nationality is of no concern to her.’’ 15 The new law relegated the indigenous East Indies population, aside from a tiny minority of mostly Eurasians who were granted rights equal to those of Europeans, to the category of ‘‘natives or their equals.’’ During the debate, Second Chamber parliamentarian Henry D. Levyssohn Norman had pointed out the possibility that a loophole might allow all so-called natives to become Dutch citizens. The justice minister agreed with the undesirability of such a situation. He adopted Levyssohn Norman’s amendment, which ruled out citizenship for all Indonesians and other colonial inhabitants with rights equal to those of the indigenous population.16 Consequently, those living in the Dutch East Indies were no longer considered citizens under international law, although in practice they often received treatment as Dutch subjects. Surinam, which had no such category of inhabitants, was not mentioned in this context. It was not until 1910, after years of heated debate, that a new nationality law was passed granting these inhabitants the status of subjects of the crown—but not Dutch citizenship.17 For the women who in 1897 were preparing the National Exhibition of

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Women’s Labor, the term subject had given sufficient grounds to proclaim a national unity of women. Like the inhabitants of the East Indies, these women had been denied citizenship. Their notion of female solidarity was based on a collective denial of another inequality: the colonial difference used to deprive the entire East Indies population (men and women alike) of full citizenship. This would not be the last time in the struggle for greater rights that Dutch women would turn a blind eye to mechanisms of exclusion. Despite initial hesitation and objections, the East and West Indies Committees finally got down to work. Everyone involved felt that Dutch people were poorly informed about the colonies. The committee members themselves showed as much enthusiasm about the colonies as they did about ‘‘the woman question’’ itself. KAMPONG INSULINDE

A predominant feature of the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor was Kampong Insulinde, a replica of a Dutch East Indies village that occupied one-fifth of the exhibition grounds. Insulinde, or ‘‘island empire,’’ was a common nickname for the Dutch East Indies colony. The kampong was a major attraction that played a big part in the overall success of the exhibition. The press devoted extensive column space to the theatrical and musical performances taking place there. Plans for an East Indies village had been in the works from a very early stage. In the fall of 1897, the East Indies Committee had proposed to build ‘‘a few Malayan dwellings where native women could demonstrate indigenous fabric dyeing and weaving techniques.’’ The committee believed an East Indies event would spark great interest among the many locals in The Hague who had lived in the colony. At the same time, the committee felt it would provide the general public with a glimpse of ‘‘native life’’ in the Dutch East Indies.18 Kampong Insulinde grew into an enterprise in its own right, comprising twenty-two buildings in all. Every day, the village came to life during performances and demonstrations by a group of indigenous Javanese. In a visual sense, Kampong Insulinde differed radically from the rest of the exhibition.While the main exhibition building was symmetrical, with carefully ordered displays, the kampong had meandering paths that wound their way around buildings of various forms and functions.Visitors strolled

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through the garden and discovered the surprising architecture of Javanese and Sumatran dwellings. They crossed a covered bridge spanning a humanmade kali (canal). There was a special barn where rice was stamped, a house where women made batik, and another dwelling where a woman demonstrated weaving. The Van Houten & Son company ran a ‘‘Java type’’ chocolate booth where ‘‘Javanese waiters served [cocoa] calmly and silently.’’ 19 The office of the Insulinde Committee was housed in a Borneo-type home where visitors could also sample East Indies delicacies, preserves, and pastries and purchase batik fabrics and other products from Batavia and Pekalongan. Musical and theatrical performances enhanced the exotic atmosphere of entertainment and relaxation. the lure of the exotic Insulinde deviated from the principles of the exhibition in terms of content as well. Women’s labor was not the central theme there—this had been decided by the Insulinde Committee from the outset. The committee feared that ‘‘Malayan women’’ would become homesick if they were brought to The Netherlands to demonstrate their skills in unfamiliar surroundings. Therefore the committee opted to display native life as a whole, including the ‘‘male element.’’ 20 For an exhibition based on gender difference, this proved a significant decision that would have far-reaching consequences. By offering entertainment, Kampong Insulinde created an atmosphere that contrasted sharply with the serious exhibits about ‘‘difficult’’ social issues. For instance, the kampong remained open at night in the hope of turning a profit, while the rest of the exhibition closed. The committee’s explicit aim was to provide visitors with ‘‘an opportunity to relax after seeing so many remarkable objects on the Exhibition grounds.’’ 21 Visitors could buy a separate guide to the exhibit: Gids voor Insulinde. Anna Marie Gerth van Wijk, a former teacher at the girls’ higher secondary school in Batavia, had authored this brochure.22 It chronicled ‘‘the making of Kampong Insulinde,’’ adding extensive commentary on all attractions the village offered. Kampong Insulinde drew visitors who otherwise would not have come to the exhibition. Local families with ties to the East Indies showed great enthusiasm for the mock village, as was described in Insulinde, a magazine with an audience interested in the Dutch East Indies.23 Although unique in the context of the exhibition, the kampong did not prove innovative in an international sense. Its placement and layout—in a garden next to the official exhibition complex—conformed entirely to

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the existing tradition of colonial exhibits at world expositions. The organizers drew much of the form and content for their colonial project from earlier examples in the same genre. To some extent, Europe’s colonies had been represented at every world exposition since London’s Crystal Palace. The British colonies and dominions in Asia, Africa, and South America had constituted the highlights of that 1851 exposition. Situated at the heart of the Crystal Palace, the colonial exhibits had given tangible proof of the empire’s wealth and prestige. Exotic objects, stuffed and mounted wild game, colorful fabrics, unknown foods, not to mention non-Western visitors themselves subjected to incessant staring—these were the public’s first impressions of the overseas possessions. Panoptic and panoramic perspectives brought strange and faraway lands within reach.24 The 1867 Exposition Universelle in Paris was based on an all-encompassing worldview, one in which history for the first time played an important role.25 Its aim, to provide an overview of the ‘‘History of the Earth,’’ hardly invites the label of modest. The main building was based on a meticulously designed total concept, combining an exhaustive classification system with architectural form. The design consisted of concentric circles that, starting from the center and working outward, represented progressively more advanced stages of production and civilization. One problem encountered was that some exhibits, such as scale models of dwellings and farms, did not fit into the building. These were relegated to the outdoor section. The organizers initially intended to continue the ring-shaped classification design outdoors, but for practical reasons the various exhibits ended up haphazardly and randomly arranged, old next to modern. The result was a park full of miscellaneous exhibits. Russia’s contribution included dachas where Cossacks performed. A dairy farm and a diamond cutting workshop represented the Netherlands. Morocco had set up an emir’s tent and a pen of dromedaries, while the Egyptian viceroy had erected temples and mosques where Nubian and Ethiopian dancers acted out aspects of daily life in Egypt. From France, there was a Pavilion in Empire style, an ideal working-class home, a lighthouse, and a replica of a Gothic cathedral.26 Organizers completely abandoned temporal and geographical order in this outdoor area, but millions of visitors greatly enjoyed the park anyway. They were particularly attracted to the non-Western buildings. One commentator warned that this world exposition resembled a large-scale amusement park.27 The remark was not far from the truth; expositions were indeed becoming more and more carnivalesque.

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Adding to the fairground atmosphere, people were brought in from far corners of the globe to sell foreign products and perform exotic dances and rituals. The Paris exposition already made use of many foreign workers in 1867. Similarly, the Viennese World Exposition of 1873 featured farmhouses in an ‘‘Ethnographic Village’’ where Hungarians, Romanians, and Croatians demonstrated handicrafts. There was also an ‘‘Oriental District,’’ and visitors who entered an ‘‘Indian’’ wigwam from New York were served drinks by native and African Americans.28 We have described how visitors to the 1883 World Exposition in Amsterdam gazed at indigenous Surinamese and Javanese housed in an ‘‘authentic’’ habitat. Here, too, scientific interest was but a thin guise for entertainment value. Real, ‘‘exotic’’ people were becoming the main attraction of expositions.29 Many visitors found the exoticism of unfamiliar crafts, costumes, food, and drink more interesting than the well-ordered displays of national economies. French and English imperial conquests were attracting growing public interest. Exhibitions where a visitor could feel like a colonial ruler became very popular.30 Egyptian bazaars turned into a perennial favorite of exhibition-goers. The increasing role of the exotic coincided with the practice of appealing to the five senses; the specific aromas, tastes, and sounds of the non-Western world added an extra dimension to the sensory experience. World fairs no longer simply functioned as showcases of industry; they offered a rapidly expanding public the illusion of observing the entire world and its history.31 Colonial pavilions were the site where anthropology, geography, and ethnography converged with commercialism and entertainment. The display of indigenous people from the colonies formed a key aspect of this trend. The confrontation with ‘‘real’’ people, living and working in ‘‘authentic’’ buildings, set the colonial exhibit apart from the museum and the picture book. An inextricable link existed between the experience of physical proximity and a sense of cultural distance. The colonial world was at once strange, exotic, accessible, and safe.32 More and more people were willing to spend money to experience that sensation. The practice of exhibiting non-European peoples began in the eighteenth century. It was linked to the older European tradition of sideshows, where spectators could pay to gawk at people with physical deformities.33 The first attempts to systematically exhibit people were made at the Paris Jardin d’Acclimation (the zoo and botanical gardens) between 1877 and 1889.34 These were initially intended to serve an anthropological and eth-

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nographic purpose, but they soon became a commercial enterprise. The Jardin put ‘‘foreign people’’ from outside Europe on display in their ‘‘natural habitat.’’ This kind of exhibit—with actual people in replicas of their homes, workshops, or even an entire village—was first included in a world exposition in Paris in 1889.35 It was also the first time that dwellings from all over the globe were systematically displayed. Numerous pavilions and whole villages housed cafés, restaurants, and theaters in exotic styles. Entertainment and science combined in a fashion typical of the imperialist age of the late nineteenth century. Millions of French and foreign visitors experienced this double pleasure as they gazed at mock villages from New Caledonia, Tonkin, and Senegal.36 Although most attention was lavished on the inhabitants of these French colonies, there was room for other colonial empires as well. In an exhibit organized by Dutch ‘‘Africa traveler’’ L. J. Goddefroy, natives from the Portuguese colony of Angola were displayed at the foot of the brand new Eiffel Tower.37 Handpicked by Goddefroy from tribes that spoke different languages, the Angolans had gone on display in Amsterdam and The Hague before being brought to France. The venue chosen for the exhibit in The Hague provides a typical detail of this whole demeaning endeavor: a city zoo.38 In Paris, another entrepreneur constructed a Javanese village.39 Some considered it one of the main attractions of the entire exposition.40 The entrepreneur was M. Bernard, a Belgian who had lived in Java for many years.41 The ‘‘Javanese’’ village was built by its own ‘‘inhabitants’’: sixty men and women brought over from various islands of the Indonesian archipelago.42 Although the French and Dutch press had reported on the bad treatment of these people—‘‘starving, poorly dressed, underpaid and, worse still, brutalized and scolded if they dared to complain’’—positive reports on the kampong had outnumbered the negative ones.43 The rijsttafel served there was said to be all the rage in Paris. Several organizers of the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor must have visited the colonial exhibition in Amsterdam in 1883.44 That exhibition clearly served as an inspiration for the designers in The Hague, particularly concerning the placement of a kampong in parklike surroundings next to the main exhibition building. A direct link also existed between The Hague and the 1889 Javanese village in Paris. The man responsible for that display, M. Bernard, happened to be touring Europe in 1897 with another group of Indonesians (this time exclusively from Java).45 When President

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A. S. Lucardie-Daum of the East Indies Committee heard about this tour, she decided to bring the same Javanese to The Hague.46 And so Kampong Insulinde joined the genre of colonial people exhibits. The East Indies Committee, in charge of the East Indies Exhibit to be housed in the main building in The Hague, established a separate committee to organize Kampong Insulinde. Hence this project remained organizationally independent from the rest of the exhibition. The Insulinde Committee even did its own fund-raising. However, the same women ran both committees. Annie Cremer-Hogan (wife of the Dutch minister of colonies) served as honorary president of both committees, and Lucardie-Daum was executive president of both. Several women sat on both committees, including Cato Pekelharing-Doijer and artist Cornelia van der Hart, the artistic director of the Insulinde project. Because there were no female Dutch architects in the 1890s, a man was asked to design Kampong Insulinde. H. Wesstra Jr. designed a comprehensive plan including paths, canal, bridges, and houses. He and his foreman supervised the site’s construction and landscaping. Wesstra was a versatile and progressive architect with a range of projects to his name, from workers’ homes to Jugendstil (art nouveau) buildings in The Hague.47 Cornelia van der Hart was consulted as well. To help the architect arrive at a satisfactory design, she supplied him with her own sketches, as well as pictures and other visual materials from her library. Together, Van der Hart and Wesstra visited the Colonial Museum in Haarlem and the Ethnographic Museum in Leiden to study replicas of Indonesian dwellings.48 The museum in Haarlem lent a half-scale model of a ‘‘Japara-type house’’ to the Insulinde exhibit. Architecturally, the kampong offered more of a hodgepodge than an impressive overview. Examples from all over the Indonesian archipelago had simply been thrown together. exhibited or exhibitor? On July 6, 1898, the Javanese who were to liven up the kampong arrived. The group consisted of fifteen women and twenty-two men. Among the women there were two batik makers, a fabric weaver, a bamboo weaver, and several dancers. The men included seven musicians, a gilder, and a tailor. The group may have brought three children along, but they probably never appeared at the exhibition. Few of the Javanese were ever known by name, and today only group leader Niti di Redjo and Radhèn Kartô Soetaknja, who headed the gamelan, can be identified.49 A rickety wooden shack next

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to the entrance gate housed the group. Their living quarters proved grossly inadequate, especially during a cold spell that hit the Netherlands in July.50 The Javanese had left Surakarta (Solo) in March 1897. Traveling under the name of the Java Company, they had first toured Italy and then stayed in Vienna for several months, where they had been displayed along with 150 Africans from the Congo.51 They also toured Germany, Scandinavia, and England.52 In London, royal family members reportedly attended one of their performances. In some ways, the Javanese resembled the group on display in Paris in 1889. That group had been a motley collection of people from all over the Dutch East Indies. In 1898, however, all were Javanese and came from Solo, home to a famous tradition of court dancing. The explanation in the visitors’ guide stressed that the performances by this company were authentic and highly interesting. Once again, a fine line divided the act of performing from being displayed as an ethnic specimen, or, as one newspaper put it, the difference between ‘‘being an exhibitor’’ and ‘‘being exhibited.’’ 53 The performances constituted an important element of the exhibition and an opportunity for Dutch visitors to acquaint themselves with Javanese dance, drama, and music. The male and female dancers from the royal court of Solo performed to the music of a gamelan, music that won widespread praise from the audience. Another crowd-pleaser was wajang-orang, a drama reenacting episodes from Javanese military history. According to one newspaper, the theater would fill up an hour before performance time, even though the audience had little idea what the plays were about.54 Apparently, the translations provided by Raden Mas Pandji Sosrokartono, son of the Japara regent and the first Javanese to receive a college education in the Netherlands, did not help them.55 One reporter wrote that she found the translations superfluous. She was most interested in ‘‘those slow, dreamlike movements, those inimitably elegant and invariably dignified poses and turns of the Javanese with their soft, brown skin tone that stands out so beautifully against their colorful dress.’’ 56 The Dutch spectators were indeed unable to keep their eyes off the people living in the kampong. Journalist Nellie van Kol, who had lived and worked in the Dutch East Indies for years, expressed pleasure about the fact that the Javanese were so gentile, just as she remembered them from the colony. Kol, a feminist, was relieved that no indecency occurred at Kampong Insulinde—unlike at other colonial exhibits showing scantily clad women. Fortunately, she wrote, the Javanese women were not ‘‘emancipated in the wrong sense of the word.’’ 57

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The public was fascinated by the bodies of the natives on display. Many scholars, including Ann Stoler, have pointed out that white Westerners projected feelings of power, fear, and sexuality onto the bodies of the ‘‘ethnic other.’’ 58 This also held true at the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor. Time and again, journalists conjured up images of mysteriousness, inscrutability, and oriental sensuality. Some who had been to the colonies became self-proclaimed experts on the behavior of the Javanese. In the guide book Gids voor Insulinde, descriptions of buildings and products seamlessly flowed into a reference to ‘‘the population of Insulinde’’ without clarifying whether this referred to the thirty-seven Javanese in The Hague or to the many millions who lived on the archipelago.59 The booklet contained pictures of women in Java engaged in typical women’s labor such as street vending, weaving, and cooking. These pictures had been taken in a Batavia studio more than twenty years earlier, contributing to the suggestion that the imitation kampong displayed timeless women’s labor.60 It gave every visitor a chance to feel like a cultural anthropologist. The throngs of onlookers who watched the weekly wedding processions in the kampong received a minute explanation of the rituals. Every report stressed their authenticity and decency: all of the Javanese dancers in the procession were reportedly married.61 In 1898, the practice of people watching that had long been part of colonial world expositions was co-opted into a national feminist project. The kampong environment invited female visitors to identify with Dutch imperial rule. Visitors were presented with a timeless Insulinde that needed not only Dutch men but women too. As far as the Netherlands was concerned, the history of the archipelago started when it became a colony, and now Dutch women had a role in that history as well.62 The kampong featured a statue depicting the first Dutch governor of the East Indies, Jan Pieterszoon Coen. This served as a clear sign that the colonial exhibit celebrated not only women’s emancipation but Dutch imperialism as well. It was equally clear, however, that the colonial spectacle was now no longer reserved for men who wished to identify with male conquerors, explorers, and entrepreneurs. Dutch women found themselves addressed as possible bearers of colonial power. They were being offered the pleasure of the gaze and the illusion of receiving a peek into authentic colonial life in the kampong. Dutch women could occupy a position of privileged invisibility, a safe vantage point from which to inspect the world. This luxury was not afforded to

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the few Javanese spectators who visited the area. Whether they were dignitaries or domestic servants, the Dutch audience treated them as part of the spectacle. When royals from the Dutch East Indies visited the exhibition, some exhibition-goers treated them with respect, but others saw them as an interesting or even ludicrous extension of the exhibit. When the Prince of Solo paid a visit to the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor, the feminist magazine Evolutie expressed a mixture of respect, disdain, and amazement that he would show interest in the woman question.63 Many Eurasian ladies from The Hague, members of the Indische community of mixed Indonesian-Dutch blood, also visited the kampong. Newspaper reports suggest that they found themselves treated as part of the exhibit as well. Referring to the authenticity of the kampong, one paper reported that ‘‘it was a feast for the eyes’’ to see so many Eurasian ladies there, chatting and enjoying a dish of roedjak (spicy vegetables) together.64 In mid-August, a pasar malam (East Indies bazaar) was organized. At the request of the organizers, ‘‘members of well-known Eurasian families . . . would appear there in Far Eastern dress to act as saleswomen.’’ 65 And indeed, many local ladies appeared that evening in sarongs and kabajas. According to one journalist, these women gave the former colonial civil servant or entrepreneur the feeling of being back in Batavia.66 Boundaries in the kampong became blurred, not only between the exhibitor and exhibited but also between exhibitor and spectator. javanese protest Because all reports about the Javanese focused on the visual spectacle, we know little about what the Javanese themselves thought of their work or their place in the exhibition. When their statements and opinions gained notice at all, they were regarded merely as proof of the group’s authenticity. This left little room for their assessment of the exhibition or its visitors. Some reports reveal a certain discomfort with the imbalance of power. One journalist from The Hague regretted that he could not speak Malaysian so as to ask the Javanese what they thought of the Dutch spectators. ‘‘Perhaps . . . they found us just as ‘strange’ as we found them,’’ he wrote.67 Some visitors who did speak Malaysian and Javanese were able to ask them whether they were enjoying their stay on the exhibition grounds. In late August, Insulinde, a magazine aimed at people with ties to the Dutch East Indies, published this report: ‘‘Of course, we found it necessary to interview the girls about the impressions they had formed over the past few weeks. Con-

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fidentially they let us know that it was very senang (pleasant) in Holland, but ‘saja mau poelang’ (I wanted to go home). In other words, they wished the exhibition were over; Mr. Bernard had promised that they could then return to Java.’’ 68 Their desire to return home became the source of a conflict that, in hindsight, clarifies a great deal about the labor relations between the Javanese and their agent. The moment the exhibition was over, Bernard wanted to pack up the group and travel to Dortmund and Munich, where he had booked new performances. However, the Javanese wanted to return directly from The Hague to Java. They were convinced that they had fulfilled their labor contract, which had gone into effect in March 1897. Therefore, they refused to travel to Germany. A debate erupted in the press with headlines like ‘‘The Little Java People Go on Strike.’’ The question was, who was right? Bernard or the Javanese employees? 69 Through various letters to the editor and an advertisement placed by ‘‘some friends of the Javanese,’’ the conflict soon made national headlines.70 Then a man named Alexander Cohen, who had protested against Bernard’s methods in Paris in 1889, conducted a personal investigation and asked the Javanese for their opinion. They told him that on agreeing to the labor contract, they had received verbal guarantees that the tour would last no longer than a year, with the option of voluntary extension, and that they would perform in the Netherlands only. Despite these assurances, Bernard had forced them to perform in other countries. In London they had been treated so badly and paid so little that they had wanted to appeal to the Dutch consul, but ‘‘being held captive as they were,’’ this had proved impossible. The group had expected the Dutch government to protect their rights. Cohen’s letter to the editor of a major newspaper is the only source that made room for the opinions of Niti di Redjo and his colleagues.71 Other reports wrote only about them and did so with a mixture of patronization and orientalism. One striking detail is that as long as the group was discussed in their capacity as musicians and artists, they were referred to as ‘‘the Javanese.’’ But once the conflict erupted, they were pejoratively called homesick ‘‘little Java people.’’ Diverting attention away from Bernard’s policies and emphasizing the homesickness of the Javanese provided a way of turning a labor conflict into an exotic problem. The exhibition organizers were divided over the case. Pekelharing-Doijer and Van der Hart took pro-Javanese positions.72 Insulinde president Lucardie-Daum sided with Bernard.

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Bernard was unable to produce his copy of the signed contract specifying the maximum work period, and he claimed he could not underwrite the cost of the group’s return. A telegraph was sent to the Dutch East Indies requesting a copy of the original contract, but to no avail. In the end, the Javanese said they were prepared to extend the contract until December 2, 1898, and to perform in Munich and Dortmund on the strict condition that they could go home immediately afterward. However, Bernard still did not want to guarantee their return home. The conflict was again at a deadlock. Even an appeal to the minister of colonies remained fruitless.73 Elisabeth Levyssohn Norman-Zoetelief, sister of the parliamentarian who had been so influential during the 1892 citizenship law debate, invited the Javanese to stay at her villa in Laren until a solution was found.74 Ultimately, charity resolved the conflict. Neither the exhibition board nor the Insulinde Committee would accept responsibility. The board had rigidly argued that the kampong constituted a separate endeavor, financially independent from the rest of the exhibition. The president of the Insulinde Committee had argued that the issue was a labor conflict between Bernard and his employees. In the end, a collection was held to raise money for the return of the Javanese.75 Cecile Goekoop and other members of the board donated money in a personal capacity. These donations were based on sympathy for Dutch ‘‘subjects’’; they did not indicate an admission of legal responsibility. The press remarked that even members of the board with no first-hand knowledge of the Dutch East Indies had donated money to help the Javanese.76 Enough money was eventually raised to send the group back to Solo; they left in November. Historian Harry Poeze has called this conflict the first labor strike in Indonesian history.77 It was one of the rare moments when the Javanese at the exhibition made their voice heard. As parties to a contract with the Java Company, they had agreed to work outside the East Indies for a prolonged period. This made them part of a large exodus of Asians who left home to become migrant laborers. Labor migration was taking place on an intercontinental scale; since the abolishment of slavery, contract workers from India, the Dutch East Indies, and China had been shipped to North and South America to do the jobs formerly performed by slaves. At the same time, regional migration was also on the rise. Dutch governors in the East Indies encouraged workers to migrate from Java to more thinly populated parts of the archipelago. These contract workers, or ‘‘coolies,’’ provided the labor needed by the new rubber, sugar, and tobacco companies.

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Coolie labor had become a hot topic in colonial politics. One of the issues was who the Dutch government should protect—native workers or their employers? This had been the subject of a long-lasting controversy. Some politicians sharply criticized the terrible working conditions, low wages, and physical violence contract workers faced. Left-wing critics asked for more protection for these workers, but their appeals came in vain. Even in 1897, the East Indies Coolie Ordinance was expanded with a clause stating that ‘‘runaway’’ workers could be brought back to the plantation by force, either by police or plantation personnel.78 When the labor conflict in the Java Company broke out in The Hague, a self-evident parallel with labor contracts in the Dutch East Indies revealed itself, and comparisons were to be expected. After all, direct links existed between participants in the East Indies coolie debate and members of the Insulinde Committee. Annie CremerHogan’s husband (minister of the colonies Jacob Theodoor Cremer) was one of the founders of the Deli tobacco company who had amassed great personal wealth largely thanks to coolie labor. As cofounder of the Deli Planters’ Association, he had sought to maintain the so-called penal sanction: the right to punish coolies accused of not fulfilling their obligations by forcing them to do hard labor.79 The late husband of another committee member had tried in vain to ease the sanctions in the coolie ordinance.80 Despite such close connections, no one explicitly pointed out the link between the Javanese labor conflict and the coolie debate. The parties to the dispute and the press both spoke of the differences in opinion between ‘‘the little Java people’’ and ‘‘the agent,’’ and neither referred to colonial labor relations. In the end, it seemed as if the troubles were all part of the spectacle that was Kampong Insulinde. In fact, another link existed between the colonial exhibit in The Hague and the exploitation of contract labor. The kampong had been partly funded with money earned from coolie labor. Tobacco profits from the Deli Company, infamous for its poor treatment of coolies, had contributed directly to the first colonial manifestation of the Dutch women’s movement.81 Amsterdam entrepreneur Peter W. Jansen, another founding member of the Deli Company, was an official donor to the exhibition.82 Rumor also had it that a large, anonymous donation had come directly from Deli. If Deli tobacco planters were indeed supporting the exhibition, then coolie labor had indirectly made Kampong Insulinde possible.

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THE DUTCH EAST INDIES ROOM

Although the outdoor section was the biggest attraction at the exhibition, the indoor Dutch East Indies Exhibit also played an important role in representing the Dutch colonies. The space, chock-full of utensils, fabrics, clothes, and dolls, was much more in keeping with the other indoor exhibits than with the kampong. All objects displayed came from the Dutch East Indies, though not all had been contributed directly from the colony. Most of the sarongs, headscarves, embroidered pillows, sieves, and baskets came from personal collections in the Netherlands. A collection of fabrics sent by the Sultan of Siak was a direct contribution, as was a collection of utensils (fans, boxes, covers) made by women and objects sent in by missionary societies. There was also a collection of home craft products sent in by three of the regent of Japara’s daughters—Raden Adjeng Kartini and two younger sisters. These included wood carvings, paintings, and samples of dyed batik fabric in various stages.83 There were also, though the press failed to mention this, several reminders of the violence the Dutch had used to conquer large parts of the archipelago: for example, baskets that ‘‘mothers, women, fiancées’’ in Aceh had given to their loved ones as a talisman to take into battle against the Dutch colonial army.84 There was also a collection of ‘‘trophies’’ the Dutch army had taken back from Lombok in the 1894 war. These included fans decorated with the signatures of army and navy officers who had taken part in the expedition. The fans had been circulated in Lombok after the attack and during the bloody conquest of Mataran en Tjakranegara. The exhibition catalog referred to the collection as ‘‘decorative items.’’ 85 By exhibiting these objects and others like them, the Dutch East Indies Room broke with the principle of displaying only the products of women’s labor. It also suggested that colonial wars were an inevitable part of imperial politics. The organizers had used war trophies to ‘‘spruce up’’ an applied arts exhibit; they could hardly have displayed more cynicism in their identification with Dutch imperialism. Not a word was uttered about the women in Aceh who joined the battle against the Dutch invaders, even though this constituted a rather unusual form of female labor by Dutch standards. Nor was it mentioned that feminist Nellie van Kol had called for an end to the war in Aceh one year before the exhibition.86 Nothing, certainly not a thorny political issue like Aceh, would be allowed to disturb

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the placid order that reigned in the exhibit of Dutch East Indies art and industry. home industry under threat Aside from valuable and exotic utensils, the Dutch East Indies Exhibit also displayed batik fabrics. The organizers hoped that textiles would make for an accessible yet impressive product through which Dutch spectators could become acquainted with East Indies culture. There was a supervisor on hand to explain the batik process of waxing and dyeing the fabric and the function of the clothes on display. The East Indies Exhibit was situated between the Home Industry and Clothing Manufacturing Exhibits on one side and the Textile and Decorative Arts Exhibit on the other. In terms of subject matter, the batik clothes and embroidered objects seemed to fit in with the adjacent displays. Like their Dutch counterparts, the charming Dutch East Indies textiles were for sale. One journalist admired the decorative patterns, colors, and ‘‘beautiful triangular pattern’’ many spectators would recognize from sarongs. He called the decorations of the exhibit ‘‘a worthy frame for the often underrated art of the Indies Archipelago.’’ 87 ‘‘Immediately on entering the exhibition room,’’ another visitor wrote, ‘‘one is enveloped in a pleasant warmth, and the eye is met by a harmonious palette of colors, so that one feels . . . suddenly transported to . . . our Asian island empire.’’ 88 This interest in batik and other textiles was consistent with the Dutch feminist tradition of improving women’s position through the promotion of arts and crafts. The art of batik had originally constituted a women’s craft in some parts of Java. Aristocratic women made the classic batik fabrics of central Java. The East Indies Exhibit married an orientalist fetish for Eastern art to the traditions propagated by the old guard of the Dutch women’s movement. Associations like Arbeid Adelt and Tesselschade (see chapter 2), bastions of the old guard, sought to revive traditional skills in women’s home crafts.89 Many exhibition organizers, including the president of the East Indies Committee, were members of these associations. An emphasis on women’s home crafts clearly permeated the East Indies Exhibit. The display and sale of products from the East Indies served multiple purposes. One was to kindle an interest in the Dutch East Indies, while another was to show the heights women could reach through art and skill. Zuylen-Tromp, vice president of the East Indies Committee, also saw the

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exhibition as an opportunity to focus public attention on the decline of East Indies industry, and home crafts in particular.90 She pointed out that many of the contributions were not so recent and that European influences had ‘‘diluted’’ and ‘‘debased’’ the purity of the art forms. She argued that all foreign influence would have to be eliminated if ‘‘the artistic element’’ in East Indies applied art were ever to flourish again. This kind of doomsday talk about cultures threatened with extinction, a discourse very typical of cultural anthropology, characterized the catalog of the exhibit in The Hague. For example, a contribution from Posso consisting of items such as scarves, sarongs, and women’s jackets made of beaten tree bark, was described as follows: ‘‘The industry represented by these 15 items is on its last legs. In about 50 years, it will certainly no longer exist. Imported cotton fabrics are slowly but surely replacing the tree bark beating method.’’ 91 Bemoaning the loss of traditional skills in itself formed a kind of tradition, in the Netherlands too. Jeltje de Bosch-Kemper had complained that young Dutch women displayed a lack of needlework skills and called for the craft to be taught in schools.92 In 1883, the efforts of Arbeid Adelt and Tesselschade had led to the establishment of the so-called Needlework Section at the State School of Applied Art (Rijksschool voor Kunstnijverheid). The East Indies Committee was in contact with civil servants in the colonies interested in home crafts. Zuylen-Tromp knew several people who had sought government support for traditional crafts in the Dutch East Indies.93 In her view, the East Indies Exhibit provided an opportunity to follow up on these attempts to promote Javanese industry. Like Arbeid Adelt and Tesselschade, she wanted to stimulate both supply and demand. The European public would only demand more batik if it were taught to recognize good quality. Therefore it was important to display classic batik products. To increase the supply, Zuylen-Tromp followed Tesselschade’s example and recommended that the indigenous population be taught the batik technique in schools. The appeals for better education in the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies were based on a similar conservative impulse, but an important difference existed: the issue of purity. Zuylen-Tromp believed that educating indigenous teachers could prevent the ‘‘degeneration of art.’’ 94 Her fear of ‘‘degeneration’’ and ‘‘adulteration’’ is reminiscent of the fear of racial mixing, an increasingly hot issue in the debate about colonial politics.95 There also existed a cultural counterpart to this fear: the so-called Indologists,

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who scoured the colonies for pure and timeless examples of indigenous cultures. In the eyes of many Dutch people, productive cross-pollination with other cultures was a Western prerogative. They felt the Orient needed protection from this. In the same vein, Zuylen-Tromp stressed the importance of original and classical Javanese art. She shared the general concern that the Javanese would not be able to maintain and protect their cultural heritage on their own. She felt the Dutch government would have to step in by sending ‘‘one or more multitalented artists’’ to the colony. ‘‘Inspired by a love of the Indies and its old art,’’ she said, these people would be able to put ‘‘the native population . . . back on the right track.’’ 96 If the organizers had hoped to kindle an interest in the original art forms of the colonies, they achieved more than they dreamed possible. The first exhaustive scholarly publication on batik making and batik history, entitled De batikkunst in Nederlansch-Indië en hare geschiedenis, was published in 1899. Its authors credited the exhibition with making their study possible.97 Large, full-color illustrations (including the batiks displayed in The Hague) showed classical patterns and depicted the batik technique.98 Writing after the exhibition, Zuylen-Tromp reiterated her earlier complaints about the poor quality of cheap modern batik products.99 She also repeated the reasons for the decline in this trade. According to her, the fault lay chiefly with Eurasian women whose female Javanese employees copied famous patterns and produced cheap fabrics. European women had no eye for quality and were keen to buy these products, she wrote. Kampong Insulinde’s artistic director, Van der Hart, also complained that ‘‘today’s sarongs . . . [were] examples of degradation, a hodgepodge without a folk nature, a collage of tasteless European and Japanese prints.’’ According to her, greed destroyed the innate Javanese sense of artistic decoration.100 In this discourse about the decline of the textile arts, and the art of batik in particular, the women of different ethnic groups in the Dutch East Indies were ascribed different roles. Dutch women were ignorant about classical batik; as educated consumers, they would demand better quality. Eurasian women were depicted as shrewd businesswomen who had found a gap in the market. Javanese women had to work for such women, so they did not play an independent role. The way they were described resembles that of Evolutie editor Wilhelmina Drucker characterizing the Amersfoort carpet girls in the Hall of Industry; they were seen as mere extensions of the machines they operated, slavishly copying the patterns.101 In the eyes of

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Zuylen-Tromp and Van der Hart, Javanese women had become the victims of Europeans’ bad taste and Eurasians’ unscrupulous business practices.102 Indigenous batik faced its biggest competitor in factory-produced imitations from the Netherlands. The East Indies Exhibit barely touched on this fact, because this would have placed the blame on Dutch businessmen rather than the Eurasian women. Besides, the Dutch textile industry was receiving praise elsewhere in the exhibition as a great source of employment for Dutch women.103 The emphasis on authenticity in Dutch East Indies culture was consistent with the new interventionist imperialism practiced by the Netherlands around 1901, a group of policies that came to be known as ‘‘Ethical Politics.’’ Toward the end of the nineteenth century, Dutch politicians and colonial civil servants had increasingly spoken of the responsibility to civilize and educate the colony. The Indologists collecting geographical, ethnographic, linguistic, legal, and archaeological data on the cultures of the Indonesian archipelago were paving the way for this new imperial policy.104 The policy presumed the existence of a timeless, classical Javanese court culture now endangered and in need of protection. At the same time, there was a rising interest in ‘‘common’’ rural Javanese culture.105 While the expanding disciplines of Javanology and Indology focused mainly on pure, undiluted Javanese culture, they showed little interest in the historical shifts and influences stemming from Dutch colonization. The focus lay on the colony’s authentic culture rather than on hybridization and intercultural exchange. Although this scholarly interest in Javanese culture seems unrelated to the economic and military expansionism in the outer regions of the colony, the two were, in historian Elsbeth Locher-Scholten’s words, ‘‘expressions of one and the same colonial aspiration.’’ 106 The Indologists’ approach left no room for the voice of the colonized. It was felt that only Dutch people could appreciate the cultures of the archipelago. Their knowledge of the cultural wealth of the East Indies was part and parcel of their international imperialist prestige. The National Exhibition of Women’s Labor, where antique sarongs were displayed next to war trophies from Lombok, aptly expressed this imperial politics of culture. At the turn of the century, it was men who studied the wildlife, history, and cultures of the Dutch colonies. Academia was simply a white, male domain. Men received state grants to research and publish their work on the religion, legal systems, and natural resources of the Dutch East Indies. In

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1898, the ministry of colonies subsidized an archaeological expedition of the Hindu Tjandi temple. The goal was to facilitate a partial reconstruction at the 1900 World Exposition in Paris.107 Such projects excluded women as their knowledge of the colonies was not considered relevant to the fields of academic or political expertise. Traditionally, the textile industry had been part of the female domain in both the mother country and the colonies. The batik industry depended largely on women; they were the producers and consumers. It seems that Dutch women felt justified in appropriating this area and thus contributing to the cultural knowledge that went hand in hand with imperialism. Women could become colonial experts in the field of Javanese textile art and industry. This sometimes took precedence over the difference between women’s and men’s labor at the exhibition. Every object submitted bore the name of its owner. Generally, the owners were Dutch people who had lived and worked in the East Indies as civil servants, missionaries, or scholars, or they were the spouses and widows of these people. The practice of identifying the owner of the objects foregrounded the active role of the colonizers. These were Dutch people, collectors of Javanese art and products. Their collections defined the image of the colony in the mother country. In that capacity, Dutch women could participate in Dutch colonialism. kartini and the white/brown divide The East Indies Committee had hoped that it would win grassroots support from women in the Dutch East Indies, but Dutch women there showed far less enthusiasm than expected. This contrasted sharply with Surinam and the Dutch Antilles, where Dutch women quickly established local committees with support from the colonial authorities. In Batavia, no committee was formed, and only a few women became members of the Exhibition Association.108 It made no difference that the wife of the colonies minister was appointed honorary president. Requests for support from other local associations also fell on deaf ears. There are several reasons why no committee of Dutch women was created: indifference, lack of sympathy for the cause among high civil servants’ wives, and the fact that Dutch people in the colony took no initiatives without the support of the colonial government.109 In the Dutch East Indies, the most important support for the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor came from a young Javanese woman called Raden Adjeng Kartini. She raised funds for the exhibition, sent in home

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craft products with the help of her sisters, and contributed a description of the batik process at the organizers’ request.110 Kartini read Cecile Goekoop’s novel Hilda van Suylenburg three times, enjoying it more with each reading. She said she was dying to ‘‘join Hilda in her time and live there too! Oh, if only we had come that far in the Indies!’’ Reading ‘‘Mrs. Goekoop’s wonderfully beautiful book’’ made Kartini feel connected to the women she called ‘‘her white sisters.’’ She wished to help the cause that would benefit ‘‘women, white and brown.’’ 111 Kartini saw solidarity and equality between women of different races as a realistic possibility. However, it seems that Dutch women in the East Indies found this to be far from selfevident. Kartini’s writings illustrate how much her Dutch contemporaries must have struggled to reconcile their ideas about women’s emancipation and colonial relations. In her support for the exhibition, Kartini had to contend with colonial antifeminism, Javanese indifference, and Dutch feminists’ lack of solidarity with Javanese women. She described in a letter how she and her sisters tried to raise funds for the exhibition, an event which she considered a great feat by women. ‘‘My own compatriots were unresponsive. . . . No matter how we clarified and explained our cause, no one could or would understand.’’ Even with Eurasian women, she had little success. According to Kartini, they did not care about the efforts of her ‘‘white sisters.’’ Eventually, she went ‘‘to the Europeans for help.’’ In the end, her efforts were rewarded, although Kartini herself considered it rather ‘‘daring’’ that ‘‘we Javanese went to argue a European case with the Europeans.’’ Oddly, Kartini seems to cut herself off in mid-sentence when describing how the Europeans reacted to her Javanese approach: ‘‘Apparently they were sort of amused that we little Javanese people were asking for help and maybe. . . . Enough.’’ 112 Kartini, who wrote the rest of her letter fluently and without a hitch, could not express how Dutch women in Java reacted when a Javanese woman called their attention to the woman question. Fund-raising for the exhibition might have been ‘‘cute’’ or ‘‘daring,’’ but speaking about women and emancipation constituted a violation of racial hierarchy in the colony. Kartini concluded on a cheerful note, mentioning that she had even coaxed support from women who had had no intention of giving money to the exhibition. It remains unclear what these ‘‘European’’ women were thinking when they gave a young Javanese woman money to fund a women’s exhibition in their own country of origin. Did they imagine they

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were supporting the ‘‘East Indies’’ cause in the Netherlands? Did they make room in their colonial self-image for the ‘‘woman question,’’ or did they buy into Kartini’s vision of a budding kinship between women from the Netherlands and Insulinde? 113 Dutch women could barely conceive of equality and solidarity between themselves and indigenous women of the East Indies. They were caught up in a colonial discourse that portrayed Javanese women as the object of care (lavished on them by the Dutch). This confusion in the colony was mirrored in the Netherlands, where it remained unclear who the subjects, the producers, and the target audience of the colonial exhibits at the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor were. Kartini did more than raise funds for the exhibition. She also collected objects to submit for display, including paintings, drawings, etchings, and embroidery.114 Kartini felt she belonged to a movement that connected women from all over the world. Nevertheless, her contributions to the exhibition were not an unqualified success. In a letter, she wrote that her dealings with the association had ended ‘‘less than pleasantly,’’ but that she did not regret any of it.115 It is unclear what Kartini was referring to here. It might have been the fact that her detailed description of batik techniques had not been used at the exhibition. She was not mentioned in either the catalog or the guide to Kampong Insulinde. More than a year later, however, Kartini, to her pleasure, learned that her article would be included in a scholarly publication on the art of batik. The president of the East Indies Committee, Lucardie-Daum, had given Kartini’s manuscript to the authors, Gerret Pieter Rouffaer and Hendrik Herman Juynboll.116 Kartini’s brother Kartono had helped the authors, supplying photographs of women, including his sisters, making batik. These pictures were printed in the book.117 In their preface, Rouffaer and Juynboll credited Kartini with setting straight the inaccuracies in many earlier Dutch publications. However, the feminist intention behind her text was lost. The manuscript, her personal contribution to the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor, had been kept out of the public domain during the exhibition itself. When Queen Emma and Wilhelmina visited the exhibition, they were shown a letter from Kartini and her sisters to the queen. This gesture was meant to show the royals ‘‘how good education in the Indies had become lately.’’ 118 Kartini’s words were being used as a tribute to colonial education policies, not to the author. Although Kartini admitted to feeling tremendous pride when told that the queen had read her flawless Dutch, she must have been deeply disappointed to discover that her essay on batik had not

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been published. Her disappointment turned to anger when she heard that ‘‘the ladies’’ had called her and her sisters ‘‘the princesses of Japara,’’ as she regarded herself ‘‘an enemy of formality’’ and a ‘‘fighter against the adoration of so-called aristocrats.’’ She was very disturbed to discover that the ‘‘Hague ladies of the Women’s Labor exhibition,’’ like many others in the Netherlands, seemed ‘‘to think that everyone who comes from the Indies and is not a ‘baboe’ [nanny] or a ‘spada’ [ordinary person] must be a princess or a prince.’’ 119 Kartini saw herself as a kindred spirit of the women who organized the exhibition—and as their equal—but they clearly did not see her in the same way. The East Indies Exhibit at the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor was largely devoted to Javanese products made mainly by women. However, the exhibit emphasized their authentic Javanese or East Indies character, not the gender-specific division of labor in the colony. The exhibit chiefly contributed to the emergence of a market for ‘‘products manufactured in our East,’’ whose ‘‘curious artistic form, combined with sturdiness and a modest price, make them very suitable for the European market.’’ 120 Far less significant was the exhibit’s contribution to the fostering of kinship and solidarity between Dutch and East Indies or Javanese women. Dutch women could play a role as consumers of colonial products, but indigenous women from the East Indies had no place in this scenario except as an exotic illustration of a Dutch colonial project. T R A N S AT L A N T I C C O N T R I B U T I O N S

The committee organizing the exhibit on Surinam and the Dutch Antilles faced quite a different task from the East Indies Committee. The Dutch public knew virtually nothing about the West Indies. The average spectator had no knowledge of the geography, population, history, or means of existence in this colony populated by more than 60,000 persons, less than 1,000 of whom were white Dutch people.121 This dearth of knowledge had its disadvantages, but it also gave the committee members more room to maneuver. They did not have to deal with well-known stories about the war in Aceh or about prominent figures like Dutch East Indies governor J. P. Coen. The balance of power in the Caribbean colonies differed too. Appeals to support the exhibition appeared in newspapers in Surinam and Curaçao, and they quickly produced results.122 In Surinam, the governor himself asked ‘‘a number of ladies . . . to form a committee representing

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Surinam.’’ 123 Curaçao, a name then used to indicate all six Dutch Antillean islands collectively, also quickly established an active local committee. These committees, whose members represneted the local elite, raised their own money and used it to cover the local committee’s expenses and ‘‘to pay needy people who produced home crafts.’’ 124 The members collected home crafts and utensils, sending these to The Hague. Apparently, the ‘‘Surinamese and Curaçaoan ladies’’ and the colonial administration itself had no qualms about the national exhibition’s objectives. The West Indies Committee was small. Annie Cremer-Hogan presided over it. She took the title of honorary president quite literally; she never even showed up at the one meeting called especially for her to attend.125 The real organizers were executive president Maria C. de Veer-Rolandus, secretary Anna de Savornin Lohman, and treasurer Elise Haighton. This committee also hoped to gain the support of Dutch women who had lived in Surinam or the Antilles. They planned to organize a tea party in The Hague for this group, but it never took place.126 In the end, the committee found little support in the Netherlands. Its potential target group remained very small. Precious few Dutch women had first-hand knowledge of the Caribbean colonies, and there was no community that shared a past in the West Indies. The committee members did have personal links to the West Indies colony. Anna de Savornin Lohman was the daughter of West Indies governor M. A. de Savornin Lohman and had lived in Paramaribo, the Surinamese capital, from 1889 to 1891. Her father’s term in office had been a difficult and violent period.127 Political differences between the governor and the Colonial States (Surinam’s ‘‘parliament’’) had led to social and racial unrest. The Colonial States consisted mostly of plantation owners and businessmen carrying out the new imperialist economic policy. The businessmen had come to Surinam armed with foreign capital to exploit the country’s resources of gold and balata (for rubber production). Jewish plantation owners showed particular distrust of the governor, whom they accused of anti-Semitism. The Protestant governor had won the support of the African-Surinamese population (freed slaves and their descendants) and the Protestant missionaries by proposing to expand suffrage, a move that would limit the power of the old plantation elite. Shortly before he was sacked, serious riots and looting had erupted in Paramaribo. The black rioters had chiefly targeted the properties of the elite, who then demanded a crackdown on the black population. The Dutch marines were sent in to

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restore order, and De Savornin Lohman left for Europe.128 Perhaps Anna de Savornin Lohman’s family ties explain why some people in the West Indies showed so much support for the exhibition. The committee secretary herself said she had not used her name to curry favor. Elise Haighton had also lived in Paramaribo, where she worked as a governess for the colonial governor’s family in the late 1880s.129 Another member of the committee had a daughter-in-law who lived in the West Indies. The West Indies Committee was the only committee that regularly invited men with specific expertise to their meetings. In August 1897, the committee had decided to allow ethnologist Louis Constant van Panhuys and Maria de Veer-Rolandus’s husband to attend the meetings because of their knowledge about the West Indies.130 The committee realized that few Dutch people had any knowledge of the colonies in the West. They were also aware that women’s labor in the colony was still in its infancy.131 They felt it would be premature to give a conference presentation about social work in the West Indies since such work had not yet begun.132 In June 1897, a Surinamese newspaper published an article (probably written by Haighton) explaining the exhibition’s objectives. It said that the West Indies Committee was not looking to collect samples of needlepoint or preserves because it was assumed that Surinamese ladies had mastered such skills. Instead, the committee was interested in knowing how women, both upper- and lower-class, earned a living.133 But this explicitly feminist approach was dramatically at odds with the views of the local committee in Paramaribo, which sent a letter to the West Indies Committee saying it did not share Haighton’s ideas. To press their point home, they requested jars for their preserves.134 An article published in November 1897 detailed the wish list of the West Indies Committee in The Hague. It specifically asked for the fruits of women’s labor: ‘‘pictures, preferably photographs, of the tattoos on the bodies of maroons, but only if made by women’’ and ‘‘Music and Musical instruments made by women,’’ ‘‘AnansiToris [local fairy tales of African origin] conceived by women’’ and ‘‘Songs used for dancing. Negro-English songs including the lyrics [also Dutch translation] and sheet music, or better still and far more effective, recorded on a phonograph.’’ 135 Tension arose between those who wanted to provide serious information about women’s labor and others who envisioned a sales exhibit of home crafts and traditional West Indies products made by women of the colonial elite. This tension would continue to plague the West Indies Com-

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mittee. Perhaps it was also the root cause of the irritations and misunderstandings that characterized the committee internally. Word soon got out that the West Indies Committee ‘‘had long been confused.’’ 136 Elise Haighton, who stood for the principle of women’s labor, had regular conflicts with other members of the committee about their unbusinesslike conduct. She had particular objections to De Savornin Lohman, who often arrived late to meetings and whom she had to replace for three months during the exhibition because of illness.137 These and other conflicts in the committee lasted well beyond the conclusion of the exhibition. One plan gained immediate acceptance from all organizers in the Netherlands and Surinam: to acquaint the Dutch public with various segments of the Surinamese and Antillean populations. The committee wanted to use actual people and dolls to represent the nonwhite population. It was typical of the colonial gaze that the organizers only wanted to display people of color; the Europeans recognized the diversity of the colonial population, but could not see themselves as a separate segment of that population. The dolls under consideration ranged from life-size mannequins to small dolls in traditional dress. The committee was also on the lookout for a ‘‘live’’ Curaçaoan woman who could exhibit jewelry.138 There was no mention of building a habitat exhibit to house a large group of Surinamese—as there had been at the 1883 exposition in Amsterdam. The plan to make life-size dolls proved too complicated and expensive. A sculptress had informed the committee that she could only make plaster mannequins if she had a live model, but the committee could not find Curaçaoans willing to travel to the Netherlands for this purpose.139 Haighton tried in vain to interest an Amsterdam wax museum in buying the statues after the exhibition. Even when the Paramaribo chapter gave up and suggested sending ‘‘smaller dolls’’ dressed in the characteristic clothing styles of Surinam, the committee stubbornly clung to the idea of life-size statues. The organizers had hoped to create a kind of ethnological museum about Surinam and the Antilles. In the end, however, they had to settle for several rows of small dolls in costume. The Windward and Leeward Islands mainly contributed home crafts and fruit preserves that were marketable but of little anthropological interest. Apart from a few straw hats, cigars (the product of exclusively female labor in Curaçao, according to the committee), and fishing nets made by fishing women in Sympson Bay, all objects had been made by the women of the local chapter, women of the white elite.140 After the exhibition, these

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contributions gave the organizers several headaches. Conflicts erupted over honorable mentions, damages claims, and the fate of the objects themselves. Many were annoyed when the Colonial Museum in Haarlem refused to pay for objects it acquired.141 The West Indies received a small amount of exhibition space. Haighton saw this as a reflection of the mother country’s attitude toward these colonies.142 Still, the exhibit did not suffer from a lack of visitor interest, thanks to Louise Yda, a Surinamese woman of African descent who took up an offer from the Paramaribo committee to come work at the exhibition that summer.143 In 1898 Louise Francis Yda was forty years old. She was the daughter of a slave who had acquired freedom shortly after Louise’s birth in 1858.144 She inspired a great deal of curiosity in The Hague. Exhibition publications sometimes referred to her as ‘‘Sassa.’’ 145 The press divulged a great deal of information about her, reporting that this was her second trip to the Netherlands; that she was well respected in Paramaribo because she had met King Willem iii, the monarch who had abolished slavery; that she was of ‘‘mixed race’’; that she owned more than one hundred dresses; that she spoke fluent Dutch; and, above all, that she was so ‘‘friendly,’’ ‘‘jovial,’’ and ‘‘self-confident.’’ 146 Yda arrived in the Netherlands on Sunday, June 26. The West Indies Mail Service had offered her free passage on one of its ships.147 Yda had agreed to work daily from 9 a.m. until sundown for a salary of fifteen guilders per month (roughly the wage of a Dutch domestic servant) plus room and board.148 Initially, she was to lodge at the home of an acquaintance of one of the committee members, but this plan was probably abandoned in favor of a pension house.149 Yda returned to Paramaribo four weeks after the exhibition closed its doors. During these last weeks, she was paid a lump sum of ten guilders since no one on the committee wanted to feel ‘‘any unnecessary obligation’’ toward her.150 At work, Louise Yda wore a koto (dress) and angisa (headscarf ), which together formed the traditional costume of African Surinamese women. The clothes, which stemmed partly from the days of slavery, had a whole history and code of meaning behind them.151 The voluminous dresses and petticoats were prescribed for African women working as house slaves to prevent the sexual arousal of slave owners. From 1874 onward, women in Surinam were banned from appearing bare-breasted in public or while working as domestic servants. From then on, the koto became the stan-

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dard dress for all black women in Surinam. The headscarf could be tied in different ways, each with a specific meaning. The scarf could convey secret messages that slave owners would not understand, but it could also express mourning or joy.152 Special occasions often inspired the production of special angisas. There was even an angisa to mark the riots during Governor De Savornin Lohman’s administration. To celebrate Wilhelmina’s inauguration, a white scarf was imprinted with small orange crowns and the words ‘‘long live the queen 1880–1898.’’ 153 Thanks to oral tradition, we know that the knots in the headdress Yda wore at the exhibition are called lontu-ede, a festive style. The specific name for Yda’s knot is Baskaderi or Tangi masra. These names supposedly refer to the story of a slave who, much to her surprise and joy, receives a marriage proposal from the slave owner who has previously had sexual relations with her.154 The exhibition organizers and visitors were not interested in the historical meanings of the koto and angisa. The exhibition newsletter bluntly referred to ‘‘the brown face topped by a blue scarf whose corners stick out like a donkey’s ears.’’ 155 The public gawked at the woman, whose figure was described as ‘‘colossal.’’ The spectators were amazed to see a body so different from their own. Many of their remarks concerned the color of Yda’s skin and teeth. In Vrouwenarbeid, Haighton said many visitors came to the exhibit specifically to see ‘‘that woman.’’ 156 There was a postcard for sale, showing Louise Yda in koto and angisa. Although she was hired to sell products, Yda herself became the ‘‘great attraction’’ and the ‘‘loveliest product of her section.’’ Some visitors called her rude names, but others were impressed by her Dutch. In Véva, the novel discussed in chapter 4, girls warned each other that ‘‘Sassa’’ could understand every word they said. When visitors met Yda, they reacted with delight, amazement, and awe; it seemed incredible, for instance, that someone so different could speak in plain Dutch. Their interest was in her, not in Surinamese history or the history of the slave trade. Slavery had been abolished only thirty-five years earlier, but it seemed a distant fact about a strange people. The series of dolls in traditional costume included two dressed as black Surinamese slaves, but nowhere in the exhibit was Dutch responsibility for the slave system acknowledged. King Willem iii was briefly named as the king who abolished slavery, but this was largely to illustrate the childish gratitude and adoration the black population was said to have shown him.157 A more historical overview of the unknown colony might have shed some light on the role of the Netherlands in Surinam, but no such survey was given. Ac-

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cording to the committee, the colony that had too often been treated as a poor relative should be ‘‘well represented’’ for a change.158 the unknown colony While influential male academics dominated the ethnology of the Dutch East Indies from the start, there seemed to be slightly better opportunities for women to contribute knowledge about Surinam and the Antilles. The Surinamese contributions were anthropology-based and divided into six categories (household goods, farm labor, industry and trade, arts and sciences, food and beverages, and education), but they still made a haphazard impression. While the East Indies Exhibit was largely based on collections of objects already in the Netherlands, every West Indies item had to be imported from Surinam or the Antilles. The household goods included a chest full of doll’s clothes and headscarves, tattoo instruments, and knee bands from Native American and Maroon women. The food and beverages category distinguished between Indian and Maroon utensils. On display were a Native American pannier in various stages of completion, a Maroon spoon used to stir rice, and a Maroon gourd with a lid used for storing food. Here, visitors found familiar products such as rice and coffee next to strange foodstuffs such as cassava bread, arrowroot starch, and peanut butter, hitherto unknown in the Netherlands. There was also a scale model of a Native American camp (‘‘probably the largest of its kind in the Netherlands’’), many photographs of women at work, schools, and jewelry, and paintings of landscapes in the West Indies.159 The arts and sciences category offered objects such as the larynx of a howler monkey, ‘‘which the Indians used to serve drinks to children who stuttered.’’ There were also books, for instance one of ‘‘Negro-English songs,’’ put to music and translated into Dutch, and a collection of ‘‘AnansiToris, copied and translated by a negress.’’ These were rare early translations from Sranan Tongo, the Creole spoken in Surinam.160 Apparently, the Paramaribo committee had been unable to acquire a phonographic recording. The idea of displaying these texts came from ethnologist Louis Constant van Panhuys.161 The anthropological angle emerged even more prominently in Van Panhuys’s De vrouw in Nederlandsch Westindië, a book published especially for the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor. It would constitute the only exhibition publication to be mentioned in a contemporary scholarly journal.162 It was the first in a long series of publications that Van Panhuys

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wrote about Surinam. In 1897, when his career in anthropology had just begun, he described his ambition to conduct an anthropological study of West Indies culture that took gender differences into account. It is unclear whether he really intended to carry out the latter part of this definition. Perhaps he merely saw the West Indies exhibit as an opportunity to publish his work. In any case, he never specifically addressed the gender issue again in later publications.163 In a memorandum to the West Indies Committee, Van Panhuys explained that he hoped to involve ‘‘civilized’’ Western women in collecting data about the West Indies. He felt they were qualified to do ethnological research. Considering the furious debates then taking place in the Netherlands about women’s (un)suitability for academia, his proved a remarkable plan.164 However, his idea of women’s equality in the field of ethnology was based on a racial hierarchy that had nothing to do with gender; in his view, civilized women and men faced primitive societies in need of description and analysis. Van Panhuys wrote that women should take their place next to men in science, ‘‘especially in a field . . . where sensitivity and artistic instincts are necessary for understanding.’’ Like civilized man, European woman could play an important role in tropical societies seen as lower down the ladder of civilization. Van Panhuys urged the committee to encourage women in Surinam and the Antilles to ‘‘make observations and write those down.’’ 165 The committee went along with his suggestions and sent out questionnaires to gather information about life in the various segments of the population in Surinam and Curaçao. In February 1898, a letter arrived from Paramaribo with an appendix containing ‘‘a dissection of the Sur[inamese] woman as a human being and a character, a description of the Tapana drink, and an answer to many of the questions asked.’’ 166 The committee decided that Van Panhuys could use the data from Surinam to combine with his own research to publish a book. The work would be published under the auspices of the West Indies Committee, but Van Panhuys demanded that his name was ‘‘mentioned on the title page, as the Committee would want to publicize the fact that right-thinking men liked cooperating with women who strive for development and independence.’’ 167 Apparently Van Panhuys did not feel required to extend the same courtesy to the Paramaribo-based author who wrote one the chapters. She remained anonymous. The book provided an overview of the various lifestyles of women living

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in the West Indies.168 Typically, the first chapter directly addressed Dutch women in the second person, while the rest of the book dealt with the various non-Western women in the third person, reducing them to anthropological objects. The advice to Dutch women was rife with warnings about living in a tropical climate: plenty of rest and baths were recommended, and women were advised to regularly write letters to their loved ones in the mother country.169 After a geographical introduction, the core of the book consisted of ethnological chapters about women of the coastal Creole communities, women in the inland Maroon areas, and Indian women. In a section on women in farm labor, British Indian and Javanese migrant workers received special attention. The section on Creole women was a verbatim copy of the essay on ‘‘folk women in Surinam’’ contributed by the Paramaribo chapter. This text contains a description of the lifestyle of lower-class Creole women. Considering the pejorative tone of the piece, the author was probably not black. The writer referred to ‘‘the negress,’’ whose ‘‘morality was not yet high’’ and who worked only when she ‘‘needed money or felt the urge to buy jewelry.’’ 170 The music of the Banja dance was described as deafening, the lyrics as meaningless. Van Panhuys himself wrote the chapters about Indian and Maroon women. He focused on decorative art and saw ornamentation a useful key to the realm of thought of a people. The chapters on girls’ education (in Surinam, compulsory education was introduced as early as 1877) and women’s labor dealt with women from all ethnic groups. Labor statistics and data on the wages of domestic servants gave the Dutch readership an impression of the unknown colony. The book revealed that in 1896, Paramaribo counted 10 midwives, 1 female pharmacist, 877 washer women, and 273 market women. The author also wrote that Surinamese nannies ‘‘dearly loved the children in their care,’’ but warned against the pampering, poor language, and superstition that these children were exposed to. Finally, this chapter contained an appeal for ‘‘what could be called social work.’’ It argued that ‘‘civilized women’’ should become informed about the livelihoods of their less well-educated sisters and their ‘‘needs and wants.’’ This would enable them to become active in a ‘‘field wider than charity,’’ to advise ‘‘working-class women’’ on tools or raw materials, or to secure a market for arts and crafts products. In this way, the cultural anthropology field work that Van Panhuys had envisioned for civilized women neatly coincided with the Dutch definition of social work; ‘‘civilized’’ women were

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encouraged to venture outside their own world. In Surinam, too, the disqualification of ‘‘less well-educated sisters’’ who could profit from such Dutch initiative constituted a precondition for giving Dutch women the right to speak. De vrouw in Nederlandsch Westindië spoke to Dutch women about Surinamese women. n

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Unlike the East Indies, the colonies in the Caribbean were unfamiliar to most exhibition visitors. With the support of ethnologist Van Panhuys, the women of the West Indies Committee became self-styled experts. Dutch women were invited to gaze at a colony, but the history of Dutch intervention in Surinam and the Antilles was kept out of sight. This bears a great similarity to the Indologists’ quest for a pure and authentic East Indies. It was felt that Surinam, too, needed to be scrutinized for reliable knowledge about the authentic cultures of its various inhabitants. One important difference between the East and West Indies exhibits, however, was the place allotted to women in the colonial knowledge projects. Kampong Insulinde and the East Indies Exhibit in the main building exemplified an attempt by Dutch women to conquer a spot in a discourse already filled with ‘‘masculine’’ (scientific, military, political) expertise on the colonies. The organizers presented Dutch women as consumers of colonial products and claimed a place next to Dutch men as protectors of endangered industries. No such well-known discourse existed about Surinam and the Antilles. In that sense, the women of the West Indies Committee sailed into uncharted waters. Yet this did not mean that they started their work with a blank slate, without any prejudice. Just like in the Dutch East Indies, they defended colonial politics in terms of education and edification. Some saw in this an important task for Dutch women. The conferences about the ‘‘overseas territories’’ underscored this aspect. The next chapters deal with the textual and visual legacy of the exhibition and its conferences.

CHAPTER 6 n

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The National Exhibition of Women’s Labor impressed many visitors. Some returned for a second look, or even a third. They wrote to friends about it: ‘‘Yesterday we went to the exhibition and saw the little Java people play. I loved it. . . . You should have seen it.’’ 1 Journalists, for their part, reported on the exhibits and conferences. The organizers were well aware, however, that newspaper articles are soon forgotten, visitors’ impressions are fleeting, and discussions eventually come to an end. They knew that the lasting image of the exhibition would depend on the textual legacy it left behind. Therefore, the organizers set out to produce printed text. This is why we still have the conference proceedings, for example—invaluable documentation of the first large-scale public debates about women’s issues in the Netherlands. Most exhibition publications contain hardly any photographs or drawings, but the various artists who visited the exhibition and left behind sketches, paintings, and sculptures, afford present-day viewers a visual impression of the event as well.2 This chapter will focus on the exhibition’s legacy. We will look at the catalogs and conference proceedings produced by the exhibition, which constituted a conscious attempt by the organizers to join a tradition of writing by and about women. We will also deal with images of the exhibition by various artists. We begin our discussion with Hilda van Suylenburg, a contemporary novel read by many as a guide to the exhibition and its author: Lady Cecile Goekoop-de Jong van Beek en Donk.

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FACT AND FICTION: CECILE AND HILDA

On June 6, 1898, Cecile Goekoop wrote to her sister Elisabeth: ‘‘I am clutching to the tasks I must fulfill and that I have taken on myself. To me, the Exhibition has become a work of art that I want to finish. Therefore I feel passionate about it, like an artist feels about an important piece, yet at the same time I have a quiet suspicion that I shall soon pass away, and I feel somewhat like a dying person, or rather, like a prisoner on death row.’’ 3 Cecile’s public triumph at the exhibition’s opening ceremony contrasted sharply with her personal troubles. Her marriage to Adriaan Goekoop had practically come to an end. As president of the Exhibition Association, she was seen by other organizers as a source of inspiration and cohesion. But in the seclusion of her study, she often fell prey to feelings of deep despair. She suffered extreme mood swings ranging from ecstasy to death fantasies like the one quoted above. In her letters, she tried to put her life into words. She was full of lofty ideals at times, but often she was merely pragmatic. In her elevated passages, she used the terms purity and cleanliness over and over. Faced with an ‘‘ugly’’ world, she wanted to do the right thing. She would go into raptures about art, literature, and, especially, music. She also believed in the power of prayer, but she seldom explicitly described her religious feelings. She immersed herself in work, publishing, lecturing, and organizing like a woman possessed. Whenever circumstances prevented Cecile Goekoop from working, she felt a ‘‘rage of impatience.’’ To her it was ‘‘torture to see all those days pass in which I can’t work.’’ 4 The requirements of being a wife and upper-class woman kept her from writing, she complained: ‘‘Even when I have finished all the ongoing household chores and charity duties, there are still many days on which I never make it to my [writing] room.’’ 5 Sometimes she wrote in order to stave off her doubts about her marriage, but this did not prove an easy task. n

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Cecile was born in Alkmaar in 1866 to Johan Jan François de Jong van Beek en Donk, Esquire, and Anna Cecile Wilhelmine Jeanette Jacqueline Nahuijs.6 In the 1880s, the family lived in a village near the southern Dutch city of ’s-Hertogenbosch, where the father worked as attorney general. Cecile’s older brother had already left home. She and her younger sister Elisabeth received a liberal Protestant upbringing and were educated

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at home by carefully selected governesses. As mentioned in chapter 2, Cecile’s father died in 1890, not long before twenty-four-year-old Cecile married Adriaan Goekoop. Even after moving to The Hague, Cecile maintained close ties with her mother and sister. Correspondence between the sisters reveals that Cecile’s marriage began turning sour by 1893, the year when musical composer Alphons Diepenbrock courted Elisabeth. Cecile advised her sister to follow her heart and marry the Roman Catholic Diepenbrock instead of another suitor, the son of a rich banker. Elisabeth heeded her advice. As she lost all satisfaction in her marriage, Cecile decided that disciplined work would become her source of fulfillment. She began writing Hilda van Suylenburg in late 1893. She had come up with the idea of writing a novel about women’s emancipation during her trip with Adriaan to the United States earlier that year. The Chicago World’s Fair, and the Woman’s Building in particular, had deeply impressed her. In her letters to Elisabeth, Cecile raved about the ease with which American women claimed the public domain, how they applauded and were far more accustomed to public speaking than Dutch women.7 On her trip, Cecile also read Ramona, a story of a young woman in which author Helen Hunt Jackson decries the persecution of Native Americans in California by Spanish and English settlers.8 In a letter home, Cecile wrote that this book ‘‘gave a big push to the struggle to end the cruel persecution of the Indians’’ and was ‘‘full of heartfelt indignation.’’ Although Ramona did not deal with women’s emancipation, it encouraged Cecile to write a novel about the position of women in the Netherlands. In her next letters, Cecile told Elisabeth of her plans to write a novel, describing how she would convince readers with well-founded arguments.9 Traveling through the United States and seeing American women stake out a place in the public domain had clearly inspired the Exhibition Association’s to-be president. The transatlantic trip had also been intended to strengthen a shaky marriage. In her letters, Cecile obliquely referred to her hope that ‘‘the good’’ she and her husband experienced in the United States would continue when they returned to The Hague: ‘‘[Adriaan] is essentially very good, with a heart of gold.’’ 10 As already indicated in chapter 2, ‘‘the good’’ did not last. After years of hard, solitary work and nagging doubts, Cecile saw her novel published in the fall of 1897. It proved an instant success. Less than a year later, the exhibition took place. For Cecile, who had become a national celebrity, 1898 must have brought a roller coaster of emotions. Many mem-

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bers of the Exhibition Association probably received the novel as a gift; Hilda van Suylenburg was an ideal souvenir to bring home from the exhibition. According to journalist Ida Heijermans, many people were incapable of ‘‘separating the book from the exhibition.’’ 11 Nearly every review of the novel mentioned the fact that its author presided over the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor. To outsiders and newcomers, Cecile Goekoop personified the Dutch women’s movement in 1898. Hilda van Suylenburg became the subject of critical reviews in a long pamphleteers’ war. The reactions of many male reviewers demonstrated what historian Jan Romein called the loss of ‘‘inner certainty’’ in a ‘‘gender that felt its hegemony was threatened.’’ 12 To others, Goekoop represented the friendly side of feminism. One male contemporary commented that the author ‘‘herself stayed very feminine and gracious,’’ similar to her ‘‘so truly feminine’’ novel with its attention to fine dress and sweet intimacy.13 Recently, scholars have pointed out that the novel displays vignettes of all the different elements of the Dutch struggle for women’s emancipation.14 Young Hilda and the many other colorful characters in the novel each reflect different aspects of ‘‘the woman question.’’ In this respect, the book resembles the exhibition most closely. Both genres, the exposition and the emancipation novel, provided suitable spaces in which to present a variety of themes, opinions, and perspectives. Historian Mineke Bosch has explored the relationship between the fictional world in Hilda van Suylenburg and the historical reality of the women’s movement. Bosch argues that the novel offered a blueprint for feminism rather than a reflection of feminist reality. She points out, for example, that Catherine van Tussenbroek, a famous medical doctor at the time, had modeled her public performance as a feminist on a character in the novel.15 We believe that other women, for example those working for the exhibition, must have identified with the fictional characters in Hilda as well. Goekoop herself also felt that her book served as a model for reality. On a visit to the women’s conference at the 1897 Brussels World Exposition, two months before her novel was published, she wrote a smug letter to her sister saying that she had heard nothing new: ‘‘Everything they dealt with can be found in Hilda, of course.’’ 16 There were also major differences between the novel and the exhibition. Two important exhibits, the Hall of Industry and Kampong Insulinde, did not have a counterpart in the novel. Like many other organizers, Goekoop had no experience in factories. Hilda’s involvement in women’s issues

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stemmed mainly from her interaction with socially committed women who helped the poor. The novel describes poor people in their home circumstances, living in small, dark back rooms and tiny dilapidated buildings where charitable, middle-class women visited them. Factories did not play a role in the story, except as the property of Hilda’s husband Maarten. It seems no coincidence that Goekoop, as exhibition president, delegated all work related to the Hall of Industry to Marie Jungius. The colonial element constituted the other major difference between the novel and the exhibition. The colonies hardly figured in the novel. Only a few marginal characters had anything to do with the Dutch East Indies, and these served merely to remind Dutch readers of the overseas possessions through the well-known literary motif of ‘‘East Indies immorality.’’ In her capacity as exhibition president, too, Goekoop remained uninvolved in the East Indies exhibits. The Social Work Exhibit, whose organizing committee Goekoop ran, showed great similarities to the contents of the novel. The panel entitled ‘‘Working Materials of the Educated Young Lady,’’ displaying a fan, a tennis racket, a bicycle, and some sheet music for piano, could have served as an illustration in her novel. It was exactly these ‘‘empty pastimes’’ that the novel called into question. When writing a passage in which Hilda sneers at amateurish piano playing, Goekoop had asked her sister Elisabeth and composer brother-in-law Diepenbrock for advice. On the one hand, she agreed with his ideas on ‘‘high art’’ and his disdain for the musical efforts of young middle-class ladies.17 On the other hand, she was aware that her contempt was at least partially misplaced, as studying the piano constituted about the only challenge many bourgeois girls faced in their lives. However, her correspondence with the Diepenbrocks shows how readily she identified with the misogynist irony of the male art expert.18 To Goekoop, organizing the exhibition became a passion, just as the writing of Hilda had been. She feared the banal and the routine in daily life, aspiring instead to ‘‘higher’’ things. She had trouble reconciling her regular duties and daily chores with the lofty ideals she shared with Adriaan. Once, in the early days of preparation for the exhibition, after she had churned out eight long letters requesting support from acquaintances, she described herself as ‘‘a parody of myself . . . if purgatory existed, I would surely earn a partial indulgence for such horrible work.’’ 19 Goekoop continually wavered, at once deeply in awe of hard work and contemptuous

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of its tedium and banality. She felt she could only justify working on her sacred duty to improve the world. She and her kindred spirits should become what she called ‘‘inspired priestesses’’ out to create a better world.20 In practice, this came down to navigating between her traditional duties as wife of a prominent resident of The Hague, daughter of a sickly mother, and head of a sizeable household. One of her tactics was to turn her social commitments into time usefully spent. For instance, she restructured her obligatory weekly reception into office hours, open to anyone with an interest in the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor.21 The new structure proved a success; her Tuesday afternoons were always full. In their informality, they contributed to the success of the exhibition. It is impossible to trace the extent to which these ‘‘business meetings’’ retained the character of the official calls they replaced. It appears that Goekoop enjoyed meeting women of different social backgrounds: ‘‘Yesterday the Tues. afternoon visitors engulfed me . . . and at night I traveled with Marie Jungius to Rotterdam, where she lectured. She was very good, and I met all sorts of nice people and made some connections.’’ 22 In this way, Cecile literally brought her work for the exhibition home with her. This was an attempt to placate Adriaan, who did not like her too frequent absences.23 It is clear, however, that Cecile’s husband did not support her endeavor to find fulfillment through work. To him, ‘‘the lofty’’ could only be found outside of the mundane: ‘‘I who, outside my work, long so deeply for rest, for something soft and beautiful like I found in Cairo, Memphis, Delphi, etc.’’ 24 He yearned to share such experiences with Cecile, but she did not have his same sense of the difference between working and ‘‘higher ideals.’’ The failure of their marriage partly resulted from the gender differences that ruled their social class. Work was never self-evident for a woman of her status, so neither was the contrast with higher ideals during periods of leisure. As a solution, Cecile sought the lofty in the effort of daily work, an approach that Adriaan could not appreciate. Cecile sought inspiration and fulfillment in writing and exchanging ideas with like-minded people who worked for the same cause. She confided in few people aside from her sister, but in 1897, she also began to let Jungius into what she called her ‘‘intimacy.’’ 25 It is noteworthy that Goekoop’s most intimate confidantes were women either younger (Elisabeth was two years her junior) or lower on the social ladder (Jungius did not belong to the Hague elite). Her pedantic tendencies in close relationships became especially obvious in her dealings with these two women;26 she saw

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herself as their mentor. From the moment she got involved with the exhibition, Goekoop’s wish to help her younger sister was tinged with social ambition. She sat on so many committees, she claimed, to help ‘‘distinguished ladies’’ like her sister ‘‘get ahead.’’ 27 Goekoop felt Elisabeth would benefit from working within the exhibition organization and continued to help and support her after Elisabeth was appointed president of the Music Committee.28 In the case of Jungius, Goekoop’s protective attitude was entirely misplaced. Jungius’s talents as an organizer and expert on industrial development far exceeded hers. In 1897, as Jungius was recuperating from an illness, Goekoop wrote to Elisabeth saying Jungius’s ‘‘nerves [are] very weak and she needs a great deal of guidance and care, a great deal, so for the time being she remains a very absorbing little patient.’’ She then went on to describe how Jungius had thanked her for teaching her about ‘‘purity’’ and ‘‘rebirth.’’ ‘‘To turn her [Marie] into what I believe she can be,’’ Goekoop wrote, ‘‘will yet require a great deal of care.’’ On a trip to the World Exposition in Brussels, Jungius had given Goekoop the ‘‘data’’ she needed to ‘‘investigate’’ Jungius’s soul. ‘‘[If ] God gives me strength,’’ she wrote, this might turn into the ‘‘saving of a soul.’’ 29 It comes as small wonder that their relationship gradually cooled off. In January 1898, Cecile confided in her sister that Jungius could be oversensitive and had ‘‘such strange ideas about [her].’’ Jungius even suspected Goekoop of trying to obscure her contributions to the exhibition.30 Apparently, Jungius refused to play the role of the ‘‘little patient.’’ When she resigned from the board, the rift between the two women became plainly visible. The woman who Goekoop had tried to take under her wing received loud applause for her work, while Goekoop herself, who chaired the meeting, stood by and watched. Jungius, overwhelmed by emotion, tearfully turned to Cato Pekelharing-Doijer.31 The exhibition as a whole reflected the president’s tendency to patronize. One leftist magazine characterized the organizers as ‘‘patronesses, as interested girl friends, as . . . older sisters, driven by solidarity with their own sex.’’ 32 n

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Cecile and Adriaan’s marriage remained childless, and perhaps even sexless; in one letter Cecile wrote that Adriaan’s love for her was ‘‘not sexual.’’ 33 Judging by Hilda van Suylenburg, Cecile had no aversion to motherhood;

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the novel ends with a scene in which Hilda breast-feeds her baby while the loving father looks on. On the other hand, perhaps Cecile chose not to have children because this would thwart her plans to write a novel and organize an exhibition. Such considerations certainly had no social acceptance in that day, and Cecile probably could not even have confided in her sister. Elisabeth apparently asked about the couple’s childlessness at least once, because Cecile replied in May 1896, ‘‘Treatment by Tussenbroek is out of the question, darling, since there’s nothing wrong with me.’’ 34 At the time, Dr. Catharine van Tussenbroek worked in the private clinic of a famous Amsterdam gynecologist.35 Cecile Goekoop compared writing Hilda van Suylenburg to giving birth and later, in the summer of 1898, she likened working on the exhibition to being an artist striving passionately for closure. She used the images of motherhood and art to legitimize women’s work in the public domain. Both times, however, references to death followed her metaphors. About the novel she said: ‘‘For me, it . . . died a bit the moment it was born,’’ and about the exhibition she had, as quoted before, ‘‘a quiet suspicion that I shall soon pass away, and I feel somewhat like a dying person.’’ 36 Although she often felt such despair, she did achieve her personal goals. Through her creativity and perseverance, she fundamentally helped change how Dutch society saw women’s labor. As soon as the exhibition concluded, Cecile left for Rome. She could not bear to attend the last of the festivities and to continue living with Adriaan was unthinkable. The board was shocked, and the Goekoops’ separation soon became a public secret; even Cecile’s mishaps had now become part of the public domain.37 Aspects of the divorce, as well as details about Cecile’s work for the women’s movement, even found their way into a novel by one of the most famous Dutch writers, Louis Couperus.38 In a letter to Elisabeth, treasurer Mary van Dijk voiced her concern for Cecile’s wellbeing: ‘‘Where is she now? And how is she holding up under this deeply sad turn of events. . . . Oh, I feel so for Cecile.’’ 39 In 1899, Cecile moved to Paris, where five years later she married a Roman Catholic named Michel Frenkel. She published two more autobiographical novels and occasionally lent her support to the women’s movement. But the real feminist fire had left her. In 1905, Cecile gave birth to a son: Pierre Michel. She had him baptized as a Catholic and herself converted to Catholicism in 1916.40 Michel Frenkel passed away in 1934. Cecile died during World War ii, on June 15, 1944.

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the library collection and exhibition publications When trying to find a position for her sister in the exhibition organization, Goekoop lightheartedly assured Elisabeth that literature was a pleasant and neutral terrain. Elisabeth ended up as president of the Music Committee and later helped organize the conferences, while her overburdened older sister took charge of the Arts and Sciences Committee. Of course, Goekoop had erred; the organizers’ literary ambitions did have a distinctly political side. Women who wrote took big risks. Fear and sometimes embarrassment prompted many to publish their work under male pen names. The critics, even female critics, often showed no mercy. Goekoop had experienced this firsthand, even though Hilda was very well received. In November 1898, Anna de Savornin Lohman, who had sat on the Arts and Sciences Committee, wrote a brochure overtly attacking Goekoop’s ideas. De Savornin Lohman wanted to publicly distance herself from the ‘‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin of the women’s movement,’’ as enthusiastic supporters had dubbed Hilda van Suylenburg. She felt the novel overemphasized paid labor and glossed over the true path to happiness for women— ‘‘the quiet provision of love to her own family.’’ 41 Criticism made for only one of the reasons why literature could not be reduced to a pleasant and neutral domain. The public domain in literary circles was founded on specific gender-related privileges; in the Western world, men alone could join a scholarly or literary society, work on the editorial board of a literary magazine, or receive a higher education.42 Only in rare exceptions could women join a scholarly society. Women were not allowed to study and earn a degree in literature at a Dutch university until the late nineteenth century.43 Even reading rooms were considered male bulwarks. These upper middle-class private clubs functioned not only as centers of knowledge but also as meeting places for male scholars and readers who wanted to keep ‘‘the fair sex’’ at bay. Women in various cities soon started their own reading rooms; in 1877, the first opened in Amsterdam, followed by another in The Hague in 1894.44 The book collection enabled them to form an opinion on social issues, while the conversation room allowed them to exchange (feminist) ideas. It was no coincidence that various members of the Arts and Sciences Committee, including Goekoop, were members of women’s reading rooms. In planning the exhibition, the Arts and Sciences Committee felt it was logical to provide the Reading Room (a small library) offering writings by, about, and for women. All but two of the committee’s members had won

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their spurs in literary or scholarly writing. They had valuable contacts in literary circles and were well acquainted with the problems women authors faced.45 Their publications had received general recognition; three committee members were among the first ‘‘lady members’’ allowed into the Leiden-based Society of Dutch Literature (Maatschappij der Nederlandsche Letterkunde) in 1893. Goekoop and two other women followed in their footsteps in 1898.46 It was no wonder that the Arts and Sciences Committee had ambition. They aimed to ‘‘collect the best works of Dutch women writers’’ in the Reading Room.47 American and Danish women had set the example, though the library in the Woman’s Building in Chicago had been significantly larger than those in Copenhagen and The Hague. The Reading Room in The Hague, with its modest size and its cozy corners, couches, and bookshelves, was mainly intended to provide an oasis of peace and quiet. Here, visitors exhausted from all the impressions and emotions of the exhibition could catch their breath. The books, brochures, and magazines displayed on low shelves along the walls invited them to read and browse. It was meant as a room where ‘‘one could sit down in quiet contemplation.’’ 48 In practice, however, some visitors complained that it failed to create a library atmosphere.49 One drawback of the Reading Room was its location. The organizers had wanted to limit the distance between the spoken and the written word, that is, between the Conference Hall and the Reading Room. The large restaurant visited by throngs of tired visitors separated these spaces. On their way to the refreshments, some had a quick look at the Reading Room or loudly stumbled by. Another disruptive factor came from the fact that the Reading Room also housed an exhibit of female photographers’ work. The Photography Committee had put a collection of photographs on the walls, which meant people continually shuffled by, viewing the photographs and disturbing readers.50 The Reading Room’s collection of writings actually emerged as another disappointment. Many important works remained absent, while a motley mix of publications—old and new, important and insignificant—lined the shelves, seemingly at random.51 The committee had aimed to provide an overview of the writings by, about, and for the ‘‘Dutch woman’’ written or translated in the latter half of the nineteenth century. In February 1898, the president still assumed she would receive 4,400 books. The publishers the organizers had approached had agreed to send in some three hundred books in all, but in June, the bookcases still remained embarrass-

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ingly empty.52 At the time of the opening, less than half of the expected books were in place. In the general exhibition catalog, the Arts and Sciences Committee apologized for the collection’s incompleteness and expressed regret at having to refuse gynecologist Hector Treub’s offer to lend some 150 books written by or for famous women.53 Correspondence reveals that the committee could not guarantee that the doctor’s books would be returned ‘‘undamaged.’’ 54 Similarly, Carel Gerritsen, husband of feminist Aletta Jacobs, had been willing to lend the committee his famous collection of books on the woman question: ‘‘I took immediate action to fill the gaps in the volumes of various periodicals about the woman question. A prolonged and exhaustive correspondence with the boards of foreign periodicals has produced some, but not sufficient results.’’ 55 The organizers were lax in communicating with him. Their reply came late, and the committee had wrongly assumed that Hélène Mercier would provide mediation and support. There was no paid employee who could select from Gerritsen’s collection and catalog the writings. To make matters worse, all of this took place only two weeks before the grand opening.56 The exhibition catalog makes no explicit mention of Gerritsen’s collection, but it does refer to a set of foreign periodicals in the Reading Room; perhaps these were his. In the first issue of Vrouwenarbeid, the committee secretary again defended the collection. The committee had refused to act as a judge of merit for the entire Arts and Sciences Exhibit and to ‘‘veto some of the work of its sisterhood.’’ For this reason, the Reading Room did not provide ‘‘a flattering picture’’ of women’s writing, but an image of ‘‘women’s work’’ that could also be called ‘‘embarrassing’’ in places. The Reading Room’s greatest merit lay in its function as a depot for documentation on all of the other exhibits. Almost every committee had submitted books and brochures about its own field.57 Probably, the Arts and Sciences Committee had made a virtue of necessity. They had shelf space to fill, and a qualitative selection of the material would have left the bookcases even emptier.58 Still, the Arts and Sciences Committee did collect some interesting works. The Reading Room housed four separate collections, the largest of which consisted of books, brochures, and sheet music. This collection had 931 titles in all, subdivided into eleven (sometimes oddly composed) categories.59 The literature category, with 587 titles, made up more than half of this collection. Although the emphasis lay on the period after 1850, some categories contained valuable books from earlier periods, for in-

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stance, world famous scholar Anna Maria van Schurman’s Eucleria of uitkiezing v.h. ‘t beste Deel, in ‘t Latijn beschreven en nu in ‘t Nederduits vertaalt (1684) and two eighteenth-century titles by Maria Sibylla Merian: Erucarum ortus, alimentum et paradoxa metamorphosis and Der rupsen begin, voedsel en wonderbaare verandering.60 With the foreign periodicals and other collections included, the Reading Room housed 1,351 titles. Because the Education Exhibit housed another 113 textbooks and pedagogical writings, exhibition visitors had access to some 1,500 titles in all.61 This was not an impressive number. The Arts and Sciences Committee had clearly expected more of its library, but perhaps the project had taken a backseat to another one of the committee’s priorities: to publish the exhibition newsletter Vrouwenarbeid. One advantage of this publication was that it could partly compensate for the gaps in the collections. According to a circular letter from the Arts and Sciences Committee, the newsletter aimed to try and ‘‘give a lasting impression’’ of the exhibits while ‘‘preserving’’ the words spoken at the conferences.62 Aside from committee reports and reports on exhibition conferences and events, Vrouwenarbeid contained articles on history and literature, complete with bibliographical references.63 The newsletter was published three times a week and boasted a large readership. Under editor in chief Johanna Naber, its circulation soared from 80 to 2,000 copies in the first few weeks. Because Vrouwenarbeid represented the views of many schools of thought, Naber demanded that all authors publish under their own names.64 In so doing, she also created a public domain for women’s journalistic and literary activities. The inexperienced editor had a tough job. Every day, she worked on the copy in her small press office in the exhibition building, which also housed the typewriters and a reproduction machine for writings, stenography, and drawings.65 But her hard work paid off: Vrouwenarbeid became a success and turned a substantial profit.66 The Arts and Sciences Committee had also planned to publish a special catalog of women’s writings. It surprised Goekoop to find that Geertruida Römelingh had, on her own initiative, already started drawing up a list of women’s writings in May 1897. Römelingh, a former book trader and publisher, had already marketed Marie Jungius’s brochure about the exhibition’s aims and structure ‘‘without insisting on any profit for herself.’’ 67 Goekoop thought it would be wise to leave Römelingh to it. Although the committee briefly considered asking her to become a member, it quickly reached the conclusion that her independence should not be compro-

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mised. Did Römelingh lack the status needed to join the Arts and Sciences Committee? She did become a member of the more prosaic Trade Committee led by Jungius and Suze Groshans. In consultation with this committee she decided to open a bookstore in the Conference Hall.68 The store would sell books and brochures by and about women, as well as issues of Vrouwenarbeid. Römelingh’s aims were to include the books and brochures by Dutch women ‘‘in a Catalog that would be published, and to keep, insofar as possible, the most interesting and saleable books in stock.’’ To boost sales, the Arts and Sciences Committee granted her request for signs to draw attention to the bookstore.69 The general exhibition catalog mentions the bookstore as a contribution by Geertruida Römelingh, represented by Sophie Tresling.70 During the exhibition, Römelingh invested her own money to publish the catalog of Dutch women’s writings put into print after 1850.71 The list was intended mainly to provide lay people with an overview.72 The 2,000 titles, alphabetically ordered, were divided by category into Dutch works by women, works translated into Dutch by women, Dutch-language periodicals edited by women (there were seventeen of these), and the 161 known pen names of Dutch women writers. A Dutch national weekly expressed surprise at the many well-known and unknown names on the list.73 Römelingh must have been a very active person.74 It was probably she who, in July 1897, published the 10,000 copies of the 427-page catalog of the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor. The title page fails to mention a specific committee or person, which indicates the Central Board’s responsibility. Each committee had been asked to provide an overview of the objects on display, including a detailed description, for inclusion in this general catalog. The descriptions varied in length and degree of detail, partly because some exhibits put out their own, separate catalogs, for example, the Visual Arts Exhibit. A total of seven catalogs, including the general one, were published. The catalog of old and modern books entitled La femme: Qualités–travaux–histoire, compiled by Rins Visscher, constituted the only commercial publication.75 n

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The proceedings of the various conferences made for an important series of exhibition publications. These proceedings included conference papers presented, the discussions that followed, and participants’ names. Even

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the stenographers’ notes on the audience response—such as ‘‘warm applause,’’ ‘‘protest,’’ and ‘‘laughter’’—were included, details that give today’s readers a sense of the mood in the 1898 Conference Hall. The idea for this expensive publication in twelve volumes (totaling 2,059 pages) came from the General Conference Committee headed by Goekoop. Elise Haighton (deputy treasurer) and Goekoop’s sister Elisabeth (committee secretary) conducted the publishing negotiations on behalf of the Exhibition Association. Annette Versluys-Poelman represented the Willem Versluys publishing company. The parties agreed that publication would take place on condition that 250 prospective buyers registered. Pre-registration was to take place at Römelingh’s bookstore, and profits would be split between the publisher and the Exhibition Association if more than five hundred copies were sold.76 Versluys-Poelman conducted the negotiations in three capacities: as the president of the Dutch Woman’s Suffrage Association (vvvk), as the organizer of one of the conferences, and as the prospective publisher of the proceedings. Her political and personal interests conflicted. As a representative of the Woman’s Suffrage Association she wanted women’s suffrage well-represented at the exhibition. However, Goekoop had not wanted to apportion part of the exhibition budget to the suffrage movement.77 As a publisher, Versluys-Poelman had to protect her business interests.78 After the agreement was signed, a conflict hung in the air. Apparently, the publisher had not known that the Conference Committee wanted twelve separate volumes rather than one publication. The organizers seemed unaware that such a multistage project carried much greater risks for the publisher—after all, different numbers of people might sign up for each volume. Again, the organizers’ lack of experience showed; they displayed a disconcerting ignorance of the economic position of female entrepreneurs. Versluys-Poelman was forced to refute Elisabeth Diepenbrock’s insinuation that she and her husband had only wanted to publish the conference proceedings because they could turn a good profit. Their condition that printing would begin only when more than 250 people had signed up had nothing to do with ‘‘greed,’’ she said: ‘‘We make a living from the publishing trade, Madam, and we have to bring up four sons on that income.’’ 79 In the end, the publisher agreed to print individual volumes, but VersluysPoelman expressed disillusionment: ‘‘The love and the pleasure that we brought to this deal has of course been lost, but we will fulfill our obligations.’’ 80 Late October 1898 saw the publication of volume 1 of the ‘‘com-

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plete Conference Proceedings.’’ 81 The catalogs, the newsletter, and the conference proceedings all put a strong stamp on how the 1898 event would be remembered. The organization had considerably less control over the surviving visual images of the exhibition. VISUAL IMPRESSIONS

On the last few days of the exhibition, the organizers put a variety of objects on display in the Conference Hall. Visitors were encouraged to buy raffle tickets to win one of these objects and thereby contribute to the exhibition profits.82 Sympathizers and satisfied exhibitors had donated items of varying worth: exhibition-goers found both a bicycle and a treadle sewing machine among the potential prizes. What the winners took home with them were unique memorabilia of an event that would otherwise survive only in memory or texts.83 In addition, the Insulinde Committee took out classified ads in local newspapers, offering the kampong dwellings for sale.84 In addition to exhibitor donations, raffle ticket buyers could also hope to take home many original pieces of art. Many of the prizes were works of art: an artistic tapestry, ceramics, paintings, drawings and watercolors by Isaac Israëls, Hendrik Haverman, Josselin de Jong, Philipp Zilcken, Marius Bauer, Jan Toorop (who had made the lithography for the raffle poster on sale at the event and in various bookstores),85 and ‘‘some women painters,’’ as an article in a national newspaper put it.86 Clearly, male artists supported the Exhibition Association, and while these men had their names mentioned, the female artists remained anonymous. Even at the end of the exhibition, the original issue was still highly relevant: how could women’s work be made visible when the public domain remained male? The Visual Arts Exhibit had taken on the task of showing the work of female artists; it was forced to take a position in relation to both the art world and the exhibition’s objectives. an exposition by female artists Unlike women who sought public fame on the stage, the women who entered the world of visual arts were not often greeted with insinuations of indecency. Working in a silent and solitary art studio did not clash with the ideals of bourgeois feminine virtue—therefore many young, middle-class women were taught how to paint. Nevertheless, the organizers decided right at the start that the exhibition

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would have to include a visual arts exhibit. Fine arts exhibits formed part of the tradition of industrial and applied arts exhibitions, and the women responsible felt that the exhibition in The Hague should include one as well, especially since the women’s labor exhibition in Leeuwarden twenty years earlier had done so too. This time, however, the influence of Cecile Goekoop added an extra dimension. As the first annual report stated, the exhibit would aim not only to show the products of women’s labor but also to promote the notion ‘‘that only those who had real talent should devote [themselves to art].’’ It was necessary to effectively discourage unaccomplished hobbyism at a time when ‘‘practically every young lady . . . thinks she can paint.’’ 87 According to the organizers, this gender-specific didactic norm—girls should not idle with mediocre pastimes—justified an exhibit based on artistic merit. A small committee planned the exhibit in the Visual Arts Room. Its three members were all painters: Sientje Mesdag-van Houten, Maria Bilders-van Bosse, and Barbara van Houten. Sientje Mesdag was married to artist Hendrik W. Mesdag and had painted the village and harbor in his 365degree panorama of Scheveningen. Her niece Barbara van Houten, thirty years her junior, often sought the couple’s advice about painting.88 Hendrik Mesdag presided over the Pulchri Studio Artists’ Association (Schilderkundig Genootschap Pulchri Studio) and was a powerful man in the art circles of The Hague. Maria Bilders was a member of the Arti and Pulchri Studio artists’ associations and made the drawing on the cover of the exhibition’s arts catalogue. The committee put together an exhibit in a spacious room. All of the paintings, drawings, etchings, and sculptures on display were the work of well-known female artists. ‘‘We feel that many young and as yet unknown artists will be disappointed, but when you think about it, everyone will understand that we are forced to draw strict lines,’’ the committee admitted.89 It had not forgotten its didactic mission. The press paid little attention to the exhibit. An early announcement had said that the Visual Arts Exhibit would offer light relief after the Social Work and Nursing Exhibits, where ‘‘endless suffering’’ would confront visitors. A common motive was ascribed to the contributing artists; they supposedly all felt an affinity with the principles of philanthropy and justice underlying the exhibition. The exhibition board equated their lives ‘‘in the service of art’’ with their own ‘‘endeavors to beautify the lives of so many other women.’’ 90 But the works of art on show seemed to have little to do with such lofty ideals of community art. The showpiece was

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Thérèse Schwartze’s commissioned portrait of young Queen Wilhelmina in full regalia. This society artist likely did not see a connection between her work and a social movement of any kind. From a commercial point of view, however, this preview did neither her nor the exhibition any harm. It also proved typical of this artist’s professional and businesslike approach; Schwartze herself had negotiated for Queen Emma’s permission to display the painting.91 Obviously, Schwartze did not fear association with the women’s movement. She had portrayed the young queen at her best: ‘‘Her waist a little thinner, her shoulders slightly more exposed, her white neck . . . a tiny bit longer and more innocent-looking, her eyes slightly enlarged, which made her face more expressive.’’ 92 It was strategically clever to put this portrait on display in the Visual Arts Room. Socialist visitors opposed to the monarchy could be told that the portrait hung there as a tribute to the most important Dutch woman artist of the day. Many of the contributing artists lived in The Hague and were members of Pulchri Studio or the Hague Art Society (Haagse Kunstkring). Most of the artworks were still life paintings, flower arrangements, and portraits. Women tended to choose such homely subjects partly because they had long suffered exclusion from formal art school training, but art school was the only place where artists could learn to paint nudes using live models. Although the Hague Art School had officially opened to girls in 1872, it was still considered better for women to paint in a protected environment.93 Unfortunately, flowers and still lifes did not prove very conducive to the various artistic innovations of the late nineteenth century. While several other sections of the exhibition experimented with new visual representations of social relations—for instance, in the decoration of exhibition buildings, the layout of publications, and the kampong—the safe, traditionally female genres in the Visual Arts Exhibit left little room for new notions of the place and mission of art.94 The Visual Arts Room maintained a certain predictability. Recent research has shown that turn-of-the-century female artists did not restrict themselves to painting small, indoor scenes.95 Indeed, many female artists changed their techniques and subjects during this period, a trend which also found its way into the Visual Arts Exhibit. Sientje Mesdag-van Houten, Charlotte Bouten, and Suze Bisschop-Robertson showed street scenes, landscapes and rural vistas. Bisschop-Robertson had even turned household chores into an artistic theme, a lead few artists heeded at the time.96 On the whole, though, alternative subjects remained

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an exception for women artists. When women deviated from the genderspecific tradition of homely art, they often received praise for the ‘‘masculine’’ qualities in their work. In this sense, gender and artistic norms remained closely linked. The exhibit’s objective of displaying high-quality works by successful artists did not inspire debate about gender-specific art appreciation. Instead, peace and ‘‘serenity’’ reigned.97 The works on display received few reviews.98 Only one newspaper discussed the exhibit’s artistic quality. The late Charlotte Bouten received praise for the ‘‘bold, almost masculine touch’’ in her paintings, while the begonias painted by Wilhelmina Kiehl were said to lack in expression.99 The organizers insisted that the works displayed were of unquestionably high quality, pointing out that the artists had exhibited their works elsewhere, often alongside those of men. The organizers claimed that the artists had only contributed to this exhibit to show support for the overall objectives of the exhibition. Such arguments robbed the organizers of an opportunity to put gender inequality in the visual arts on the agenda.100 The female artists themselves also seemed to consider this exposition less than real. It seems they seldom referred to their participation in the exhibition as one of their expositions.101 All of them had exhibited their works before and many would do so again. The exhibition did little to further their careers as artists; when some of their work was raffled off in the closing days of the event, the women still remained too obscure for the newspaper to mention them by name. male artists at work Few studies have explored the interactions between the organized Dutch women’s movement and the Dutch art world. However, it is known that some male artists, unlike their female counterparts, did benefit from the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor. The exhibition’s historiography has largely ignored this fact.102 Sculptor and ceramist Joseph Mendes da Costa, graphic artist and designer Jan Toorop, and painter Isaac Israels, for example, repeatedly visited the exhibition in search of inspiration.103 The way in which Jan Toorop’s raffle poster has gained fame shows disregard for the context in which the artwork was devised. This image of an impressive woman resting her hammer on an anvil, with several female figures and a sphinx in the background, is almost always reproduced without the caption originally printed across the bottom third of the poster: ‘‘Raffle tickets of the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor, 50 cents each,

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available on the grounds and from the Depots. First prize: a piece of jewelry worth 1,000 guilders.’’ Artistically speaking, these words have no relation to the image in the painting, but leaving them out obscures the impact of the women’s movement on Toorop’s work.104 Toorop himself gave a feminist interpretation of his lithograph; he saw the sphinx as a symbol of ‘‘social evils’’ that repressed and humiliated women of all classes, while the woman resting her hammer on the anvil ‘‘stood for the self-confident Force’’ that would fight and work until ‘‘women . . . have conquered the position they are entitled to.’’ 105 The anvil bears the inscription ‘‘Labor for Woman.’’ In an overview of Toorop’s work, art historian Victorine Hefting hails the poster as an important feminist statement. However, she views the sphinx as a symbol of human mystery, which depoliticizes the work as a whole. In this interpretation, too, the feminist context that produced this artwork recedes to the background. The fact that the artist wanted to advertise a feminist project deserves historical study, however. What prompted Toorop to contribute to the exhibition with no profit motive? 106 Toorop wrote to Mies Drabbe, a friend who served as a model for the woman depicted on the far left, about his visit to the exhibition shortly after the opening. He had witnessed a Javanese wedding ceremony and called it ‘‘fantastic, simple, yet full of distinction.’’ He raved about the ‘‘graciousness’’ of the Javanese and Oriental dancers and far preferred their dress to traditional Dutch costumes, which he described as ‘‘ungraceful, heavy as lead—northerly humid.’’ 107 Toorop was not the only artist captivated by the performances in Kampong Insulinde. Isaac Israels, who spent the summer in The Hague painting donkeys on the beach, also visited the East Indies village. Although bad weather marred his visit, the performances impressed him: ‘‘The little Java people are wonderful,’’ he wrote to a friend, ‘‘you should really come and see them soon; all day long I am twisting and turning my head and hands like the Javanese, and I can only think of tandakkers [Javanese dancers].’’ 108 Israels was acquainted with sculptor Joseph Mendes da Costa, who came to the exhibition to do studies of Javanese men and women.109 The sculptor’s presence did not come as a surprise. Gerth van Wijk’s guide to Insulinde had predicted that many artists would flock to the kampong and even mentioned Mendes da Costa’s plans to visit.110 The sculptor made many travels, always on the lookout for new sources of inspiration. The many non-Western elements in his work are derived from his visits to museums and expositions. In 1889, he had visited the World Exposition in

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Paris. During his two-week stay, he had immersed himself in Oriental art forms. Surely he also saw the ‘‘Javanese village’’ there, and perhaps he even met their manager. In any case, the presence of Mendes da Costa and Israels resulted in a number of artists’ impressions of the Javanese men and women at the Hague exhibition. Initially, Israels had trouble drawing the Asian dancers, a fact evidenced by a water color he painted in the guest book at the Kurhaus Hotel in nearby Scheveningen. During the exhibition, Israels made several paintings of female dancers and gamelan players.111 Mendes da Costa produced several studies of the Javanese on location, including a Javanese man’s head and a bust of a Javanese woman.112 As in Toorop’s case, art historians, when interpreting these works, ignored the context in which they were made, rendering the impact of the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor invisible. The art of Israels and Mendes da Costa contained no explicit references to the women’s movement. They went down in history as examples of an Oriental influence on Dutch art. Critics tend to see Mendes da Costa’s Javanese heads as examples of the artist’s interest in artistic forms the world over, while they saw Israels’s paintings of Javanese dancers foreshadowing his later interest in the East Indies colony, which he visited in 1921.113 This omission of context resembles the ahistorical impressions that visitors of colonial exhibits and ethnological shows received. As we discussed in chapter 4, colonial exhibits created the illusion of a realistic depiction of the colonies.Visitors believed they could detect a pure specimen of original colonial culture. What remained invisible was the fact that the whole relationship between spectator and exhibit had been staged by people acting from a position of colonial power. Similarly, no actual knowledge hindered Toorop’s fascination with the Javanese. He described the group as ‘‘simpletons from the tropics—Brahmans, Hindus, and Muslims,’’ not mentioning the actual exhibition context: ‘‘Once disembarked, [they] wander around like polar bears in the woods of Central Africa.’’ As far as we know, Toorop did not make any drawings of the Javanese in Kampong Insulinde.114 Born in the Dutch East Indies himself, he had incorporated motifs and styles from the Indonesian archipelago into his art long before the exhibition. Both Israels and Mendes da Costa had used working-class people in the streets, often women, as an important theme in their art. Mendes da Costa’s Jewish street scenes from Amsterdam and Israels’s servant girls had widened Dutch artists’ horizons. Their subjects fit in neatly with the ex-

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hibition’s aim of increasing the visibility of working women. Israels quite literally made women’s labor visible shortly after the exhibition, when he, thanks to the coordination efforts of Thérèse Schwartze, painted on location at Amsterdam sweatshops.115 Mendes da Costa sculpted statues of fisherwomen and female market vendors. Neither Israels nor Mendes da Costa showed any interest in depicting the women at work at the exhibition. The organizers exercised strict control over the image projected by the women working in the main building; this probably clashed with the artists’ emphasis on unpolished reality. Israels and Mendes da Costa likely found the Hall of Industry far too orderly and ‘‘unreal.’’ The organizers in turn had little interest in the portraits of women made by male artists at the exhibition. Not one commemorative text mentions that the exhibition inspired such famous artists.116 This may have resulted from the fact that these men based their artworks on what they had seen in Kampong Insulinde. Many organizers regarded the kampong a sideshow with too many fun fair characteristics. To them, antique batiks and the impending demise of home industries constituted legitimate aspects of the exhibition, but male appreciation of female Javanese dancers did not. Therefore, the sculptures and paintings these men left behind remained excluded from the cherished legacy of the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor. Neither art history nor women’s history has explored the context in which Israels and Mendes da Costa made their representations of Javanese women. Nevertheless, their artworks constitute an important visual vestige of the exhibition. They illustrate the colonial dimension characterizing the inclusion of Indonesian elements in Dutch art. Moreover, they capture a hint of the excitement that accompanied the viewing of real people and their art in the East Indies kampong.

CHAPTER 7 n

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From its inception, the women’s movement paid a great deal of attention to public speaking and debate. While women at the lectern still caused a sensation in the 1860s, this was no longer the case by the end of the century. The public regarded the exhibition conferences with their numerous female speakers as a respectable and central element of the 1898 event. The media widely discussed papers presented and ensuing debates. One national newspaper even concluded that the exhibition was no more than ‘‘the gateway to the conference hall.’’ 1 Conferences made for a common element of national and international expositions. Inventors, scientists, politicians, doctors, lawyers, social reformers, and working-class representatives—people from many walks of life—had given lectures on architecture, anthropology, statistics, education, the colonies, electricity, and many more topics.2 The first feminist conference took place in the same tradition at the Paris World Exposition of 1878.3 The large women’s conferences at succeeding world expositions in Paris (1889), Chicago (1893), Brussels (1897), and Paris again (1900) had a great impact.4 The organizers of the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor had organized a series of twelve conferences (two or three days in length each) and a number of individual meetings and addresses. A few associations, including the Dutch Midwives Association (Nederlandsche VroedvrouwenVereeniging), held their annual meetings at the exhibition Conference Hall. Not a day went by without a busy event at the hall. The various exhibit committees had come up with the discussion topics. The Social Work Committee suggested a great number of topics better suited to a confer-

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ence than an exhibit. These included the social work conference and a conference on raising orphans. At the orphans conference, the contribution by socialist union leader Roosje Vos stood out. Surrounded by regents, headmasters, and stewards from orphanages all over the Netherlands, Vos told her own story. She had grown up in an orphanage, where she learned to be a seamstress.5 The National Exhibition of Women’s Labor enabled Dutch feminism to expand its claim to the public domain. In The Hague, socialists and feminists systematically and publicly debated a crucial question for the first time: who had the right to defend the interests of working-class women? By deciding to make ‘‘labor’’ the exhibition’s theme, feminists had set themselves on a collision course with the socialists; labor issues and the fate of the working classes constituted the very foundations and the raison d’être of socialist politics. In 1898, the women’s movement also claimed the right to speak out on these matters. Both socialism and feminism stood on the brink of a breakthrough. Both emancipatory movements saw opportunities to make great strides in their struggle for full participation in the public domain—until then dominated by men of the upper and middle classes. The socialists of the Social Democratic Labor Party (Sociaal-Democratische Arbeiders Partij; sdap), established in 1894, had come out victorious in the 1897 elections. Partly due to the substantial expansion of suffrage, two sdap candidates won seats in the Second Chamber of parliament. These men, Pieter Jelles Troelstra and Henri van Kol, began the long history of socialist representation in Dutch parliament. The sdap’s strength lay in its combination of regular parliamentary representation and radical socialist appeals for a classless society. Within parliament, they called for laws to solve ‘‘the social question’’ and to introduce universal male suffrage. For the women’s movement, democratic representation still remained a distant dream in 1898. Most women could barely imagine female suffrage at this time. Yet many of the more moderate ideas about improving women’s social position did find wide support. The progressive liberals showed particularly strong approval of the women’s movement. Central to the debates between feminists and socialists was the question of legitimacy in public debate: Who was entitled to speak about the position of working-class women? Was it necessary to be from the working classes, as socialist Henriette Roland Holst had argued in her criticism of the exhibition (see chapter 2)? Or could alliances be formed across class

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boundaries? Was gender a legitimate category to use in speaking about social problems? One time-honored argument used by middle-class women to stake a claim in the public domain was based on their supposed moral superiority: they believed themselves to be eminently suited to protect public morality. This rationale formed the basis of exhibition organizer Marie Sparnaay’s campaign for female supervision in factories (see chapter 3). Another argument relied on women’s allegedly great capacity for empathy. The Social Work Exhibit aimed to mobilize women by appealing to their abhorrence of the social evils on display. Advocates claimed that women’s compassion for the weak in society entitled them to participation in social issues and the redress of social evils. By defining social problems in terms of ‘‘immorality’’ and ‘‘terrible conditions,’’ feminists could discuss them without taking a position on the class struggle. All the same, some exhibition organizers agreed with socialists that some social problems were class problems. These women would not pass up the challenge of addressing class differences between women. This resulted in two meetings that took differences between women as a point of departure: the domestic servants’ conference on August 21, and a debate entitled ‘‘The Women’s Movement and the Issue of the Working Class’’ on August 26. D O M E S T I C S E R V I C E AT S TA K E

No exhibition dealing with women’s labor could ignore the ‘‘domestic servant issue.’’ Hundreds of thousands of Dutch women were either employees or employers in that field.6 On her pre-exhibition promotional tour, Marie Jungius had mentioned that 160,000 women found employment in private households.7 She felt that the job and working conditions of domestic servants required exploration from all angles, not solely from the employer’s point of view (how to find a good servant). To highlight the positive side, the organizers decided to draw up an honor roll for loyal service: women who had served the same family for at least ten years were up for a decoration. The response proved overwhelming, and entries kept coming in long after the closing date of May 15. The organizers put the final list of 1,600 servants and their employers on display in the Social Work Exhibit. All decorated domestic servants also received free entrance to the exhibition.8 The idea had been to ‘‘pay tribute to the humble,’’ but opinions about

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this gesture were divided. Left-wing critics found it tasteless and offensive. The anarchist socialist magazine Recht voor allen felt the list constituted an attempt to ‘‘needle’’ the servants who lived in the ‘‘domestic slavery’’ of their employers.9 The domestic servants conference would deal with the ‘‘issue,’’ and not only from the point of view of the employers. The main force behind the idea of asking both sides to speak came from Cornélie Huygens, the conference president. She was an active member of the sdap in The Hague.10 Pieter Tak, politically a kindred spirit of hers, had written in December 1897 that domestic servants would benefit from holding a conference but would need help organizing the debate. To enable domestic servants to speak up for themselves, he wrote, the ‘‘ladies’’ of the exhibition would have to assist them in setting up their own organizations.11 Huygens organized a conference that allowed both parties, employers and employees, to present their opinions about their mutual labor relations. The conference was held on a Sunday because many domestic servants traditionally had a few hours off on that day. Entrance fees were kept low so that lower middle-class housewives, domestic servants, and working-class women could also afford to attend.12 The conference organizers hoped that this plan would lead to the creation of a domestic servants’ association. For this to succeed, a large number of domestic servants would have to show up for the conference.13 As it turned out, a domestic servants’ association called All for Each Other (Allen voor Elkander) was indeed founded shortly before the conference date. Domestic servant Dientje Auwerda served as its president.14 Several members of the new association attended the conference, and President Auwerda addressed the audience. Pieter Tak had apparently been right to argue that the servants could only address the public if they represented a cause or a constituency.15 The conference became an eye-opener. Never before had women of distinctly unequal social classes debated with each other in public on an equal footing. Not only did Auwerda speak from experience; she also had the authority of the first domestic servants’ organization to back her up. However, even this double legitimacy barely sufficed to ensure her the right to speak. For many middle-class people in the audience, it was unthinkable that a servant should speak up—and even complain—in public. After all, these employers were used to sending servants back to the kitchen if they did not like their attitude. When other servants in the audience joined in to express their own grievances about their em-

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ployers, some women felt the limit had been reached.16 The response of the audience and the press shows how unique it was for domestic servants to participate in a public debate about their own position—and how threatening the middle class found it. Wilhelmina Drucker used her considerable debating skills to refute Auwerda’s contribution. She flatly denied the existence of the bad conditions her counterpart had described—bad food, poor sleeping quarters, dark basement kitchens, and irregular pay. Drucker asserted that if room and board for live-in servants were taken into account, the pay would prove to be exceptionally good.17 In her speech, Auwerda had proposed to abolish the tipping system. It was customary for overnight guests and other visitors to leave a gratuity for the hostess’s servants. Usually the employer accepted this money and paid it to the servants along with their regular pay. Low wages meant that the domestic servants depended on these tips. Auwerda said that this humiliating situation undermined the servants’ self-esteem.18 Drucker agreed that the tipping system should be abolished, but for a different reason; she felt the gratuities implied that the employers paid their servants too low a wage. And that, she claimed, was definitely not the case. Other feminists greeted her words with loud applause. The debates were published in the conference proceedings, but a comparison with contemporary newspaper articles shows that the proceedings omitted many of the opinions expressed. It was usually the servants’ interventions in the debate that were struck from the record, which unfortunately demonstrated the marginalization of lower-class women in the public debate. One newspaper reported how a domestic servant told the audience about an employer who had refused her personnel a day off to go to the exhibition but willingly gave them time off to go to a fair. The newspaper then went on to undermine the speaker’s contribution by sneering at the number of red flowers on her hat and insinuating that going to the fair was immoral.19 However irrelevant these comments may have been, questioning a woman’s morality was a well-known technique for disqualifying her words. Clearly, the demands by female domestic servants had sparked indignation, and not only in feminists like Drucker. Her response reflected a widely felt middle-class contempt for servants. Ironically, a feminist-socialist struggle for speaking time eclipsed the battle over domestic servants’ right to speak. As a feminist, Drucker used the servants’ cause to fight the socialists in general and Cornélie Huygens in particular. In Evolutie, Drucker had given Huygens, in her capacities

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of conference president and speaker, a thorough lambasting. She felt the conference had failed and accused Huygens of talking nonsense. Huygens hit back by curtailing Drucker and her allies’ speaking time, claiming that working-class women in the Netherlands could expect little of ‘‘those who call themselves ‘feminists.’’’ 20 The question is why Huygens, one of the few socialists in the exhibition organization, put the domestic servants issue on the agenda. Usually socialists supported the male proletariat who worked in the clearly identifiable class structures of industry and agriculture. Working-class women merely functioned as their wives (and as a potential threat to decent wages). Huygens deliberately deviated from this perception when she decided to tackle the domestic servants’ concerns. In the sdap newspaper, she explained how the domestic servants issue differed from ‘‘industrial wage slavery.’’ She believed the working conditions of domestic servants were easier to improve than those of factory workers because individual employers could more readily make changes.21 Her reasoning implied that the socialist notion of class struggle, based on control of the means of production, did not apply to the labor relations between domestic servant and employer. Huygens felt domestic servants formed part of the working classes and should therefore be given the rights that ‘‘would eventually be attained by all of humanity.’’ In Huygens’s view, these rights could simply be granted and did not need to be conquered. In a domestic setting, the simple will to change bad working conditions sufficed, making more radical forms of class struggle unnecessary. This will to change should not be based on emotion—‘‘the purpose was not to appeal to the middle class’s feelings’’—but on insight.22 After all, both parties stood to gain from better working conditions; better treatment would produce more competent personnel. Huygens devised a multifaceted plan to improve conditions; she envisaged home economics education for servants, decent pay, regular time off, and equal treatment—households employing a single servant should allow her to join family meals, for instance. To monitor these reforms, she recommended the establishment of a domestic servants’ union. Huygens’s demand for ‘‘proper training’’ earned her the support of the women who ran home economics schools. They were not socialists, but they agreed that household chores required thorough knowledge and proper training. In their view, ‘‘civilized’’ women should pass their knowledge on to the working classes. This would enable working-class families of modest means to run a good household, and it would increase the knowledge and skills

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of domestic servants. The headmistress of the Hague Home Economics School, who argued for the establishment of a training program specifically for domestic servants, addressed its distinct benefits in her speech. This could lead to the formation of a union for certified domestic servants, so that employers would know where to find qualified personnel, she argued. Huygens introduced the domestic servants issue partly because she, like many in the women’s movement, felt that women themselves were the best experts on household matters. While socialists could analyze class inequality in industry, she implied, women were the authority in the domestic field. Huygens reversed the experience and expertise argument that socialists so fondly used against feminists. This invocation of women’s domestic expertise paved the way for other contributions. Hotel proprietress Hella Tappenbeck spoke on the tipping system in hotels. She had completely done away with this system in her own guest house.23 Tappenbeck was one of the hotel owners who had responded to the hundreds of questionnaires sent out by the Industry and Trade Committee. The hotel owners’ answers conveyed a great deal of professional self-confidence.24 While women in other lines of work were often apologetic and modest, hotel owners proudly wrote of their accomplishments. Marie Rutgers-Hoitsema, a Rotterdam feminist and sdap sympathizer, tried to put the relationship between servant girl and her employer in a historical perspective. She made a distinction between the work itself and ‘‘servitude,’’ by which she meant the relationship between servant and employer. One characteristic of servitude, she said, was the servant’s constant availability. If domestic work were better organized, servants could have certain hours off and domestic work would become a respectable form of employment. This could ultimately lead to the formation of cooperative households, one of Rutgers-Hoitsema’s long-term goals. She compared her campaign to end servitude with the abolishment of slavery in the United States. In the hope of reassuring the employers, she said: ‘‘When Lincoln in 1862 with one stroke of his pen made three million slaves into free men, work at the plantations did not come to a grinding halt.’’ 25 The speaker seemed oblivious to the fact that half of these three million people had been women. She also failed to mention slavery in the Dutch colonies. Her main concern was to describe the domestic servants’ problem as a vestige of the past with no place in modern society. Like Huygens, RutgersHoitsema assumed that class inequality in a domestic setting differed in

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nature from its counterpart in industry. It was less modern, less complicated, more personal, and easier to change, she felt. By distinguishing between private domestic employment and large-scale industrial employment, these women claimed the right to speak as experts on the position of working-class women. The socialists, however, had little time for any analyses that stressed not only the differences between employers and employees but also their common interests. It would take decades before the arrival of more moderate socialists open to such arguments. In 1898, however, the interests and perspectives of domestic employers and employees differed too markedly from the premises used to reflect on factory labor. The women’s movement did not succeed in persuading socialists of the legitimacy of its alternative perspective on social relations. S O C I A L I S T S A N D F E M I N I S T S I N D E B AT E

On August 26, 1898, the socialists gave their assessment of the women’s movement. Socialist parliamentarian Pieter Jelles Troelstra addressed the audience with ‘‘Social Democracy and the Women’s Movement,’’ while publicist Pieter Tak presented a talk entitled ‘‘The Women’s Movement and the Labor Issue.’’ A debate involving various feminists followed these presentations. The lectures and debates were included in the fifth volume of the conference proceedings, and as such they have become part of the exhibition’s legacy.26 A month before his lecture, Tak had reviewed the exhibition in De kroniek. He had employed a critical but constructive tone. He had praised the organizers for their intentions and the hard work they were putting in. However, he also wrote that if the organizers truly wanted to appeal to working-class women, they would have to address two thorny problems. First of all, Tak claimed, women constituted unfair competition with men because their low wages would bring down the general wage level. And second, there was the matter of labor protection laws for women. Tak believed many in the women’s movement opposed such legal protection for women since they supported the ‘‘doctrine of total equality.’’ He recommended that the organizers devote a conference to these topics.27 Troelstra’s speaking engagement at the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor had been arranged at the last minute. He had asked the Conference Committee whether his fellow party member Henriette Roland Holst would receive permission to speak at a conference on woman’s social posi-

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tion, but the organizers showed little willingness to oblige the woman who had so viciously attacked the exhibition. They did not reserve time for her at that conference, but said she would be welcome to speak on the afternoon of Tak’s address. That time did not suit Roland Holst, however, so it was decided that Troelstra would speak instead.28 Both Tak and Troelstra expressed their gratitude for the opportunity to participate, but others were less satisfied. The socialists were granted much more speaking time than the feminists, who could only intervene in the debate and were restricted to a maximum of ten minutes per speaker. Besides, preparation time was too short.29 As another consequence of the conference’s improvised nature, no working-class women could join the debate. Those absent included Roosje Vos and Dientje Auwerda, who spoke at other conferences in their capacities as working-class women. Remarkably, the socialists did not protest their absence. Tak and Troelstra lauded the women’s movement as a movement of ‘‘ladies.’’ This praise proved a double-edged sword, however, because it also aimed to deny middle-class women the right to speak on behalf of their working-class sisters. Tak was the more benevolent of the two. He fully backed middle-class women in their effort to have marital and property laws amended, and he recommended that the organizers turn the designation ladies movement into an honorary title. He distinguished between ‘‘absolute feminists’’ and the women’s movement in general. His paternal tone suggested he was addressing people who had not yet grasped the economic causes underlying social inequality. Once they ‘‘came into contact with the working classes . . . [they would] find there is harmony between the sexes, rather than the competition found in bourgeois society.’’ As soon as the women’s movement realized this, Tak said, ‘‘the hatchet of the sexes could be buried,’’ removing the gender issue from the social debate.30 In his patronizing style, Tak patiently explained what the ‘‘ladies’’ had failed to grasp: that female workers competed with working-class men, their children’s fathers, because they accepted lower wages. He went on to advocate the introduction of labor protection laws for women. He accused the exhibition organizers of advocating something whose consequences they could not foresee. He said he would not deny any workingclass woman the right to a job, but he rejected the idea that women of other social classes should encourage them. Troelstra, who was far more incisive than Tak, said the women’s movement only had a role to play ‘‘during the decline of the capitalist era.’’

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Because feminism strove to ‘‘perfect the capitalist system,’’ the chasm between socialism and feminism could never be bridged. Troelstra personally agreed that middle-class women should give up their frivolous pastimes and use their many privileges for the common good, but they had to keep their hands off working-class women.31 Protest came from all sides, and various feminists defended the women’s movement. In many respects, however, the socialists were right. The organizers of the exhibition remained generally ignorant of class inequality and the living conditions of the working classes. The socialists, for their part, had incorrectly concluded that feminism was but a last spasm of capitalism. The feminists who joined the debate with Troelstra now had to seek recognition for the legitimacy of the knowledge and insight they did have. One insightful contribution came from Ida Heijermans. She argued that the socialists’ analysis of the class system was right but incomplete. ‘‘In all eras and in all countries,’’ women had suffered abuse more than men, she said, and within each social class they had always ranked second to men. Up to this point the socialists agreed with her. Yet Heijermans then explained that the proletariat judged rich women more harshly than rich men, while the capitalists victimized poor women more than poor men.32 Until she made these comments, others had merely argued over whether gender or class constituted the more important factor in social inequality. Heijermans took the first step toward a deeper analysis of the link between gender and class. She argued that class differences were partially fought out along gender lines. She did not give any examples, but Troelstra had perfectly illustrated her point with his misogynist swipe about ‘‘ladies’ frivolous pastimes.’’ His comment reflected the socialists’ tendency to condemn middle-class women while sparing their male counterparts. For example, their respect for the middle-class men who ran large enterprises— ‘‘we see trusts as the precursors of a socialist society,’’ Troelstra had said in his address—contrasted sharply with their contempt for ‘‘ladies.’’ 33 As ‘‘ladies,’’ rich women represented the parasitical class, while working-class women symbolized the poverty and powerlessness of the working class. Heijermans suggested that as long as women served as symbols of their class, there would be no room to recognize them as active participants in a public debate. In their opposition to the women’s movement, the socialists proved particularly venomous because they unquestioningly adopted the bourgeois prejudice that women were incapable of performing in public. The women

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could not follow Tak’s recommendation to turn the term ladies movement into an honorary title since ladies was a loaded word in 1898. It carried connotations of coquettishness, vanity, superficial dabbling, and mindless entertainment. The socialists may not have created these connotations, but they knew how to use them. In the debate following Tak and Troelstra’s contributions, the women participating found it difficult to defend themselves against such imputations. They certainly did not want to speak as ‘‘ladies,’’ but what else could they speak as? Rutgers-Hoitsema asserted that she was proud to call herself a feminist. Jungius said she considered herself neither a socialist nor a feminist, only ‘‘a human being who also felt for others.’’ In her closing statement as conference chairwoman, Emilie Knappert solemnly declared that ‘‘being a woman’’ was more than ‘‘being a lady.’’ This insight concluded the discussion about the women’s and labor movements. n

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During the organization process of the conferences and meetings, the controversial nature of the idea for a women’s exhibition became quite clear, especially if social issues were to be considered in tandem with the position of women. Various organizations feared having their area of expertise associated exclusively with the ‘‘woman question.’’ For this reason, the organizers had to cancel a conference on poor relief. Other topics, however, clearly proved essential to an exhibition of women’s labor. Among these were the subjects of higher education and vocational training for women. Various discussions of this issue took place, starting with the exhibition’s resounding opening conference: ‘‘Vocational Training for Women.’’ Later, there were several smaller conferences on specific areas of employment including an education conference and debates on domestic hygiene and nursing, industrial schools, and the task of mothers and educators. Aside from paid labor, two conferences focused on the issue of public morality: a three-day meeting to advance public morality (about the situation in the Netherlands) and a three-day congress to discuss women’s labor in the field of social work in the East Indies territories (about the war on stateregulated prostitution and immorality in the Dutch colonies). We devote the next two sections of this chapter to the conferences on education and on public morality.

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V O C AT I O N A L A N D P R O F E S S I O N A L T R A I N I N G

The organizers had worked hard to come up with an impressive opening for the series of conferences and debates. Their work paid off. In the successful opening lecture, medical doctor Catharine van Tussenbroek gave a speech entitled ‘‘The Lack of Life Energy in Our Young Women and Girls.’’ The lecture drew more than a thousand people to the Conference Hall. One of the women attending later noted in her diary, ‘‘not as beautiful as we had imagined,’’ but to many others, this lecture was the highlight of the exhibition. Johanna Naber mentioned the overwhelming impression it had made. Fifty years later, another member of the audience recalled that Tussenbroek’s indictment of the emptiness of upper middle-class girls had sounded like a resounding j’accuse in the totally silent hall.34 The lecture, included in the conference proceedings, became part of the exhibition’s canonized legacy. As an icon of the exhibition, Tussenbroek was unparalleled; as a woman with a college education she was living proof of women’s capabilities. The speaker did not denounce the ideals of marriage and motherhood, but added to these the need for women to prepare for economic independence. She thoroughly explained why it was necessary for women to receive professional and vocational training. Tussenbroek argued that girls and young women would develop character and a sense of duty if they received an education enabling them to make their own living. The ensuing debate focused on the need for women’s professional training, but even Tussenbroek’s rather moderate stance caused quite a stir. Chairwoman Emilie Knappert worried that the debate on professional training would overemphasize the virtues of paid labor. Others shared her fears. Some were afraid that appeals for professional training might lead to a rejection of motherhood and marriage. One woman expressing this apprehension was twenty-four-year-old Georgette Hinlopen, Cecile Goekoop’s personal assistant. As the youngest member of the Regulation Committee, Hinlopen had worked hard for the exhibition. According to Naber, many had come to appreciate ‘‘her dedication, sense of duty, and friendly helpfulness.’’ 35 Now the time had come for Hinlopen to voice her doubts. Overcoming her fear of public speaking, she addressed the full Conference Hall.36 She described how torn she had felt in the preceding months; after her sister’s unexpected marriage, her elderly mother had spent hours alone at home while Hinlopen worked for the exhibition. It had been hard, but her work came first ‘‘as I had decided to see the exhibition through

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’til the end.’’ Hinlopen just wanted to remind the audience that not every girl could be missed at home. Conference chairwoman Knappert echoed Hinlopen’s misgivings and warned conference-goers that paid labor alone gave no ‘‘guarantee for health in body and soul.’’ 37 In her memoirs, Knappert noted with satisfaction that she had defended ‘‘the numerous young women who, if they had not gotten married, had become an asset to their household and supported their parents.’’ 38 The debate did not lead to sharp divisions, but participants repeatedly brought up the hollow existence of women not professionally educated. The three-day education conference (August 10–13) drew over four hundred people, including education officials, local government representatives, and teachers from all over the country. A separate Education Conference Committee headed by Henriette Goudsmit had drawn up the conference program. Some organizers were unfamiliar with the world of education, as primary school teachers generally came from the lower middle or even working classes. Suze Groshans confessed that she found some teachers pedantic, but appreciated their great effort: ‘‘Grossly underpaid, lacking basic needs, but still prepared to sacrifice their scant time off in the interests of people poorer than themselves.’’ 39 The conference focused on the importance of better education for girls, more coeducation, and a larger number of secondary schools for girls. Teacher Frouwina Eldering discussed the last of these points in her address on the second day of the conference. In the ensuing debate, alderman J. T. Mouton of The Hague voiced hope that there would always be girls who did not seek employment and would be satisfied ‘‘to become nothing.’’ Eldering, in her retort, wondered whether Mouton had any idea ‘‘of the emptiness they experience later, when they are doing nothing, waiting to get married.’’ She could not imagine that a life of doing nothing served as good preparation for marriage and household tasks. She concluded by expressing her full support for all girls with the ambition to learn a profession. The audience agreed, loudly applauding her words.40 On day three, Ida Heijermans spoke about the position of women teaching in Dutch schools. They suffered an even worse fate than their underpaid male counterparts. Female teachers earned less and had fewer career opportunities, she said.41 Research by the Education Committee had shown that female teachers, though unmarried, often supported various family members.42 Heijermans felt women should receive equal pay if they did the same work as men and that they should be given more career oppor-

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tunities. She opposed the custom of sending women on earlier retirement than their male colleagues since this violated the equality principle. Her propositions were later passed by acclamation.43 While the education conference focused on the importance of promoting the professional interests of female teachers, many speakers also argued that good education served the national interest. They sought to legitimize the defense of female teachers’ interests by pointing out that a strong nation depended on the educational level of its people.44 A similar link between national strength and women’s labor was made during the conference on industry schools, an event that coincided with the inaugural festivities of the new Dutch queen. The conference chairwoman quoted young queen Wilhelmina’s oath—‘‘to contribute to her best ability . . . to the improvement of the spiritual and physical well-being of the Dutch people’’—and compared these words to the task that home economics and industry schools had set themselves. As the chairwoman put it: ‘‘Don’t we try to develop, civilize, and elevate as well?’’ 45 The conference on domestic hygiene and nursing placed even greater emphasis on the common good, largely ignoring the professional interests of nurses. Many at the conference felt that the actual work of nurses was taken for granted. In Vrouwenarbeid, for instance, Cornelia de Lange complained that it was apparently felt inappropriate to publicize the volunteer nursing done by nuns.46 The fact that three of the five speakers at the conference were male health care managers underscored the traditional modesty of nurses. These men focused on general issues rather than the interests of nurses, such as training. Thus the conference alternated between the rhetoric of the greater good and the arguments of an emancipatory movement speaking on its own behalf. In that respect, the debates reflected a general trend in Dutch public discussion in the late nineteenth century. The last conference addressed the task of mothers and educators. Elise van Calcar-Schiötling’s contribution made clear how the 1898 conferences continued the well-established, international tradition of women’s conferences. Van Calcar-Schiötling had also spoken about the methods of pedagogical innovator Frederik Fröbel at the first international feminist conference ever—the 1878 World Exposition in Paris.47 Twenty years later, she spoke again, this time about the role of mothers and educators. She began her address by paying tribute to the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor. It was, she said, ‘‘a monument that has laid a foundation on which to build. This has paved the way for woman’s further development in every field.’’ 48

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Van Calcar-Schiötling went on to sketch her own development as a writer, her love of children, and her endeavors to understand the soul of the child. In her concluding statement at the end of this last conference, the doyen of the women’s movement drew a link between woman’s role as an educator and the general interest of the nation: Queen mother Emma had excellently educated and prepared her daughter Wilhelmina.49 Generally, the conferences did not emphasize the role of motherhood. In the quest to legitimize the expansion of women’s duties in the public domain, the conferences stressed women’s self-control, expertise, and civilization as qualities that made them natural-born supervisors. The women’s movement modeled itself on the white, upper-class, male citizen who claimed the authority to control and supervise the lower classes—and, in the colonies, other peoples. Moral superiority, not ‘‘maternal’’ qualities, were thought to justify women’s access to the public domain in the kingdom of the Netherlands. This also became evident at the conference on public morality. PUBLIC MORALITY IN A COLONIAL CONTEXT

Some of the organizers had wanted to begin the series of exhibition conferences with the sessions on public morality. They considered the fight against moral decay a ‘‘truly solid ground to stand on when we reach out to help.’’ 50 The idea that women should have more say for the sake of ‘‘promoting moral awareness’’ was nothing new. The Dutch Women’s League for the Advancement of Moral Awareness, which fought to ban state-regulated prostitution, was the oldest Dutch women’s organization with an explicitly political aim. In the opening address of the ‘‘Conference on Promoting Public Morality,’’ the abolitionists revealed the influence of nationalist and imperialist sentiments on their thought. Reverend Hendrik Pierson, who had long fought against state-regulated prostitution, set the tone. He pointed out that the Netherlands had pioneered the battle against legal brothels in Europe, but warned that the country was in danger of losing its leading position. England was actively pursuing abolition in its colonies, while the Netherlands was not.51 The preacher urged women to fight against state-regulated prostitution as a means of achieving equality. The abolitionist campaign would give women a voice more valuable than suffrage, he asserted.52 Using the issue of public morality, Pierson linked women’s

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struggle for citizenship in the mother country with the international prestige of the Netherlands as an imperial power. This conference drew a large number of organizations; nearly all speakers took part on behalf of institutions or associations. Some of these had a long history of participation in public debate and sent experienced representatives. For example, the Dutch Anti-prostitution Association (Nederlandsche Vereeniging tegen de Prostitutie; nvp) sent Pierson, while the Dutch Women’s League for the Advancement of Moral Awareness delegated Lady Anna van Hogendorp and dowager Marianne Klerck-van Hogendorp. Some speakers told the audience about their work in shelters for unwed mothers and girls ‘‘in moral danger.’’ Although one speaker suggested that these women and girls should address the audience directly, not one unwed mother, prostitute, or ‘‘fallen woman’’ had actually been invited—not surprisingly, for that day and age. Historical research has shown that the nineteenth-century movement against state-regulated prostitution was characterized by a patronizing, moralistic attitude that left no room for the viewpoints of the prostitutes themselves. They were considered helpless victims.53 In the 1890s, the abolitionist movement radicalized in the sense that it more militantly demanded political rights for the women who fought immorality. However, the basic dichotomy between ‘‘Marys’’ and ‘‘Eves,’’ morally superior and fallen women, remained the norm. At best, some applied this strict moral distinction to men as well. Within this reasoning, fallen women had no right to speak. Moreover, because prostitution, the frequentation of bars, extramarital sex, and unwanted pregnancy were all lumped together, even during the conference, a majority of women were denied the right to address the issue of morality. The three-day debate on public morality did little to alter the persistent polarity between ‘‘good’’ and ‘‘bad’’ women. One exception was Marie Rutgers-Hoitsema, who in her discussion of contraceptives spoke of sexual urges, and clearly meant every woman’s sexual urges. With her demand that children of unwed mothers be treated with respect, Wilhelmina Drucker also defied dominant morality. Many women in the audience knew that Drucker was also referring to herself and her sister. Nellie van Kol bridged the moral divide when she spoke about the Women’s Mutual Protection League. With rare courage, this association aimed to support women during pregnancy and childbirth regardless of their marital status. During the debates, these speakers provoked vehement responses, espe-

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cially from male representatives of established organizations. They were accused of undermining marriage and promoting licentiousness. Insulinde magazine supported Van Kol. The magazine’s editor in chief, Rudolf Van Sandick, was on his way to Kampong Insulinde when one of his ‘‘progressive female friends’’ took him by the arm and steered him toward the conference on public morality. Van Sandick thought very highly of Van Kol. He had read articles in which she had advocated discussing all sorts of subjects with children, even young children.54 According to Van Sandick, Van Kol’s moral courage had served as an example for mothers in the colonies and at home. Her lecture did not disappoint him either; he was pleased to hear that she did not simply project immorality onto the colonies. In Insulinde, he wrote that Nellie van Kol knew how ‘‘to call even the worst things by their name, without embarrassment, to pitilessly expose the wounds from which European society bleeds, sexually speaking.’’ 55 Just like Pierson’s opening address, Van Sandick’s response reveals the colonial dimension that the debate on sexuality had acquired. Those trying to put public morality on the political agenda increasingly referred to the colonies. They drew comparisons between sexual relations ‘‘back home’’ and those in the East Indies. This kind of interaction between gender and imperialism became most visible during the exhibition conference entitled ‘‘Women’s Labor in Our East Indies Territories.’’ Public interest in the conference about the East Indies remained disappointingly low, though this may have been partly due to the overwhelming heat in The Hague at that time.56 Although Indophiles visited Kampong Insulinde in droves, they passed up the serious conference. One reporter wondered, ‘‘Where are the Indisch people, the inhabitants of the Netherlands who have such a great interest in the East Indies, where are they?’’ 57 Like the East Indies Exhibit and Kampong Insulinde, the debates were haunted by shadows of colonial war. One speaker described how indigenous women took care of colonial soldiers: ‘‘Javanese women sweep up the exhausted soldiers when they return from a long day’s marching. . . . Do you know how the Javanese woman then takes off his sweaty clothes, brings him to his cot, dabs his forehead with water and vinegar, and then, when he has come to, asks him lovingly: Sudah enak tuan? [Does it feel good, sir?]’’ 58 However, the speakers made no explicit references to the Aceh war, front-page news even during the exhibition. The Conference Committee had not dared to put this sensitive political issue on the agenda. Yet not all women were afraid to speak their minds. In September 1897, Nellie van

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Kol had protested against the Aceh war. She endorsed her husband, Henri van Kol, who as a parliamentarian for the sdap had called for a speedy cessation of hostilities.59 Nellie argued that the Javanese were a simple people who would accept a truce in Aceh without demanding the end of Dutch authority in Java. In other words, she did not reject the Dutch authority in Java as such, but favored a peaceful solution. Her stance provoked a variety of responses. One women’s magazine fully supported her ideas: ‘‘The need for conquest, interference, and greed play such a dominant role wherever the white race encounters ‘the little black people’ . . . that the sooner the hypocrisy and the selfish colonial policies of European nations end, the better.’’ 60 Another women’s magazine felt that because women did not have the right to vote, they should not meddle in such issues.61 De Indische gids rejected Kol’s plan and her arguments alike. It warned that such ideas might spark a Javanese uprising or worse: ‘‘Our whole existence as an imperial power [could be] at stake’’ if the Netherlands showed any weakness. The government had to restore ‘‘peace and quiet,’’ but it ‘‘[did] not need women urging it to do so.’’ 62 The exhibition conference stayed silent about the violence of imperialism and mainly addressed the ‘‘soft’’ side of colonial politics: missionary work, education, nursing, and concerns about public morality. With the war in Aceh out of sight, only social issues from the colonies came to the fore. The conference took place at a time when both social democrats and conservatives were calling for change in imperial policy. While Kol sympathized with the social democrats, other speakers supported the Anti-revolutionary Party (an orthodox Protestant political party) and its leader, Abraham Kuyper. Kuyper saw it as the government’s duty to create the conditions for the conversion of all Indonesians to Christianity. At his instigation, the Second Chamber of parliament had devoted a separate session to the evangelical ‘‘mission’’ during its general debate on the colonies in 1897.63 At the same time, the demographics of the Dutch colonial population were shifting. Once European women began making their presence felt, sexual relations between male colonists and indigenous women were no longer self-evident. There was more room for social work and ‘‘civilization efforts.’’ Furthermore, imperial policy was undergoing an ethical makeover. The exhibition conference constituted one of many arenas where these shifts became visible. Agatha van Zuylen-Tromp chaired the conference in which four male and six female speakers discussed how women could contribute to the

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work that Dutch men were doing in the colonies. All of the speeches directly addressed women, discussing the colonies as their potential work domain. Just as ‘‘civilized’’ women had found a niche doing social work for the lower classes in the Netherlands, duties awaited them in the East Indies: child rearing, education, and missionary work.64 The session opened with a tribute to the civilizing influence of women on Europeans in the East Indies.65 The speaker, Van Sandick, felt that the colony had become more ‘‘European’’ not only thanks to better communications and the influx of a ‘‘higher caliber’’ of Dutchmen but also because of the increasing ‘‘influence of civilized woman.’’ 66 Van Sandick said that women had rightfully made ‘‘us men’’ ashamed of concubinage, still a common practice in the East Indies at that time. Many Dutchmen who lived with indigenous women simply left their concubines (and any children) when they decided to marry a Dutch woman. Their Eurasian offspring formed a separate segment of the population. These so-called Indos sometimes found inclusion in the Dutch community (as part of the father’s new family) and sometimes in the indigenous community.67 The issue Van Sandick brought up was not new. ‘‘East Indies novels’’ had made the public aware of such extramarital relationships, but debates on the issue usually focused on whether such ‘‘piquancies’’ belonged in literature. Gradually, however, novels had begun to reject the concubinage system.68 Even the pros and cons of concubinage in the army had become the subject of debate.69 Speakers advocating greater female involvement in imperial policy referred to these discussions. As far as Van Sandick and Marianne Klerck-van Hogendorp were concerned, only Dutch women had the moral strength to reign in Dutchmen and indigenous women. Though Indonesian women were ‘‘exemplary in their devotion,’’ they ‘‘desired more,’’ and European men were weak.70 The speakers felt compassion for the ‘‘indigenous girl’’ who fell prey to the colonial housekeeper system, but her children triggered fear and rejection. Dutch women were invited to change these ‘‘East Indies conditions,’’ thus reducing Javanese women to objects of care. Whenever speakers compared Dutch and indigenous women’s lives, they concluded that women in the Netherlands were better off. One speaker referred to the East Indies as a society ‘‘whose women were beasts of burden, sources of entertainment, and instruments of procreation and nutrition.’’ 71 Even those who gave seemingly more positive assessments of indigenous society had an ulterior motive. In the novel Hilda van Suylen-

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burg, Cecile Goekoop criticized Dutch missionaries who saw the ‘‘immorality’’ of Muslim marriage but remained unconcerned about ‘‘fallen women’’ back home. Unlike Dutch men, Muslims at least provided for their second and third wives and their children.72 Such analogies were based on the assumption of Western superiority. To Goekoop, Islam exemplified a kind of barbarism that could be used to chastise the Dutch. The women’s movement referred to its own battle against public immorality to give weight to its opinions on imperial relations. Dutch women asserted that they could help indigenous women just as they had supported fallen women and wayward girls in the Netherlands. Marianne Klerck-van Hogendorp saw her objections to concubinage as a natural continuation of her struggle to have state-regulated prostitution abolished. The Dutch Women’s League for the Advancement of Moral Awareness also had a chapter in the East Indies capital Batavia, but it soon concluded that the struggle for morality in the colony was ‘‘too big’’ for women alone. While the campaign for decency in the mother country remained a women’s issue, in the East Indies, men and women began to cooperate, for instance in the Association for the Advancement of Morality in the Dutch Overseas Territories (Vereeniging tot Bevordering van de Zedelijkheid in de Nederlandsche Overzeesche Bezittingen).73 In the colonies, the gender divide within the white population proved far less important than the ethnic gap between Europeans and Asians. The concern for public morality gave women an opportunity to identify with imperial power. Women were also encouraged to become more involved in education in the colonies. Considerations of both gender and class lay behind this reasoning: women supposedly taught a more civilized pronunciation of the Dutch language. Some speakers argued that female teachers usually came from the middle classes, while their male colleagues often had workingclass backgrounds.74 Women also seemed indispensable in missionary work, nursing, the training of new midwives, and the care of ‘‘foot soldiers.’’ The idea was that middle-class Dutch women would set an example for indigenous women to follow, and in so doing would help eradicate the immoral by-products of male colonialism.75 Dutch women derived their right to speak about the colonies from the assumption of a hierarchical difference between the Dutch and Asian civilizations. Women’s claims to greater influence in running the colonies were based on class differences in the mother country. Saving and elevating the people of the colonies emerged as key concepts. Male support, deemed in-

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dispensable, could not be guaranteed if the women voiced strong feminist sentiments. Women’s position in the colonies could be defined in terms of a colonial problem or a lack of civilization, but not as a form of gender inequality. The male colonial authority did not want Dutch women poking about in the gender relations of the East Indies. The East Indies Committee had tried to gather information about indigenous women; it had wanted to find out why so few Asian girls in the Dutch East Indies attended school. In a letter to the East Indies school inspectorate, the committee had suggested that this probably resulted more from the inspectorate’s doing than a lack of interest on the girls’ part. An inspector’s response, read aloud at the conference, rejected this suggestion out of hand. According to the inspector, hardly anyone knew what motivated the indigenous population of the archipelago.76 Therefore the committee wrongly presumed it could understand indigenous gender relations. He felt that only the colonial government had insight into the indigenous peoples, and women were their greatest mystery. Here, a male representative of Dutch imperialism denied outsiders the right to develop an alternative—possibly more feminist—interpretation of local gender relations. Dutch women were allowed to speak about the feelings of the nyai (concubines), but not about equality of the sexes in colonial society. The debate about morality in the Netherlands and its colonies abounded with comparisons. Some participants objected to the assumption that the East Indies had a lower morality than the Netherlands. These protests reveal how imperialist ideology was linked to the issue of sexuality. Henri van Kol argued that instead of preaching, the Dutch should provide the Javanese with a means of existence. According to him, poverty and hunger were the reason why the ‘‘brown daughters of Java’’ were ‘‘selling themselves as concubines.’’ Other speakers tended to depict the nyai as passive creatures, victims of their parents’ manipulation or their own sexual urges. In concluding that Javanese women sold themselves as ‘‘housekeepers’’ out of economic necessity, Henri van Kol treated them as subjects with the power to act. Reasoning from his socialist anticolonialism could have paved the way for an analysis of colonial gender relations from an economic and class perspective, but this did not happen. ‘‘Dutch moralism,’’ so intent on raising the colonial community’s standing in the East Indies, also came under fire. Van Sandick, editor in chief of Insulinde, led the assault. He accused those ‘‘who [were] always whining

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about the immorality of the East Indies’’ of prejudice. The so-called evils of the East Indies were not nearly as immoral as some situations in the Netherlands, he argued. He praised indigenous women’s loyalty and devotion to their Dutch men and their children. At the same time, Van Sandick defended the men against the accusations of immorality that routinely came from the mother country. He asserted that unseemly behavior far worse than the intimate relations between Dutch men and Asian women characterized fairs and big city life in the Netherlands. He also alluded to the feminist argument that many wrongs in the Netherlands remained hidden by double standards and hypocrisy. However, the gender-specific nature of this argument was mostly lost. The debate in the Conference Hall focused on ‘‘general’’ morality in the Netherlands and its colonies, not on the vulnerable position of women in sexual negotiations. Some female speakers took the argument a step further. In a contribution on the West Indies, Elise Haighton proposed that Christian values like the sanctity of matrimony were not universal. Even ‘‘without a certificate or proof of registration, one can find true morality and marital loyalty there.’’ 77 Not everyone believed in absolute notions of morality or judged women in other countries by Dutch standards. However, such progressive notions were most readily accepted when they seemed to improve the image of colonial society. Only in this framework could speakers and debaters sometimes absolve indigenous women of immorality and impurity. When it became important to reinforce colonial power relations, some room appeared to develop for understanding and respecting the moral choices these women made. Sexuality and gender of the colonized peoples became significant only in the context of interracial sexual relations between white men and indigenous women. An imperial discourse blind to the colonizer’s gender dominated anything outside that context. The first (and, for a long time, only) feminist conference about the colonies held in the Netherlands did not manage to change this.

CHAPTER 8 n

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Although the exhibition closed its doors in September 1898, its influence would be felt for years to come. The National Exhibition of Women’s Labor had proven a success for Dutch feminists. It had demonstrated the power of exhibitions, a typical nineteenth-century phenomenon, to put issues on the national and political agenda. Functioning as a kind of training ground for the five hundred women who had put it together, the exhibition had an immediate impact on its organizers. These women, most of whom came from the upper middle class, learned how to speak in public, chair meetings, raise funds, and manage conflicts; some even were instructed how to use a fire hose or a house painter’s brush. They mastered the logistics of organizing multiple events within a limited time and space. The conferences, lectures, and exhibition displays they had organized broadened their horizons. Many of the women visited factories, sweatshops, hospitals, and schools for the first time in their lives. They corresponded with women from the far reaches of the Dutch colonial empire, worlds few of them had ever dealt with. They learned about industry, handicrafts, science, social injustice, sports, the colonies, art, and politics. Directing this spectacle gave them a taste of the power of management. It should be said that they were inexperienced organizers and sometimes committed embarrassing faux pas toward workingclass women and exhibitors. Still, the unprecedented achievement lay in the fact that women determined the form and content of a national exhibition in the Netherlands, the first that had explicitly aimed to heighten the visibility of women and their roles in society. The exhibition did more than affect the lives of its organizers. It also produced immediate and long-term political results. While the event was

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still in progress, the organizers won concessions on some of their social and political demands. Several manufacturers hired women supervisors to oversee female workers in their factories; the Dutch government agreed to appoint a woman as deputy inspector of labor; and a number of vocational schools admitted female students for the first time. The exhibition inspired politicians and journalists to debate issues such as the expansion of women’s rights in education or labor. The proceeds from the exhibition, 22,000 Dutch guilders altogether,1 were used to set up the new National Bureau of Women’s Labor.2 For the next forty years, this bureau would monitor women’s working conditions. Women throughout the Netherlands joined existing labor unions or founded new ones, such as the General Dutch Domestic Servants Union, the Association for the Improvement of Women’s Clothing, and several local unions for district nurses.3 The establishment of an umbrella organization of women’s groups emerged as another exhibition legacy. The Dutch National Council of Women (Nationale Vrouwenraad van Nederland; ncw) was to adopt the exhibition’s organizational structure with local committees and correspondents in all provinces. Inspired by American suffragist May Wright Sewall’s lecture in the Conference Hall, organizer Martina Kramers had advocated the founding of such a council. Kramers felt the exhibition had proven the need for all Dutch women’s associations to set aside their differences and unite: ‘‘Some of us belong to peace alliances and sign petitions to end the Aceh War, others embroider banners to honor the military heroes of Lombok. For some the women’s vote is but a stepping stone, while others consider this the ultimate goal of women’s struggle for a rightful place in society.’’ 4 At a meeting on October 29, 1898, representatives from twenty-five associations decided to establish the Dutch National Council of Women, electing Marianne Klerck-van Hogendorp as their first president.5 In July of the following year, the ncw sent a delegation to a conference of the International Council of Women in London.6 Thus by the turn of century, the Dutch women’s movement had enlarged and institutionalized its national and international network. Although the founders of the ncw had served as the driving force behind the 1898 exhibition, it soon became clear that the ncw itself lacked the ability to spur its members into action. It was the Dutch Woman’s Suffrage Association, founded in 1894 and led by Aletta Jacobs, that was to spearhead the women’s movement in the early twentieth century.7 The ncw would function merely as a body in which women exchanged views.8

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Still, its members had brought about the gender-specific transformations of the public sphere that laid the groundwork for the Woman’s Suffrage Association’s later successes. The 1898 exhibition had made a substantial contribution to this process. n

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At the end of the nineteenth century, the Dutch political landscape underwent crucial changes. As the liberal elite lost its monopoly on power, new factions entered the public domain, each introducing its own political agendas and methods. The socialist and orthodox Protestant parties began to make their presence felt, advocating greater state involvement in social issues. They used rhetoric that openly appealed to the emotions and interests of their constituencies. In the 1890s, women joined the political fray. Their contributions to the public debate on a wide spectrum of issues culminated in the 1898 national exhibition. One can consider this event a milestone in the sense that it constituted an all-female endeavor organized by women and devoted to women’s issues. It was the first time women ventured beyond politics and gained national visibility in the wider public domain. Before the exhibition even began, a promotional campaign attracted large audiences all over the country. The timely publication of an emancipation novel penned by exhibition president Cecile Goekoop-de Jong van Beek en Donk generated further interest. The organizers also distributed brochures and newsletters about the upcoming exhibition. Then, for a full three months, the exhibits, lectures, and conferences of the Exhibition took the limelight. Every newspaper, national and local, mentioned the events. Some papers affiliated with certain denominational or ideological interest groups gave only a brief account of the opening ceremony or publicized scandalous tidbits—a row between organizers here, a female factory workers’ strike there. Other newspapers, particularly the liberal press, provided nearly daily coverage on each distinguished visitor, conference, and debate. One large regional newspaper described the 1898 exhibition as one of the most successful exhibitions held in the Netherlands in recent years.9 Unlike the socialists and the orthodox Protestants, the middle-class organizers of the national women’s exhibition seldom addressed the diverse groups of women they represented as a single entity. After all, few organizers considered a factory girl, a domestic servant, or a Javanese woman ‘‘one

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of us.’’ In the main, they followed a twofold strategy for putting women’s issues on the political agenda. It was partly based on the old notion of industriousness as a virtue and civic duty, an idea promoted by conservative members of the nineteenth-century liberal movement. But their argument also echoed more recent, progressive interpretations of liberalism, which held that individual responsibility and government intervention went hand in hand. Perhaps the variety of arguments and tactics the organizers employed reflected the spectrum of political persuasions in their family backgrounds. Some of these women were the daughters, sisters, or wives of politicians, artists and intellectuals, including both progressive and conservative members of the liberal and Christian parties. They had been raised in a bourgeois setting with all of the attending ideas of their social class. These women did not feel free to air their views, pursue their interests, or form their own opinions. Although it was generally accepted by the turn of the century that various groups could stake out their claims in the public domain, many people still believed that women should remain invisible. Doubtlessly, this double standard made many women extremely cautious. The traditional feminine virtues of modesty and irreproachable conduct continued to dominate gender relations. To protect their good name, some women characterized their public deeds as acts of patriotism. This implied that Dutch women had a duty to utilize their talents for the common good. One underlying assumption formed the basis of all the organizers’ lobbying, whether it was to allow women to supervise factory girls, to improve girls’ education, or to guard morality in both the Netherlands and its colonies: those who had shown strength of character, tact, self-control, skill, and civilization were supposedly morally superior. In that sense, the exhibition illustrated and propagated the privilege of a bourgeois female vanguard to lead, elevate, and educate women of the lower classes.10 The transformation of the public sphere and the creation of a female counterpublic were not brought about by invoking women’s ‘‘maternal identity.’’ The motto ‘‘The Women’s Movement Is Organized Motherly Love,’’ propagated in 1898 by the still obscure Woman’s Suffrage Association, was an exception.11 No consensus as to what constituted appropriate public behavior for women existed among the female elite who felt entitled to show others the way forward. This led to overt conflicts pitting Lady Jeltje de Bosch Kem-

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per, president of Tesselschade, against Cecile Goekoop and the new generation of feminists in the Woman’s Suffrage Association. The new guard had no aversion to emotional appeals or deliberate publicity seeking, if that was what it took to kick-start a public debate. However, the Tesselschade women preferred to redress social injustice through individual, anonymous charity. Remarkably, De Bosch Kemper still argued for the fundamental equality of women’s and men’s labor. She arrived at such a modern position quite inadvertently, reasoning from the well-established principle that one’s direct interests should remain hidden. n

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Those who visited world’s fairs were often surprised to discover that exhibitions displaying such tremendous diversity could still convey a kind of unity. ‘‘Chicago was the first expression of American thought as unity,’’ Henry Adams wrote about the World’s Columbian Exposition he visited in 1893.12 In the same vein, one might argue that The Hague allowed visitors to experience Dutch feminist thought as unity in diversity. Just as the white American male who explored a world’s fair could imagine he had composed it himself, so a Dutch woman could wander through the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor incorporating elements from various displays and lectures into her own narrative about women and gender. If the exhibition made one thing clear, it was that the ‘‘generic woman’’ did not exist. The sheer diversity of representations prompted visitors to reflect on the concept of woman. A variety of women’s social, economic, intellectual, and artistic realities confronted exhibition-goers on their visit. The many facets of the exhibition compelled visitors to compare different women and situations. The Javanese wedding ceremony, for instance, inspired one journalist to write a feminist critique of Dutch matrimonial law, adding an international dimension to the debate on the position of women. Johanna Naber’s comparison of the exhibition courtyard to a convent garden provided the Dutch women’s movement with a new point of reference: the traditional community of Roman Catholic women. As Ida Heijermans viewed the crafts section, she tried to imagine the women who had made the objects on display: ‘‘Those little, quiet women . . . who, like birds with their wings clipped, had been confined to the cage that was

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their living room and had come to see that cage as the world.’’ 13 To her, these Dutch women seemed as alien as the Javanese. Others compared the exhibition’s message to Goekoop’s emancipation novel, injecting literary pretensions into the debate on women’s emancipation. Comparisons such as these transgressed traditional boundaries and limitations—not only of class and nationality but also of period and the current genres of political discourse. This is not to say that all boundaries vanished. In many respects, the exhibition even sharpened existing distinctions along lines of class and race.14 Still, it did manage to spread the practice of reflecting on gender to a wider public, as later exhibitions elsewhere illustrate well. The 1900 World’s Fair in Paris devoted a section to Dutch feminist thought. On request, the organizers of the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor had donated a copy of every publication produced by their association since its inception.15 An exhibition that overtly followed in the footsteps of 1898 was ‘‘Exhibition ‘Woman 1813–1913,’ ’’ held in Amsterdam to celebrate the Dutch kingdom’s centennial. Again, diamond cutters demonstrated their skills, an Indisch Huis (East Indies pavilion) was erected, and women’s suffrage was relegated to a less than prominent place once again. Louise Yda, the Surinamese woman who had made such a big impression in 1898, did not come this time. Instead, she sent a doll that she had made for the four-year-old Princess Juliana. The doll wore ‘‘an accurate replica of the costume she had worn at the Orange Ball during the coronation festivities’’ of 1898.16 Instead of conferences, the 1913 exhibition offered a program of lectures. This exhibition attracted some 300,000 visitors altogether. Among them were more than two hundred delegates from thirty countries visiting the Netherlands to attend the quinquennial conference of the International Women’s Council. The fair also welcomed the royal family.17 The 1948 exhibition ‘‘Dutch Woman 1898–1948’’ in The Hague was the last of its kind. It marked the end of the first wave of feminism that had introduced this type of exhibition. Some elements of women’s exhibitions later became commercialized when home fairs and pasar malams adopted them. Similarly, historical and artistic exhibitions would continue to refer to women’s social position, albeit on a far more limited scale. As a political tool, however, the exhibition had lost its persuasive power. Feminists of the second wave would use different means to transform the public domain. n

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The photograph on the cover of this book shows the interior of the Hall of Industry. It is a surprising shot found in a commemorative photo album belonging to John Tattersall, who manufactured machinery for the textile industry. He used this album to promote the sales of his textile machines.18 Three women stand between the neatly aligned spinning machines and power looms.19 They help to underscore the photograph’s message: that modern industry is the way of the future and that as skilled machine operators, women will contribute to the nation’s wealth. Here, women’s labor forms an essential component of the Dutch nation, shared by the organizers of the exhibition. But the picture also conveys another message. One of the women we see is Louise Yda from Surinam who sold soft drinks and greeted visitors in the West Indian section of the exhibition. Tattersall must have included her in the picture deliberately. It probably did not matter to him that cotton was rarely grown in Surinam. Yda’s mother had been a slave, and Yda’s own dark skin and African appearance clearly referenced slavery’s historical role in the cultivation of cotton. In his brochure Cotton from Field to Fabric, Tattersall had included a photograph of descendants of African slaves harvesting cotton in America. As an entrepreneur he was well aware of the global system that allowed him to earn his income. He knew that the people who grew and picked cotton were connected with the spinners and weavers who operated his large machines in Dutch textile factories. Cotton processing touched the lives of batik makers who dyed Dutch-made fabrics, of factory girls who produced ‘‘imitation batiks,’’ and of seamstresses in the Netherlands. In Tattersall’s eyes, the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor was an illustration, whether deliberate or accidental, of the fact that this international cotton production network controlled many forms of labor. He used the image of this racially diverse labor force to advertise his machines. It is questionable whether the organizers saw the exhibition in the same light. True to the exhibition tradition, they had produced and distributed many postcards, including one of Louise Yda. However, we do not know whether they had any knowledge of the other photograph depicting Yda. After all, the only surviving copy of this picture was found in Tattersall’s company album. It is not clear whether the organizers ever saw this photograph from ‘‘their’’ Hall of Industry, and if they did, whether they considered it more than a nice memento. We suspect that the image of Yda as she appeared in Tattersall’s picture did not coincide with the organizers’ views on women’s labor. They were most interested in showing Dutch women

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the worlds that lay before them, waiting to be explored as ‘‘working space’’ by those ready to shoulder the responsibility for tutoring and supervising others. In inviting Louise Yda to come and work at the exhibition, they had aimed to provide spectators with a symbol of the Dutch colony of Surinam, much in the same way that the Javanese dancers stood for the Dutch East Indies and a miniature turf hut represented the poor living conditions in the north of the Netherlands. In a sense, the exhibition was a rallying cry to upper middle-class women to stand up and take action. Twenty years before Dutch women would win the right to vote, the exhibition addressed them as accountable and civilized Dutch citizens responsible for the wellbeing of others. In this respect, the 1898 event was a dress rehearsal for twentieth-century citizenship, including all of the elements of class and ethnicity that such citizenship would entail. Just as the cover photograph allows for more than one interpretation, the exhibition, too, sent multiple messages. Like any large exhibition, the 1898 event began to lead a life of its own; the organizers could not reduce its message to a single, unambiguous idea. By putting women’s labor on display, they radically innovated the representation of women. Yet they also perpetuated traditional notions of women’s public role. On the one hand, the organizers were internationally oriented and emulated the Danish and American exhibitions, but on the other, they also deliberately copied elements of local Dutch women’s exhibitions and proudly referred to national role models and authors who had promoted women’s interests before 1898. And while some of the organizers expressed excitement over the inclusion of colonial sections reminiscent of other large national and international fairs, others were sorry to see these parts of the exhibition turn into ‘‘circus sideshows.’’ Cutting right across all these views were the voices of individual women with their own stories. Hundreds of people wrote letters in response to questionnaires passed out at the exhibition. These contained a myriad of opinions on ‘‘women’s issues,’’ ‘‘our darling queen,’’ ‘‘the ladies,’’ and ‘‘women’s labor.’’ Visitors chatted and conference-goers debated incessantly, formulating and reformulating their opinions. Some opinions were perfectly suited to the organizers’ aims, for example, an appeal by union leader Dientje Auwerda to abolish the gratuity system and improve training for domestic servants. This reflected precisely the image of women’s labor the organizers wished to project. But a strike by carpet factory workers jarred with the desired image of pleasant working conditions. Other

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messages went completely unnoticed, such as the traditional costume Louise Yda can be seen wearing on the exhibition postcard. Her koto and angisa form part of a rich Surinamese tradition of feminine communication through dress; the patterns on the fabric have names borrowed from Surinamese expressions.20 The particular type of knots in Yda’s headdress have meanings passed down in oral history to this day. It is a language neither the exhibition’s organizers nor its visitors understood. Taken together, the two portraits of Louise Yda—the postcard and Tattersall’s photograph of the Hall of Industry—reflect the ambivalence of all the images projected by the exhibition. One of the pictures was used in a machinery manufacturer’s ad campaign, the other was printed on a postcard of the kind traditionally sold at fairs and exhibitions. In both cases, Yda’s portrait served to publicize the issue of Dutch women’s labor. However, Yda’s own message ‘‘in cotton’’ fell on deaf ears—it had no place in the model of feminist transformation of the public domain conveyed by the Dutch National Exhibition of Women’s Labor.

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1 Illustrated Weekly News (London), October 12, 1862, 2, qtd. in Peter H. Hoffenberg, An Empire on Display: English, Indian, and Australian Exhibitions from the Crystal Palace to the Great War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), xiii. 2 Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London: Routledge, 1992). 3 For an especially provocative example of this in the British context, see Saloni Mathur, ‘‘Living Ethnological Exhibits: The Case of 1886,’’ Cultural Anthropology 15, 4 (2001): 492–524. 4 The phrase is Jeffrey Auerbach’s. See his The Great Exhibition of 1851: A Nation on Display (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999), 1. 5 Annie Coombes, Reinventing Africa: Museums, Material Culture, and Popular Imagination (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1994), 2. 6 For one persuasive model of how to approach these subjects, see Jordana Bailkin, ‘‘Radical Conservations: The Problem with the London Museum,’’ Radical History Review 84 (2002): 43–76. 7 Mrinalini Sinha, Colonial Masculinity: The ‘‘Manly Englishman’’ and the ‘‘Effeminate Bengali’’ in the Late Nineteenth Century (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995); Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler, ‘‘Between Metropole and Colony: Rethinking a Research Agenda,’’ in their collection, Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 1–58; Stoler’s own Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Race and the Intimate in Colonial Rule (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002); and Catherine Hall, Civilising Subjects: Metropole and Colony in the English Imagination, 1830–1867 (Cambridge: Polity, 2002). See also Antoinette Burton, Burdens of History: British Feminists, Indian Women, and Imperial Culture, 1865– 1915 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994); and Burton, At the Heart of the Empire: Indians and the Colonial Encounter in Late-Victorian Britain (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).

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8 Take, together, Erika Diane Rappaport, Shopping for Pleasure: Women in the Making of London’s West End (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000), and Saloni Mathur, ‘‘Wanted Native Views: Collecting Colonial Postcards of India,’’ in,Gender, Sexuality, and Colonial Modernities, ed. Antoinette Burton (London: Routledge, 1999), 95–116. 9 For a trenchant analysis of this failure, see Lara Kriegel, ‘‘The Pudding and the Palace: Labor, Print Culture, and Imperial Britain in 1851,’’ in After the Imperial Turn: Thinking with and through the Nation, ed. Antoinette Burton (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2003), 230–45. 10 For a gendered reading of the Spanish-American and Philippine-American wars of the end of the century, see Kristin L. Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998). 11 See Stoler, Carnal Knowledge, 82, 96, 101–6. 12 The term is Kristin Hoganson’s. See her ‘‘Cosmopolitan Domesticity: Importing the American Dream, 1865–1920,’’ American Historical Review 107, 1 (2002): 55–83. 13 Hall, Civilising Subjects, 9. 14 Ibid. 15 Burton, Burdens of History; Lora Wildenthal, German Women for Empire, 1885– 1945 (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2001); Angela Woollacott, To Try Her Fortune in London: Australian Women, Colonialism, and Modernity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); and Mrinalini Sinha, ‘‘Suffragism and Internationalism: The Enfranchisement of British and Indian Women under an Imperial State,’’ Indian Economic and Social History Review 36, 4 (1999): 461– 84, reprinted in Ian Christopher Fletcher, Laura E. Nym Mayhall, and Philippa Levine, eds., Women’s Suffrage in the British Empire: Citizenship, Race, and Nation (London: Routledge, 2000), 224–39. 16 Qtd. in Elsbeth Locher-Scholten, Women and the Colonial State: Essays on Gender and Modernity in the Netherlands Indies, 1900–1942 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2000), 14. See also Frances Gouda, Dutch Culture Overseas: Colonial Practice in the Netherlands Indies, 1900–1942 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1995); and Stoler, Carnal Knowledge, esp. 10–11, where she discusses the early work of Jean Taylor on Batavia. 17 See Thomas W. Laqueur, ‘‘Bodies, Details, and the Humanitarian Narrative,’’ in The New Cultural History: Essays, ed. Lynn Hunt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 176–204. 18 For a more detailed discussion of this question, see Antoinette Burton, Dwelling in the Archive: Women Writing House, Home, and History in Late Colonial India (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). 19 Rijsttafel (literally, ‘‘rice table’’) is a Dutch meal consisting of rice accompanied by a number of Javanese dishes. 20 Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest (London: Routledge, 1995), 39.

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21 Stoler, Carnal Knowledge, 12. 22 This is a point made repeatedly by Madhavi Kale in her Fragments of Empire: Capital, Slavery, and Indian Indentured Labor Migration in the British Caribbean (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998). CHAPTER 1. FEMINISTS AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE

1 Badger 1990, 130. 2 hgm, Diepenbrock collection, Cecile Goekoop-de Jong van Beek en Donk to her sister Elisabeth de Jong van Beek en Donk (10/6/1893). 3 Fraser 1990, 61. 4 On the development of business in the Dutch colonies, see Bossenbroek 1996, 85–115. On the late industrialization of the Netherlands, see Luijten van Zanden 1998. 5 Grever 1999b. 6 T. [Pieter J. Tak], ‘‘De tentoonstelling van vrouwenarbeid.’’ De kroniek, July 17, 1898. 7 Dutch historiography about the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor refers to this almost exclusively in the context of the development of the women’s movement. The first historical retrospective appeared ten years later (Naber 1908). Other studies also came from the women’s movement (Schilstra 1976; Posthumus-van der Goot and De Waal 1977). For these and more recent references, see Waldekker and Grever 1997. 8 A number of studies have focused on international influences on the development of the Dutch women’s movement: Bosch and Kloosterman 1990; Van Drenth and De Haan 1999. Offen also mentions foreign influences on the Dutch women’s movement (2000). 9 Anarchist free thinkers included a demand for civil rights for both sexes in the 1882 party platform of the Dutch Social Democratic Union (Sociaal-Democratische Bond), but the demand was scrapped in 1892. Jansz 1983, 19–20. 10 iiav, ntv-169, Mina Kruseman to the Arts and Sciences Committee (2/13/ 1898). In an open letter published in 1872 in Paris, Kruseman had crossed swords with Alexandre Dumas Jr., who had called women demanding equality between the sexes ‘‘feminists’’ (Dumas 1899). About this controversy, see Grever 1994b, 31. 11 On conflicts in the American suffrage movement, see Woloch 1994; Dubois 1978; Giddings 1984. On women’s trade union leagues, see Payne 1988. On women and the origin of paid pregnancy and maternity leave in Europe, see Bock and Thane 1991; Offen 2000. 12 Until 1879, the Dutch political scene was dominated by two forces: the conservatives and the liberals, neither of whom were formally organized into political parties. The liberals constituted a loosely knit group that supported the separation of church and state, secular education, and free trade. After the constitutional revision of 1848, the liberals themselves split into a conservative and a

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notes to chapter one progressive camp. Generally however, they all resisted state intervention in— and support for—the private sphere, preferring instead to uphold the principle of individual responsibility. Stuurman (1989, 1992, and 1997) has analyzed the significance of industriousness as a virtue in Dutch liberalism. Bervoets (1994) studied the influence of this concept on the women’s movement; see also Van der Klein 1994. Van Eijl 1994. Landes 1998. Habermas 1989. We have borrowed the term bracketed from Fraser 1990. Landes 1988; Ryan 1992. Aside from historical critiques, there are also philosophical ones of Habermas’s assumptions about rational communication which bracket status distinctions and specific interests. See Benhabib 1992. For the origin of the phrase beyond their sex, see Labalme 1980. For many people without civil rights, the distinction between the public and private spheres had little significance. See Giddings 1984. Stuurman describes the two forms of citizenship (1992, 374–75). For participatory citizenship, see Rousseau 1972. For a description of the individualistic citizen, see Toqueville 1981. Opinions vary on the extent to which political ideas influenced this (Van Sas 1992). In 1813, French rule over the Netherlands ended, and the country became a monarchy under King Willem I. The democratic and liberal ideas of the French Revolution were rejected. Only the upper middle class and nobility could vote in parliamentary elections, which were indirect; the king appointed cabinet ministers. In parliament, the conservatives, mainly aristocrats who supported the restoration of the House of Orange, formed a solid majority. The Anti-revolutionary Party was founded in 1879. It opposed the ideas of the French Revolution and proposed the Bible as the only authority. Its followers were mainly members of the Dutch Reformed Church and belonged to the lower middle class. Lower and middle-class Catholics began to organize themselves politically after 1900. For this innovative approach to Dutch political culture, see De Haan and Te Velde 1996. Garnham 1992. Huyssen 1986; Abelson 1989. Gilbert 1991; Rydell 1984. Rabinovitz 1998, 50. Bal 1996. De Cauter 1993. McClintock 1995. For visitors’ experiences of live performances in museums and at festivals, see Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1998. McClintock points to the importance of the entrance gate and entrance fee in the exhibition experience (1995, 57).

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32 On the comparison with festival and theater in the political theory of the Enlightenment, see Jay 1994. 33 Stoler 1995. For the more general argument that imperialism determines the culture of the mother country, see Said 1993. The limited interest Dutch cultural historians have shown in colonial relations has once again manifested itself in two recent studies from a series published on the initiative of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelÿk Onderzoek, nwo): Kloek et al. 2001; and Bank et al. 2000. Neither study devotes significant attention to the influence of colonial relations on Dutch political culture. 34 Legêne 1998, 14. 35 Formes 1995; Wekker and Braidotti 1996, 57–87; Alexander and Mohanty 1997. See also Stoler 2001. 36 Stoler 1995 and McClintock 1995 make no mention of the women’s movement in the mother country or in the colonies. On the meaning of whiteness in the construct of Western women’s moral superiority (also in the women’s movement), see Grever 2000a. 37 Mills 1991, 59. See also Waaldijk 1999. 38 Burton 1994, 1999. For Dutch colonialism and the women’s movement, see Gouda 1995; Smith and Gouda 1998; Bosch 1999; Locher-Scholten 2000; and Coté 2000. 39 For overviews of the history of world’s fairs, see Findling and Pelle 1990; Gudehus and Rasmussen 1992; Rydell and Gwinn 1994; Kretschmer 1999; Rydell, Findling, and Pelle 2000; and Van Wesemael 1997. The latter two works contain bibliographies of English-language publications about expositions. See also Greenhalgh 1988; Walton 1992; Van Thoor 1998; and Von Plato 2001. 40 For imperialism in exhibitions, see Burton 1983; Rydell 1984; Coombes 1987; Mitchell 1991; Çelik 1992; Blanchard 1993; Corbey 1995; and Auerbach 1999. 41 Meijer 1996, 1–17. 42 Greenhalgh (1988, 174–97) shows how women have tried, with mixed success, to have their contributions placed in an exhibit. On the Woman’s Building in Chicago, see Weimann 1981. 43 McClintock 1995, 33. 44 Trachtenberg 1982. See also Carby 1989; McClintock 1995, 33; and Boisseau 2000. 45 Greenhalgh 1988; Mitchell 1989, 1991; and Çelik 1992. 46 Day-tripping in the United Kingdom originated with visiting expositions (Hobsbawm 1997, 47). 47 Coombes 1987. 48 Pratt 1992; Mills 1996, 136. 49 Rabinovitz 1998, 47–67. 50 Schwartz 1998, 202. See also Williams 1982; Warner 1992.

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1 Eliëns 1990, 13–17. 2 Eliëns 1990, 11, 28. The Exposition Publique des Produits de l’Industrie Française (French Public Exposition of Industry Goods) held in Paris in 1798 is said to have had a decisive impact on national industry exhibitions in other countries. See also Van Wesemael 1997, 49–50. The agricultural expositions organized separately fall outside the scope of this book. 3 Auerbach 1999; Walton 1992; and Hobsbawm 1987. 4 See De wereldtentoonstelling van 1878 te Parijs, November 5, 1878. 5 Von Plato 2001, 107. 6 Van Wesemael 1997, 112–13. 7 Kretschmer 1999, 76. See also Greenhalgh 1988; Gudehus and Rasmussen 1992. 8 De Cauter 1989, 113. 9 Rydell and Gwinn 1994, 1–3. 10 Eliëns 1990, 60–62. 11 Agostini was married to a Dutch woman from The Hague (Montijn 1983, 6–11). 12 Eliëns 1990, 63–88. 13 Eliëns 1990, 122, 128–29. 14 For this shift, see Meulders 2000; for mass consumption during the French world expositions, see Williams 1982; for entertainment, also see Rabinovitz 1998, 47–67. 15 See the paper presented by Andrea Seelen, ‘‘Zien en gezien worden: Sekseverschillen in het visuele materiaal bijde Tentoonstelling te Arnheim 1879,’’ during the gender history research seminar chaired by Maria Grever, Nijmegen University, 1999. 16 Jan Rombaut, ‘‘De Tentoonstelling te Amsterdam: Kijkjes hier en daar iv,’’ De katholieke illustratie 16, 49 (1883): 391. See also Montijn 1983, 34–42; Bloembergen 2002, 59–107. 17 Jan Rombaut, ‘‘De Tentoonstelling te Amsterdam: Kijkjes hier en daar V,’’ De katholieke illustratie 16, 50 (1883): 399. 18 Faber and Wachlin 1990, 4. Fatima Tobing Rony describes how much footage for so-called ethnographic films was actually filmed at world’s fairs (Rony 1996). 19 Van Thoor 1998, 21. See also Coombes 1987; Grever 2001. 20 At the 1859 industry exhibition of the Dutch province of North-Holland, for example, two ‘‘misses’’ displayed tapestry (Nederlandsch magazijn 32 [1859]: 249). The publication also mentions other contributions women made to this Amsterdam-based exhibition. 21 Naber 1918, 20–21. The term civilized women was reserved for women from the so-called civilized classes: the middle class, the wealthy bourgeoisie, and the aristocracy; men from these classes usually had some form of higher educa-

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tion. Arbeid Adelt targeted the civilized women least well off: those from the middle class. Ibid. Agatha [Reingoudina Goeje], ‘‘Arbeid Adelt,’’ Ons streven, December 13, 1871. The name Tesselschade refers to the famous seventeenth-century Dutch poetess and musician Maria Tesselschade. We have dealt with the conflict between Arbeid Adelt and Tesselschade in the briefest terms only. For more details, see Naber 1918; Van de Loo 1996. In the 1890s, both associations became less concerned with protecting the anonymity of their members. Van de Loo 1996, 34. J. B. [Codien] Zwaardemaker-Visscher, ‘‘Toen en nu,’’ Vrouwenarbeid September 17, 1898. See also Leeuwarden Municipal Archives, birth certificate. Karstkarel 1988. Jan Rombaut, ‘‘De Tentoonstelling te Amsterdam: Kijkjes hier en daar iii,’’ De katholieke illustratie 16, 48 (1883): 384; Hollema and Kouwenhoven 1998. Barth-Scalmani and Friedrich 1995, 178, 180, 191. Brok-ten Broek 1977, 141. Barth-Scalmani and Friedrich 1995, 185, 191–92, 199. See Greenhalgh 1988, 174–78; Weimann 1981, 2–6. ‘‘Vrouwenarbeid op de Wereldtentoonstelling te Philadelphia,’’ De huisvrouw, December 19, 1875; ‘‘Vrouwenarbeid,’’ in Afdeeling Nederland der internationale tentoonstelling van voortbrengselen van kunst en nijverheid en van de producten van den landbouw enz. te Philadelphia 1876: officieele catalogus, vitgegeven op last van de hoofelcommissie (Amsterdam: Post, 1876), p. 152. The member of Arbeid Adelt was Miss C. Loke (Grever 2000b). Weimann 1981, 377; Blanchard 2000. iiav, ntv-359. These reports had been translated into English and collected in what amounts to a handmade book entitled Woman’s Work in the Netherlands. The individual reports were ‘‘Woman in Public Life,’’ by Marie L. van der Laande Joode; ‘‘Woman in Literature,’’ by Cornélie Huygens: ‘‘Woman and Drama,’’ by E. J. Ph. Holtrop-van Gelder; ‘‘Woman and Painters,’’ by Georgine Schwartze; ‘‘Woman’s Place in the World of Music,’’ by Anna Fles; ‘‘Woman and Nursing,’’ by Jeltje de Bosch Kemper; ‘‘Higher Education,’’ by Annie van Uildriks; ‘‘Technical Schools for Girls,’’ by Jeltje de Bosch Kemper; ‘‘Sport,’’ by E. GompertzJitta; ‘‘Moral Reform,’’ by Marianne Klerck-van Hogendorp; ‘‘Social Reform,’’ by Anna van Hogendorp; and ‘‘Home and Foreign Missions,’’ by Wilhelmine van Hogendorp. iiav, ntv-358; ntv-359. According to Weimann (1981, 274), the foreign objects in the Woman’s Building included painted porcelain from the Netherlands. Ibid., 355, 370. Announcement in the section entitled ‘‘Van uit den vreemde,’’ Evolutie, May 3, 1893, and ‘‘Particulier schrijven uit Chicago,’’ Evolutie, July 7, 1893. iiav, ntv-358, handwritten notes by Marie L. van der Laan-Joode. According to

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notes to chapter two her, the Dutch contribution was ‘‘very much appreciated’’ and awarded a prize by the American women. On July 22, 1896, Evolutie reported that ‘‘by intervention from the ministry of the interior,’’ Jeltje de Bosch Kemper had been awarded a diploma and a bronze medal as a sign of appreciation for the collection of books and reports submitted to the 1893 event by the Chicago committee. J. S., ‘‘Mrs. Potter Palmer’s oordeel over de Hollandsche vrouwen,’’ Evolutie, December 28, 1893. The writer could be Joh. Schmidt; she had reported on Chicago before. Naber wrote that the ‘‘American Women’s Committee’’ had ‘‘warmly thanked the Dutch contingent and Jeltje had publicized this gratefulness in the newspapers with a rightful sense of self-satisfaction’’ (1918, 197). Letter to the editor in Evolutie, February 7, 1894. Letter by Bosch Kemper in Evolutie, January 29, 1894, with a response by the editor. In 1884, Anna and her sister, Dowager Marianne Klerck-van Hogendorp, had founded the Dutch Women’s League for the Advancement of Moral Awareness. Partly influenced by British feminist Josephine Butler, this Orthodox Protestant organization initially protested against regulated prostitution; in the 1890s, the league became more radical. Letter to the editor in Evolutie, February 2, 1894. Letter by Anna van Hogendorp to Bosch Kemper, with a response from the editor, Evolutie, January 18, 1894). De huisvrouw of September 14, 1895, also criticized the limited scope of the Dutch contribution to the Chicago fair. ‘‘Van uit den vreemde,’’ Evolutie, January 3, 1895. iiav, ntv-359A, correspondence pertaining to the Brussels World Exhibition. In April 1895, Schook-Haver had written to various organizations and individuals. On June 7, 1895, Arbeid Adelt agreed to participate. Elise Haighton’s succinct response on July 29, 1895, read: ‘‘‘Should the Brussels Exhibition of 1897 include a Dutch Women’s Exhibit?’ I say yes, and am willing to help.’’ On August 1, 1895, Annette Versluys-Poelman, president of the Woman’s Suffrage Association, agreed to assist as well. Twelve days later, the Groningen Women’s League stated that they would have to take the matter up with their vice president, Cato Pekelharing-Doijer. ‘‘De vrouw op de Wereldtentoonstelling te Brussel,’’ Evolutie, July 24, 1895; emphasis added. Judging by the telegraphese used by the author, it was probably Wilhelmina Drucker. iiav, ntv-359A, correspondence pertaining to the Brussels World Exhibition. According to Johanna Naber, the initiators were ‘‘left helpless’’ by Tesselschade’s refusal (1918, 197). Jeltje de Bosch Kemper’s autocratic behavior could be the reason why she has been marginalized somewhat in recent women’s history. However, she was certainly a pioneer of the women’s movement, a person instrumental in improving the image of nursing, for instance. In 1878, she cofounded The Nursing Association, a subsidiary of the White Cross. She also founded Tijdschrift voor de ziekenverpleging [Nursing magazine] in 1890. And in 1894, she established an Improvement Committee of several individuals

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with good connections in the Dutch government. Members were chosen by co-option. In 1896, the committee started its own magazine, Belang en recht [Interests and rights]. See Naber 1918; Van de Loo 1996, 36. iiav, ntv-17, report of meeting (5/21/1896) and the catalog of the Danish Women’s Exhibition, Fortegnelse over Kvindernes Udstilling fra Fortid og Nutid. Seven thousand Dutch guilders in 1898 are worth nearly U.S.$80,000 in 2003. As far as we know, this was the first national women’s exhibition in the world. See also Lous 2000. iiav, ntv-3, handwritten report by H. P. D. [Henriëtte Pekelharing-Dull] on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor on May 7, 1923, affixed to a copy of the 1896/97 annual report. See also Heringa 1899: ‘‘The idea to stage an exhibition of women’s labor was first expressed in a Committee formed following a debate by our Board about a proposal by the Free Women’s Association to submit the products of Dutch women’s labor to the Brussels exhibition. Said Committee was established on the motion of three ladies from Groningen, two of whom are members of the Board of the Women’s League’’ (50). According to Cecile Goekoop, the meeting took place in Utrecht on May 3, 1896. hgm, Diepenbrock collection, Cecile Goekoop to her sister Elisabeth (5/4/1896). iiav, ntv-2, minutes of the general meetings (algemene vergaderingen; av) 1896–1900 (5/21/1896); announcements, Evolutie, June 17, 1896, and June 24, 1896. iiav, ntv-2, minutes of the general meeting (6/26/1896). A draft of the articles of association and of the bylaws was sent in advance. This refers to the general meeting (9/24/1897) (ntv [1897/98], 3); ntv-136, notebook 2, Flower Committee; ‘‘Van de tentoonstelling.’’ Evolutie, November 17, 1897. Worp-Roland Holst kept a low profile for private reasons but remained active. According to Evolutie, she remained an important advisor to the board. In a letter to her sister, Cecile Goekoop wrote that Pekelharing-Doijer, due to her husband’s illness, had asked her to become president as early as August 22, 1896. She had declined, but knew few others were suitable for the post. hgm, Diepenbrock collection, Cecile Goekoop to her sister Elsa (8/23/1896). On the ‘‘serious indisposition’’ at the Pekelharing home, see also ntv [1896/87], 6–7. See Rosenberg 1985, 245–96. iiav, ntv-2, minutes of the general meeting (6/26/1896); ntv-8 and ntv-9, articles of association and bylaws of the association of the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor, art. 3. iiav, ntv-2, Klerck-van Hogendorp in a letter to Hendrina Scholten-Commelin, according to the minutes of the general meeting (6/26/1896); iiav, ntv-2, minutes of the general meeting (11/26/1896). Teresa Wilson was corresponding secretary of the icw established in Washington, D.C. in 1888 (Rupp 1997, 15). Jungius 1897, 3.

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59 iiav, ntv-2, minutes of the general meeting (1/16/1897); ntv [1896/97], 6. See also Cato G. Pekelharing-Doijer, ‘‘Onze tentoonstelling van vrouwenarbeid,’’ Belang en recht, February 15, 1897, and Van Biema-Hijmans 1918. Martina Kramers was sent to the London convention as the representative of the following ten Dutch women’s organizations: the Association for the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor, the Women’s League for the Advancement of Moral Awareness, the Committee for the Improvement of the Social and Legal Position of Women in the Netherlands, the Dutch Woman’s Suffrage Association, the Association for the Advancement of Women’s Interests, the Women’s League Association, Tesselschade, Arbeid Adelt, the Free Women’s Association, and the Association for the Improvement of Living Standards and Unemployment Relief among the Working Class in Groningen. 60 For some examples, see Frederiks-van Cleeff 1898; ntv [1896/97], 4; ntv-24 and ntv-25, two circular letters by the board about the effects of the exhibition in 1897 that said, ‘‘It will lead to the redressing of many social evils.’’ 61 Van Eijl 1994, 106. 62 ntv [1896/97], 1. 63 Van Eijl 1994, 84. 64 iiav, ntv-8, articles of association and bylaws of the ntv. 65 iiav, ntv-17, published brochure of the meeting, May 21, 1896. 66 ntv [1896/97], 4. 67 Fraser 1990. 68 Jungius 1897. The title of the brochure translates as A Word about the Planned National Exhibition of Women’s Labor. 69 Jungius 1897, 2, 4. For a biography of Jungius, see De Haan and Mevis 1995. 70 Binneveld 1991, 28; Altena 1996, 14–20. 71 Jungius 1897, 15. 72 On the radicalization of the Dutch Women’s League, see Van Drenth 2000. On the Women’s Mutual Protection League, see Wiemann 1988. 73 Although Cecile Goekoop preferred the term overview, the temporary committee decided to stick with exhibition at the May 1896 meeting. hgm, Diepenbrock collection, Cecile Goekoop to her sister Elisabeth (5/26/1896). 74 Th. Sch. H. [Schook-Haver], ‘‘De tentoonstelling van vrouwenarbeid in 1898,’’ Evolutie, January 20, 1897. 75 iiav, ntv-2, minutes of the general meeting (3/17/1897). Later, other names, such as ‘‘illustrated poll,’’ came under consideration. 76 kha, no. 2424, letter from Cecile Goekoop and Hendrina Scholten-Commelin to Queen Emma. See also chapter 4. 77 iiav, ntv-135, Worp-Roland Holst to Jeanne Caspers (7/15/1897). 78 Announcement, Evolutie, October 6, 1897. 79 De Surinamer, June 16, 1898. 80 ‘‘Announcements,’’ Belang en recht, March 1, 1898. The panel of judges consisted of Cornelia van der Hart, A. Kerling, and Johanna Naber. Industrial and applied arts exhibitions often awarded medals depicting beehives to their participants

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81 82

83 84 85

86

87 88 89 90 91

92

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or contestants (Eliëns 1990). Incidentally, it is unclear whether biologists in 1898 knew that a hive is headed by a queen bee. ntv 1898i, 9. iiav, ntv-72, instructions to the head supervisor. Vincent van Gogh wrote twenty-three letters to Willemina, who was working at a hospital in 1890. See Hulsker 1989. She left her mother’s home in Leiden for Nijmegen on February 8, 1893. On October 25, 1893, she moved to The Hague, where she lived near ntv organizer Margaretha Gallé on the Prins Hendrikstraat (Nijmegen and The Hague Municipal Archives, Records Office, 1890–1900; letter to her sister [5/22/1893], Vincent van Gogh Museum, WVG2921V/1982). Willemina joined the ntv organizers in 1897 (iiav, ntv-67, rules for participation). This July 1897 document shows that the Regulation Committee then had eight members, Willemina not being one of them. For a biography of Willemina van Gogh, see Berger 1985. This article inaccurately refers to a correspondence between Willemina van Gogh and Johanna Naber. The Johanna in question, however, was Johanna Wolters, secretary of the ntv Arts and Sciences Committee. iiav, ntv-20, third newsletter (February 1898), 30–31; ntv-57, minutes of the Regulation Committee (3/21/1898). iiav, ntv-72, instructions to supervisors, art. 4, 5, and 6. A woman joined a Dutch police force for the first time in 1911, though she did not have the full powers of a police officer. The 1950s saw the first uniformed women patrol Dutch streets. In the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany, women had already done so before World War ii. See Manneke 1998. Our thanks to Liesbeth Kortbeek, who is conducting an international historical comparison of female police. Henriëtte van der Meij, ‘‘De Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ Belang en recht, July 1, 1898. One example of a positive assessment was the short article ‘‘Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid’’ in Oprechte Haarlemsche Courant, July 17, 1897. See also Van Eerd 1987, 30. Announcement, Evolutie, June 2, 1897; see also Belang en recht, June 1, 1897. ntv [1896/97], 4–5. iiav, ntv-2, minutes of the general meeting (1/12/1898). Cecile Goekoop stated that the ntv association was ‘‘totally neutral’’; ntv [1896/97], 5. Vrouwenarbeid was printed by Hessel J. Poutsma in Amsterdam (Campfens 1987). This controversial character was Johannes K. van der Veer (Meertens and Altena 1988). Originally, Van der Veer was to print the exhibition publication Vrouwenarbeid, but this fell through for unknown reasons (iiav, ntv-75, correspondence between Groshans and Van der Veer [12/25/1897 and 2/17/1898]). Perhaps editor in chief Johanna Naber, a nationalist and advocate of a strong national defense, was opposed to employing a conscientious objector. For more on Naber’s political ideas, see Grever 1994b. T. [Pieter L. Tak], ‘‘Tentoonstelling van vrouwen-arbeid,’’ De kroniek, December 19, 1897.

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93 hgm, Diepenbrock collection, Cecile Goekoop to her sister Elisabeth (11/6/ 1896). 94 iiav, ntv-2, minutes of the general meeting (3/17/1897). For the discussion about the merits of The Hague versus Amsterdam, see Schook-Haver’s article ‘‘De Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid in 1898,’’ in Evolutie, January 20,1897. 95 iiav, ntv-2, minutes of the general meeting (3/17/1897). 96 ntv [1896/97]. See appendix with local chapters and committees. 97 iiav, ntv-133, Jeltje de Bosch Kemper to Scholten-Commelin (3/19/1897). 98 iiav, ntv-135, Worp-Roland Holst to Jeanne Caspers (Flower Committee) (5/30/ 1897). Tesselschade’s decision to participate was made at the May 26, 1897, general meeting. See also ‘‘Uit de vrouwenwereld,’’ De huisvrouw, June 12, 1897. This change of course was partly thanks to an intervention by Dientje Dull, an ntv organizer representing the Groningen chapter of Tesselschade. 99 Naber 1918, 202–3. The friend in question was Marie van der Laan-de Joode. She discussed Tesselschade’s scope of activity at the conferences on vocational training. Attendees Wilhelmina Drucker and Roosje Vos severely criticized Tesselschade’s methods (ntv 1898c, 105–16). 100 ‘‘Vergaderingen,’’ Evolutie, October 6, 1897. Eleven thousand guilders in 1898 equals almost U.S.$125,000 in 2003; 7,000 guilders equals almost U.S. $80,000. These figures are based on the conversion rate provided by De Nederlandsche Bank. 101 ‘‘Een oproeping aan de Nederlandsche vrouwen,’’ De Telegraaf, October 20, 1897. 102 Catharina Alberdingk Thijm, ‘‘Vrouwenarbeid,’’ Algemeen Handelsblad, October 21, 1897. 103 [Wilhelmina Drucker?], ‘‘Mercantilisme,’’ Evolutie, November 3. 1897. 104 For an exhaustive treatment of Mercier’s ideas, see Dudink 1997, 181–220. 105 De Jong van Beek en Donk 1918, 306–24, 307. 106 Grever 1994b, 190–93. 107 Cateau A. Worp-Roland Holst’s brother (Henriëtte’s husband, Richard N. Roland Holst) was fourteen years her junior. 108 De Jong van Beek en Donk 1918, 313. 109 ‘‘Meetings,’’ Evolutie, December 1, 1897. In 1897, Roosje Vos founded Allen Een, a seamstresses’ collective and the first female union. Teetotaler Betje Lazarus later founded the Association of Diamond Cutters. She was the first union leader to initiate an educational program for union members. The course was for women in the General Diamond Cutters Union (Algemene Nederlandsche Diamantbewerkers Bond; andb). Lazarus married De Beer later that year (Bloemgarten 1996, 431). 110 H. R. H. [Henriëtte Roland Holst-van der Schalk], ‘‘Vergadering voor arbeidsters te Amsterdam, gehouden uitgaande van de Vereeniging ‘Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’’ De Sociaaldemokraat, November 27, 1897. See also Etty 1996, 81. 111 Etty 1996, 81–82. 112 Ibid., 82.

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113 ‘‘Mevr. H. R. H. in de S.D.A.P,’’ Evolutie, January 12, 1898. 114 Etty 1996, 80–86; ntv [1897/98], 30. Roland Holst-van der Schalk was included under her residence of ’s Graveland. 115 ‘‘Mevr. H.R.H. in de s.d.a.p.’’ Evolutie (1/12/1898). 116 Etty 1996, 112, 190, 223, 260–61. Later, Roland Holst disagreed sharply with Lenin’s ideas. 117 Offen 2000, 167–68, 200–212. Dutch socialist women organized themselves as women only in 1908, in the Union of Social Democratic Women’s Clubs (Bond van Sociaal-Democratische Vrouwenclubs). 118 [Wilhelmina Drucker?], ‘‘Gekwetste majesteit,’’ Evolutie, December 29, 1897. 119 Etty 1996, 86. 120 iiav, ntv-74, Labor Inspector Heinrich W. E. Struve to the Industry Committee (4/26/1898). Struve was also in the ntv association. ntv-100, notification by The Hague mayor and aldermen (5/3/1898), request for permits granted; ntv74, correspondence with the Labor Inspectorate; ntv-128, fire and other insurance papers; The Hague Municipal Archives, no. 353, 4434/1898, 4525/1898, 4783/1898, reports by the Labor Inspectorate, fire department, and building inspectors. 121 iiav, ntv-100, letter from the Industry Committee to the city of The Hague (5/4/1898). See also ntv-116; ntv-120; ntv-122; ntv-124a; ntv-125; ntv-128; and ntv-371. 122 ‘‘Binnen de grenzen,’’ Evolutie, May 18, 1898. 123 ‘‘De Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ Dagblad van Zuid-Holland en ’s Gravenhage, July 9, 1898. 124 iiav, ntv-2, minutes of the general meeting (3/17/1897); ntv [1896/97], 8, about Veegens as a lawyer; ntv-82 (sheet 121) about the contractor; ntv-83 about the company responsible for installing the machinery. 125 In 2003, this amount would be worth U.S.$907,000. 126 ‘‘Vrouwenarbeid,’’ Oprechte Haarlemsche Courant, February 6, 1898. 127 Proceedings of the Second Chamber (Handelingen Tweede Kamer) 1897–98, national budget (staatsbegroting), Afdeeling 7, 92–93. See also announcement, Belang en recht, July 15, 1897; ‘‘Onvoldoende hulp,’’ De huisvrouw, October 16, 1897. 128 Proceedings of the Second Chamber 1897–98, national budget, appendix A, 19. 129 The Hague Municipal Archives, proceedings of the Municipal Council (Handelingen Gemeenteraad) 1897, no. 38, 74. The city council accepted the mayor and aldermen’s negative recommendation with no questions asked. 130 The Hague Municipal Archives, proceedings of the Municipal Council 1897, no. 636, 62–63; no. 682, 200. 131 The Hague Municipal Archives, proceedings of the Municipal Council 1897 no. 38, 136–37. 132 ‘‘Binnenland’’ Haagsche Courant, June 21, 1898. After the exhibition opened, six officials from the South-Holland provincial government proposed to grant 1,500 guilders to it after all. See ‘‘Provinciale Staten van Zuid-Holland,’’ Leidsch

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134 135 136 137

138 139 140

141 142

143

144 145

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notes to chapter two Dagblad, July 18, 1898. One of the officials was Lord Michiels van Verduynen, president of the Central Committee for the Paris World Exhibition of 1900. On July 26, 1898, their request was again denied. National Archives (ara/na), minutes of the Provincial Executive Zuid-Holland, 3.02.27.01, resolution 2553. Architect J. J. van Nieukerken had invited twelve contractors to submit tenders. iiav, ntv-364, signing of ntv building plans by contractors (12/22/1897); ntv-365, start of tender procedure (12/28/1897). A. R. Rutgers’s quote was the lowest. ntv-361, undated letter by Pekelharing-Doijer to the architect informing him that his quote was still too high (but Nieukerken recommended accepting Rutgers’s bid). The board probably decided on that day to scrap the building facade and other features, cutting Rutgers’s price from 40,700 to 35,700 guilders. See also iiav, ntv-2, minutes of the general meeting (1/12/1898); De Jong van Beek en Donk 1918, 316–19. About Jungius’s illness, see iiav, ntv-74, Geertruida Römelingh to Suze Groshans (12/30/1897); and ntv-75, Worp-Roland Holst to Groshans (12/12/1897). De Jong van Beek en Donk 1918, 317, 319. iiav, ntv-2, minutes of the general meeting (1/12/1898). hgm, Diepenbrock collection, Cecile Goekoop to her sister Elisabeth (1/16/ 1898). The ntv organizers called Mary van Dijk ‘‘Marie van Dijk,’’ but she signed her name ‘‘Mary.’’ See also ‘‘Uit de vrouwenwereld,’’ De huisvrouw December 25, 1897, which claimed that ‘‘construction is under way for the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor.’’ The Hague Municipal Archives, Records Office. Goekoop-de Jong van Beek en Donk 1984, 4–5. Municipal Archives, Den Bosch, death certificate issued in Rosmalen. Attorney General Johan Jan François de Jong van Beek en Donk, Esq., born in Stratum in 1834, died June 29, 1890. Van Hille 1915. Pieter de Josseling de Jong went on to become a famous artist. Later, he befriended sculptor Pier Pander, a friend of Goekoop’s, and the well-known Dutch writer Louis Couperus (Bastet 1987, 180–81; Van Vliet 1996, 370). In 1876, De Jong van Beek en Donk and his family left the northeastern city of Zwolle for Den Bosch, in the south. Cecile’s father established himself as a lawyer and later became attorney general. On April 30, 1883, the family moved to Hintham, near Rosmalen (a small town near Den Bosch). Municipal Archives, Den Bosch, Rosmalen Records Office. Goekoop 1888. Ithaca remained undiscovered, however. On Goekoop’s contribution to the study of Greek antiquity, see Van Hille 1915, 123–30. In 1908, Goekoop published a book entitled Itaque, la grande. iiav, ntv-32. Cecile Goekoop’s visiting hours were every Tuesday from 3 to 6 p.m. Adriaan Goekoop did not sell the Catshuis and surrounding land until July 31, 1906—seven years after he divorced Cecile. The property sold for over

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147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156

157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166

167 168 169

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2 million guilders. See Van Hille 1915, 117. The driveway leading to the house has been renamed Goekooplaan. De Koning Gans 1994, 9. Sikemeier 1921, 863. Dieteren 1998, 35–38. Van Rooijen 1996, 110–13. Ibid., 113. hgm, Diepenbrock collection, Cecile Goekoop to her sister Elisabeth (11/23/ 1893). Amsterdam, private archives of Cees Goekoop, Adriaan Goekoop’s itinerary. hgm, Diepenbrock collection, Cecile Goekoop to her sister Elisabeth (February 1898). Bastet 1987, 230. Van Geest-Jacobs and Klein 1985, 128. They base themselves on Reeser 1970, vol. 3, 102. See also Pollmann’s introduction to Goekoop-de Jong van Beek en Donk 1984, 14. Adriaan Goekoop’s itinerary and dates are taken from Cees Goekoop’s private archives. ‘‘Vergaderingen,’’ Evolutie, October 4, 1899. The general meeting took place on September 30, 1899. The plaque was affixed to a wall on the corner of Van Bleiswijkstraat and Oldebarneveltlaan (ntv [1899/1901], 5). Van Hille 1915, 139. Conversation with C. H. [Cees] Goekoop (12/24/1997). Cees Goekoop’s private archives, statement by Plona E. de Waerd (January 1915). Cecile de Jong van Beek en Donk, ‘‘Wat zal gedaan worden met het Batig Saldo der tentoonstelling?’’ Belang en recht, September 15, 1900. Te Velde 1992. Jungius 1897, 17. Belang en recht, September 15, 1900. The Danish government donated 15,000 Danish Kroner, two-thirds of which served as a guarantee fund (the equivalent of about 8,000 Dutch guilders in 1890, or some U.S.$90,000 in 2003). See Lous 2000, 47–64. ‘‘Berichten uit de vrouwen-wereld in binnen- en buitenland,’’ De huisvrouw, June 29, 1895. Lous 2000, 48. Z., ‘‘Vereeniging voor Vrouwenkiesrecht,’’ Belang en recht, December 15, 1897. The meeting of the Amsterdam chapter of the Woman’s Suffrage Association of December 7, 1897, was devoted to the exhibition plans. About these plans and the Danish experience, Meijboom said: ‘‘We can use Denmark’s women as a model in many respects, except one. We will not want to have the kind of conflicts that have flared up between the main protagonists since their Exhibition and have not yet died down—and which still spark new combative publications’’ (ibid.).

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170 iiav, ntv-169, Willemina van Gogh to Johanna Wolters about hiring paid personnel for the ntv Arts and Sciences Committee (12/25/1897). 171 iiav, ntv-11, graphic chart of the exhibition by Marie Jungius. 172 De Jong van Beek en Donk 1918, 320. 173 iiav, ntv-20, fourth newsletter (March 1898), 43. 174 iiav, ntv-79, G. van Dorssen (cigar manufacturer) to Groshans (5/4/1898); Sparnaay 1898a, 138. 175 iiav, ntv-57, minutes of the Regulation Committee (4/4/1898). 176 ‘‘Binnen de grenzen,’’ Evolutie, May 5, 1897. 177 Letters that illustrate the admiration many women felt for Cecile Goekoop include iiav, ntv-74, Caroline C.t.R. [initials partly illegible, sender was in the women’s suffrage movement] to Groshans: ‘‘Since yesterday afternoon I am in love with Mrs. Goekoop!’’ (11/4/1897); anonymous (2/18/1898); ntv-80, C. Kronenburg to Marie [Jungius?], (3/14/1898); ntv-280, correspondence of the Conference Committee, letter from Heineken-Daum about ‘‘our precious president’’ (August? 1898). 178 The press regularly called Cecile Goekoop ‘‘the soul of the exhibition.’’ See ‘‘Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ Algemeen Handelsblad, July 10, 1898. For Jungius, see iiav, ntv-77, Hendrik [D. H.] Koker to his relative Marie Jungius (7/8/1898). 179 Jacobs 1898. 180 ntv 1898a, 117 (Reading Room) and 393 (Education Exhibit). 181 iiav, ntv-169, Drucker to the Arts and Sciences Committee (5/4/1898). 182 In the published conference proceedings, Drucker is mentioned as a debater in the conferences on public morality (ntv 1899a, 54); Drucker also responded exhaustively to a contribution by someone called Vera, entitled ‘‘De coöperatie in de huishouding’’ during the ‘‘Lectures and Debates about the Means to Simplify Household Chores’’ on July 27, 1898. See ntv 1899b, 15–18. 183 For a more detailed analysis of the organization, we have identified each of the women involved in the two inner circles of Jungius’s diagram (board, section, and conference committees). This yielded a population of 227 active committee members who bore financial and management responsibilities in 1897 and 1898. 184 Posthumus-van der Goot and De Waal 1977, 65. 185 iiav, ntv-82, sheet 106, Dekker-Fortanier to A. de Haas, a Rotterdam manufacturer (5/11/1898). 186 hgm, Diepenbrock collection, Cecile Goekoop to her sister Elsa (9/17/1896). 3. A PANORAMA IN THE DUNES

1 2 3 4

‘‘Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid’’ Algemeen Handelsblad, July 10, 1898. For the full text of the opening address, see Vrouwenarbeid, July 12, 1898. Ibid. For the full lyrics to the cantata, see Vrouwenarbeid, July 9, 1898.

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5 Catherina van Rennes, ‘‘De openings-cantate,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, July 14, 1898. This is interesting because composer Alphons Diepenbrock, who was married to Cecile Goekoop’s sister Elisabeth, was an ardent admirer of Wagner. 6 Hooijer 1898, 200. 7 Montijn 1989, 12. 8 F. C. Jr., ‘‘Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ Oprechte Haarlemsche Courant, September 3, 1898. 9 iiav, ntv-138, Flower Committee, notebook 3 (May 1898). 10 According to a report in the Algemeen Handelsblad on July 12, 1898, a lecture by Catharine van Tussenbroek was attended by ‘‘more than a thousand people, mostly ladies.’’ 11 Evolutie, May 18, 1898. 12 For information on the landscaping of the exhibition grounds, see iiav, ntv-135, correspondence between Margreta Gallé and members of the Flower Committee. 13 The exposition space in Kampong Insulinde amounted to about 3,700 square feet, excluding the restaurant and Van Houten’s ‘‘chocolate house.’’ However, the ‘‘kampong concept’’ seems to justify including the Indonesian restaurant in the exposition space. 14 The Hall of Industry’s main floor space measured 14,639 square feet, 336 of which were reserved for agricultural products. Off to the side was a separate room, measuring 861 square feet, intended for the carpet factory. This brings the total exhibition space for industry exhibits to 15,164 square feet. 15 Schilstra 1976, 18, 108, 118. Traditional types of artisanship were rushing, spinning, and handweaving. Modern industry implies the use of machinery. Using machines could both increase and decrease women’s employment. The introduction of machines in the textile industry created jobs for women who could comb and shear wool; male expertise and strength were no longer required. However, the introduction of stitching machines in shoe factories meant a loss of jobs for women. 16 For women’s labor in agriculture, see also Pott-Büter and Tijdens 1998, 219– 40. 17 ntv [1896/97], 11. 18 iiav, ntv-113, circular letter from the Agriculture and Dairy Processing Committee. See also ntv-100, Industry Committee’s request for a permit, sent to the mayor and aldermen (5/4/1898); ntv-108 and ntv-109 show that the board also granted subsidies for a beehive and the dairy exhibit. The Agriculture Committee was in the red when the exhibition ended. 19 iiav, ntv-25, circular letter (November 1897), and ntv-26, circular letter addressed ‘‘To the Residents of the Netherlands’’ (March 1897?). At this time, Pekelharing-Doijer was still president. See also announcements, Evolutie, October 7, 1896. 20 iiav, ntv-52, Der Kinderen-Besier to Dull (5/18/1896). 21 iiav, ntv-22, p. 408; The Hague Municipal Archives Records Office data. The

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24 25

26 27

28 29 30 31

32 33 34

35

notes to chapter three graphic illustrator was Louise Bachiene (b. 1870). She was Bachiene’s natural and recognized child and a ‘‘free indigenous woman’’ from the East Indies. On August 1, 1899, she married Jacob de Graaff and left for London. iiav, ntv-20, fifth newsletter (April 1898), 61. Announcement, Haagsche Courant, September 14, 1898; the raffle tickets cost 50 cents, and the first prize was a piece of jewelry worth 1,000 guilders. See ‘‘Arbeid voor de vrouw,’’ Recht voor allen, September 25, 1898. ‘‘Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ Het Vaderland, January 18, 1898. ‘‘Ingezonden: De Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid op zondag,’’ De huisvrouw July 16, 1898. Z., ‘‘Kijkjes op de Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ Belang en recht, July 15, 1898, expressed happiness that no work was done on Sundays. There was no mention of Jewish or Javanese employees, who did work on Sundays. Secularized Jews did not always respect the Sabbath. This probably also held true for the female diamond cutters who, with the help of socialist Henri Polak, had been recruited to work in the Hall of Industry (Bloemgarten 1996). For Muslims, Friday is the day of rest. I. H. [Ida Heyermans], ‘‘Brieven over de Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid I,’’ Eigen haard, August 20, 1898. iiav, ntv-95, ntv-96 and ntv-97; Marie Jungius, ‘‘Rubriek-industrie iii,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, September 1, 1898; Jungius, ‘‘Rubriek-industrie V,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, September 20, 1898. Johanna W. A. Naber, ‘‘Litteratuur in de afdeelingen,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, August 4, 1898. Z., ‘‘Kijkjes op de Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ Belang en recht, July 15, 1898. ntv 1898a, 28–31; ntv-115, minutes of the Pharmacy Committee; ntv-122, instructions to the supervisor of the Pharmacy Exhibit. iiav, ntv-20, second newsletter (January 1898), 12. These were the results: 2,200 women worked in the health care sector; 2,400 nursed the elderly and the infirm; and about 400 women worked in the pharmaceutical sector; ntv124a, letter from Wilhelmina van Hogendorp to the Nursing Committee (2/16/ 1898). Z., ‘‘Kijkjes op de Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ Belang en recht, July 15, 1898. ‘‘Nat. Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ Algemeen Handelsblad, July 12, 1898. iiav, ntv-20, second newsletter (January 1898), 11. The postal and telegraphy inspector and the managing director of the main post office in Scheveningen had granted the ntv organizers permission to set up a temporary sub–post office on the exhibition grounds; ntv-75, female post office worker F. W. de Zwaan to the Industry Committee, volunteering to work at the exhibition post office (3/27/1898). iiav, ntv-220, minutes of the History Committee, 1897–1898; ‘‘(Draft) Plan for a Catalog’’ (7/14/1897). The plan was finalized in October 1897. See also Z.,

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37 38

39 40 41

42 43 44 45

46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55

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‘‘Kijkjes op de Nat. Tent. van Vrouwenarbeid V.,’’ Belang en recht, September 1, 1898. iiav, ntv-246, minutes of the Home Crafts Committee (3/25/1897). The Home Crafts Committee had passed all material submitted before 1850 on to the History Committee. iiav, ntv-20, fifth newsletter (April 1898), 60. A catalog was compiled listing every object on display, the committee to which it had been directed, the name of the submitting party, and the manufacturers of the objects, whether private people or businesses (ntv 1898a). The Kampong Insulinde section is dealt with separately because of its unique funding and organizational structure; see chapter 5. iiav, ntv-97, contracts. ntv [1896/97], 8–9; Marie Jungius, ‘‘Rubriek-industrie iii,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, September 1, 1898. iiav, ntv-78, C. A. Verrijn Stuart to ‘‘Suze’’ [Groshans] (3/25/1898). In 1892, ministers N. G. Pierson and J. P. R. Tak van Poorvliet had established the Central Commission for Statistics (Centrale Commissie voor de Statistiek) as part of the ministry of the interior. In 1899, Verrijn Stuart became the first managing director of the independent Central Bureau of Statistics (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, cbs). See De Haan and Te Velde 1996, 193. Marie Jungius, ‘‘Rubriek-industrie iii,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, September 1, 1898. iiav, ntv-74, Industry Committee questionnaires. ntv [1896/97], 24–25; ntv [1897/98], 15–16. For example, Geertruida Römelingh charted the numbers of women working in trade, especially women who ran bookstores, general stores, agencies, lodging houses, and so on. She attempted to compile a statistical labor overview. iiav, ntv-74, Römelingh’s plan for ‘‘De vrouw in de handel,’’ and correspondence with Groshans (2/5/1898 and 4/21/1898); ntv 1898a, 21–22; Römelingh 1898. De Haan and Te Velde 1996, 188–97. iiav, ntv-82, copy of the letter from Dekker-Fortanier to A. A. Knuyver (9/19/ 1897). Marie Jungius, ‘‘Rubriek-industrie iii,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, September 1, 1898. Weimann 1981, 381. Marie Jungius, ‘‘Rubriek-industrie iv (slot),’’ Vrouwenarbeid, September 8, 1898; iiav, ntv-74, Schaafsma to Groshans (spring 1898). ntv [1896/97], 9. Sparnaay 1898a, 11–17. iiav, ntv-80, Molijn-de Groot to Groshans (6/7/1898); ntv 1898a, 25, 71–72. De Veluwe 1945 (Nunspeet Municipal Archives, 1–27); Sparnaay 1898a, 11–17. For more biographical details, see De Veluwe 1945. iiav, ntv-26, circular letter recruiting membership in the ntv association (n.d. [1897]). iiav, ntv-74, widow F. Rutgers to Cecile Goekoop (1/31/1898) and to Groshans

244

56 57

58

59

60

61

62 63

64 65

66 67 68 69

70

notes to chapter three (2/11/1898); ntv-95, data on the people employed in the Hall of Industry; Sparnaay 1897, 91–92. iiav, ntv-80, Lewin to Groshans (1/16/1898 and 2/19/1898). Leiden Municipal Archives, Records Office. In 1890, Sparnaay lived with her father. See also De Jong 1923. Sparnaay was born in Heinenoord, the third child of Abraham Sparnaay and Suzanne Catharina Rost van Tonningen. The Sparnaays were Huguenots. Marie Sparnaay published several books and brochures. iiav, ntv-86, list of factories visited by Marie Sparnaay; ntv-81, enthusiastic letter from Sparnaay to Groshans about a visit to factories (6/4/1898). For the activities of the Industry Committee as a whole, see also ntv-20, fourth newsletter (March 1898), 52–53. She shared supervision with Miss Van der Jagt (see page 97). Perhaps they also visited factories together. iiav, ntv-75, Zuylen-Tromp to Groshans (3/12/1898); ntv-81, Sparnaay to Groshans (6/4/1898). ntv-81, Sparnaay to Groshans (6/4/1898). This was probably the Falk Lewin bottle cap factory in ’s-Hertogenbosch, which ended up exhibiting metal caps for bottles and hot water bottles in the Hall of Industry (Sparnaay 1897, 89). iiav, ntv-77, O. H. L. Nieuwenhuyzen to Groshans about the glass manufacturing process (6/24/1898); ntv-79, Rotterdam widow S. Benedictus’s refusal to demonstrate the manufacture of office books for ‘‘fear of heightened competition.’’ She decided to exhibit products only: a collection of envelopes and boxes (Sparnaay 1897, 97); ntv-80, Miss J. A. Kosters to Groshans about Blok & Gerritsen’s refusal to demonstrate the production of bicycle screws (2/8/1898). Oldenzaal Municipal Archives, Records Office; Molkenboer’s photographic archives (Het Palthe-Huis historical museum). Enschede Municipal Archives, Records Office, sheet 236; unpublished biographical sketch of John Tattersall by his grandson Henk Tattersall; ‘‘John Tattersall,’’ Eigen haard, September 8, 1906; Benthem 1920, 580–81; and Stroink 1962, S 1876II. iiav, ntv-75, Tattersall to Groshans (3/15, 3/21 and 3/22/1898); ntv-81, Tattersall to the ntv bureau (6/8/1898). The Singer sewing machines attracted a great deal of attention. Visitors realized that the sewing machines were suitable not only for industrial use but also for the home, for education, and for the arts. Announcement, Leidsch Dagblad, August 7, 1898. iiav, ntv-76, Johanna Beydals to Groshans (7/5/1898). Sparnaay 1897, 77–78. [Tattersall] 1898, 7–9; emphasis added. iiav, ntv-86, Bosch Reitz (very likely to Groshans) (7/18/1898); Marie Jungius, ‘‘Rubriek-industrie iv,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, September 3, 1898. Bosch Reitz donated the statue to the exhibition, but Groshans gave her 285 guilders to cover expenses. iiav, ntv-80, Mijnlieff to Groshans (1/18/1898). He recommended having the artist visit in May, when the brick making was to begin. From February to April,

notes to chapter three

71 72 73

74

75

76 77

78 79 80

81 82 83 84 85 86

87 88 89 90

245

the women emptied the ovens and filled the ships, which the factory owner considered unimportant work. See, for example, Naber 1908. iiav, ntv-20, sixth newsletter (May 1898), 104. iiav, ntv-76, Chabot & Andres to the Industry Committee (3/14/1898) and Johannes Breuk of the food processing plant to the Industry Committee (6/18/ 1898); ntv-81, E. G. Verkade to the Industry Committee (5/9/1898). iiav, ntv-77, letters from Huykman and Westenburgh companies listing awards won at previous expositions. Tattersall & Holdsworth’s letterhead also included medals the company had won. iiav, ntv-104, circular letter inviting contestants to take part in designing rational women’s wear and a folder containing fabric samples, drawings, and slogans submitted by contestants. Announcement, Het Nederlandsche Dagblad, September 27, 1898. iiav, ntv-82, sheet 115, Dekker-Fortanier to Mrs. Fikkert in Almelo (8/5/1898). The West Indies Committee took a 20 percent commission, the Industry Committee 10 percent. Committees had some freedom to set their own percentages; ntv-82, sheet 129, Dekker-Fortanier to Oerle (9/19/1898); ntv-83, offer to boarding houses and hotels to have their bed linen cleaned by the ntv laundry. Suze Groshans, ‘‘Rubriek-industrie I,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, August 4, 1898. Suze Groshans, ‘‘Rubriek-industrie ii,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, August 18, 1898. iiav, ntv-74, Julia Methorst to Groshans (3/26/1898). She called for a study of the effects of inhaling tobacco dust. Marie Jungius, ‘‘Rubriek-industrie iv,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, September 3, 1898: ‘‘If making cigars is indeed such terribly unhealthy work, then I do not understand why anyone would smoke cigars; after all, it is not a necessity of life.’’ Marie Jungius, ‘‘Rubriek-industrie iv,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, September 3, 1898. Ibid. Marie Jungius, ‘‘Rubriek-industrie iv (slot),’’ Vrouwenarbeid, September 8, 1898. Marie Jungius, ‘‘Rubriek-industrie iii,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, September 1, 1898. iiav, ntv-345, Vincent and Mauriceau 1899, 5. iiav, ntv-95, ntv-96, lists of exhibits from companies and factories; ntv-97, contracts; Sparnaay 1898a. It was possible to ascertain the age of twenty-six out of the sixty employees in the Hall of Industry. Twelve girls are known to have been between twelve and sixteen years old. iiav, ntv-80, Molijn-de Groot to Groshans (2/3/1898); Roland Holst-van der Schalk 1898, 18. iiav, ntv-80, Antonie Lewin to Groshans (2/13/1898). Floor M. Wibaut, ‘‘Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid: Afdeeling maatschappelijk werk,’’ De kroniek, August 28, 1898. iiav, ntv-76, J. van Buuren to Suze Groshans (7/3/1898). Doijer worked at a cobbler’s in Waalwijk, probably under the supervision of J. van Buuren. Fremery-de Hisser was active in the association Opstanding en Leven (Ressurection and Life).

246

notes to chapter three

91 iiav, ntv-76, Johanna Beydals to Suze Groshans (7/5/1898); emphasis added. 92 Sparnaay 1898a, 27–28. 93 iiav, ntv-20, fifth newsletter (April 1898), 75; ntv-70, printed forms for participants. See also ‘‘Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ Belang en recht, August 1, 1897; ‘‘Nederl. vrouwenbond,’’ Het Vaderland, January 29, 1898; ‘‘Tentoonstelling voor Vrouwenarbeid,’’ Het Vaderland, May 17, 1898. 94 ‘‘Binnenlandsch overzicht,’’ Sociaal weekblad, May 21, 1898. 95 iiav, ntv-79, Betje de Beer-Lazarus to Mrs. D. [Dekker-Fortanier] about the problems with Polak (11/4/1898). 96 Algemeen Handelsblad, August 18, 1898; Haagsche Courant, August 18, 1898. 97 iiav, ntv-95, participant form, filled out by J. G. Mouton; ntv-80, Mouton to Groshans (4/10/1898). 98 A. B. Soep, ‘‘Een foutieve daad,’’ Recht voor allen, September 1, 1898. 99 iiav, ntv-80, Mouton to the organizers (10/1/1898). 100 Recht voor allen, August 21, 1898. 101 iiav, ntv-90 and ntv-82 contain incomplete payrolls. Generally speaking, the wage was ten guilders per week or about one hundred guilders for the duration of the event. ntv-239, minutes of the West Indies Committee meeting (2/14/1898). The Javanese did not have to pay for their lodgings on the exhibition grounds. It is unclear whether they had to pay for their own food. See also chapter 5. 102 Bloemgarten 1996, 97–100; Leydesdorff 1987, 81–82. 103 Sparnaay 1897, 73–74. For reasons unknown, the only female brilliant adjuster in Amsterdam had declined to participate at the last minute. 104 iiav, ntv-82, correspondence between Dekker-Fortanier and Groshans (11/30/ 1897); Dekker-Fortanier to Meta Hugenholz (12/6/1897). 105 iiav, ntv-75, Roosje Vos to the Industry Committee (2/26/1898); ntv-77, Polak about De Beer-Lazarus to Jungius (7/11/1898). 106 iiav, ntv-82, correspondence between Dekker-Fortanier and Groshans (11/30/ 1897). 107 iiav, ntv-97, contract between the ntv board and Citroen. In the catalog, Citroen stressed that his participation had nothing to do with promotional goals. After all, it had taken the Industry Committee months to convince him to take part (Sparnaay 1897, 109–10). 108 iiav, ntv-77, Polak to Groshans (5/151898); ntv-81, Groshans to Polak (5/21/ 1898); ntv-79, De Beer-Lazarus to the Industry Committee (6/14/1898); ntv97, contract between the ntv board, Henri Polak, and Betje de Beer-Lazarus. 109 iiav, ntv-77, Polak to Jungius (7/11/1898). 110 H. P. [Henri Polak], ‘‘Short Description of Diamond Cutting,’’ Sparnaay 1897, 73–74. 111 ‘‘Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid, door een Haagsche,’’ Algemeen Handelsblad, August 5, 1898. 112 iiav, ntv-82, note from Dekker-Fortanier to Polak (8/5/1898). She was supposed to pay him part of the second installment of 228.33 guilders.

notes to chapter three

247

113 iiav, ntv-86, written statement signed by Henri Polak (n.d.). 114 There was one exception: ‘‘De diamantbewerksters op de Vrouwententoonstelling,’’ Het Volksdagblad, August 29, 1898. 115 iiav, ntv-79, letters from De Beer-Lazarus addressed to ‘‘Madam’’ (11/4/1898) and to ‘‘Dear Miss,’’ who had received her first letter from ‘‘Mrs. D.’’ [DekkerFortanier?] (11/15/1898). 116 Marie Jungius, ‘‘Rubriek-industrie vii,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, September 29, 1898. 117 Sparnaay 1897, 43, 144. 118 iiav, ntv-90, report by R. Spanjaard-Spanjaard, secretary of the Enschede local chapter: ‘‘It is strange, however, that in those ‘women’s workshops’ it is the men who are the bosses; experiments at letting females supervise all failed because the women could not maintain order.’’ 119 Suze Groshans, ‘‘Rubriek-industrie iv,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, September 27, 1898. 120 ntv-90, Sparnaay’s report. 121 Sparnaay 1897, 151. 122 Suze Groshans, ‘‘Rubriek-industrie vi,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, September 27, 1898; Marie Jungius, ‘‘Rubriek-industrie vii,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, October 1, 1898. 123 Sparnaay in ntv 1898c, 24–37. The Conference Committee ‘‘decided after some deliberation to categorize Miss Sparnaay’s planned lecture . . . in this [the Vocational and Professional Training Conference] instead of in the Conference on Social Work.’’ iiav, ntv-278, minutes of the Conference Committee (2/27/ 1898). This is in keeping with the division of tasks between the industry and the social work sections, in which the former stressed the optimistic sides of industrialism and the latter the evils inherent in such labor. See page 98 on social work. 124 ntv 1898c, 24. 125 Ibid., 33. 126 Scholars from other disciplines have pointed to the desire of turn-of-thecentury bourgeois authors for the ‘‘harshness’’ and ‘‘reality’’ of the life they attributed to the working classes. Lasch (1965, 62) believes that feminists, who are by definition bourgeois in his view, transform this class envy into a desire for their own sexual freedom. Keating (1976) took stock of literary representations without taking gender into account. Gender does play a role in Bulmer, Bales, and Sklar 1991. 127 Sparnaay 1897, 44. 128 ‘‘Uit de vrouwenwereld,’’ De huisvrouw, August 13, 1898. 129 Arnold Kerdijk, ‘‘Vrouwelijke ambtenaren bij de Arbeids-Inspectie,’’ Vragen des tijds 2 (1898): 369–85; ntv 1898c. 130 ntv [1896/97], 44–45; Naber 1918, 195. The course was taught for one year and soon led to the foundation of the School for Social Work. 131 Proceedings of the Second Chamber 1898–99, national budget, 2.ix.22, 12 (11/5/1898); see also Bousardt 1990, 33. 132 Proceedings of the First Chamber 1898–99, appendix, 135 (1/21/1899). In response to Minister C. Lely’s proposal to appoint a female labor inspector, the

248

133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153

154

155 156 157 158 159 160 161

notes to chapter three First Chamber had already indicated in its 1897/98 budget that it considered this working environment unsuitable for women, see Proceedings of the First Chamber 1897–98, 123 (1/14/1898). Bousardt 1990, 34. iiav, ntv-75, Zuylen-Tromp to Groshans (3/12/1898); iiav, ntv-169, Van Gogh to the Arts and Sciences Committee [Johanna Wolters?] (12/4/1897). iiav, ntv-71, instructions for guards, Dordrecht exhibition, 1897; ntv-72, instructions for female guards, 1898. iiav, ntv-168, printed card; ntv-286, invoice from Vrede Printer’s. ntv [1896/97], 13; ntv-148, minutes of the Social Work Committee (6/3/1898). J. J. Belinfante, ‘‘Antwoord,’’ Maatschappelijk werk, December 16, 1899. Oprechte Haarlemsche Courant, September 3, 1898. Jungius 1897, 14. hgm, Diepenbrock collection, Cecile Goekoop to her sister Elsa (3/23/1897). ntv [1896/97], 10. ntv 1898a, 65. Dudink 1997, 181–221. Jungius 1897, 15. iiav, ntv-248, Hélène Mercier to the Home Crafts Committee (5/24/1897). Mercier 1889, 170; see also Van Drenth 1997. Van der Valk 1986, 16–18. Muller-Lulofs 1916. iiav, ntv-2, minutes of the general meeting in Utrecht (11/26/1896). ‘‘Congres vrouwenarbeid,’’ Haagsche Courant, July 23, 1898. iiav, ntv-25, circular letter, 1897. iiav, ntv-148, minutes of the Social Work Committee meeting (3/19/1897). In February 1898, President Emilie Knappert of the Conference Committee informed the Social Work Committee that she would be willing to lecture on the subject of district nursing, but that the conference would have to be chaired by a specialist such as the managing director of a large hospital. iiav, ntv-309, Knappert to Elisabeth Diepenbrock (2/6/1898). The exhibition catalog makes no mention of a contribution by Tesselschade, but a report in Belang en recht does mention its participation. ‘‘Kijkjes op de Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ Belang en recht, August 1, 1898. ntv 1898a, 81; Dieteren 1998, 45. ntv [1896/97], 13. Printed in the promotional issue of the Suffrage Association’s Maandblaadje that was for sale in the Conference Hall bookshop. Thorn Prikker 1980, 268; Thorn Prikker to H. P. Bremmer (5/25/1898). iiav, nvb-418, Maandblaadje promotional issue. ‘‘De Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ Dagblad voor Zuid-Holland en ’s Gravenhage, July 5, 1898. iiav, ntv-150, circular letter by the Social Work Committee.

notes to chapter three 162 163 164 165 166

167 168 169

170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185

186 187 188 189

249

Ibid. iiav, ntv-148, minutes of the Social Work Committee (5/1/1897). Dieteren 1998, 39; Van de Sande 1989, 309. Gribling 1979, 426. Veegens, the exhibition’s legal counsel, was an advocate of social legislation. He had also been a member of the Committee to Discuss the Social Issue. He had played a key role in writing the 1889 Labor Act, which banned night labor for women (Jansz 1991, 82; Bervoets 1985, 570–71). iiav, ntv-150, program of the Social Work Committee (handwritten). ntv 1898a, 98. The budget data were derived from an article on poverty relief written by Marie Muller-Lulofs. Vera, ‘‘De afdeeling ‘Maatschappelijk Werk’ op de Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ De Amsterdammer, October 2, 1898; Marie MullerLulofs, ‘‘Arbeidersbudgets: Iets uit de practijk van armenzorg,’’ Sociaal weekblad, April 30, 1898. ntv 1898a, 95. iiav, ntv-126, J. Snethlage to the Hygiene Committee (4/5/1898). iiav, ntv-148, minutes of the Social Work Committee (4/1/1898 and 2/4/1898). iiav, ntv-148, minutes of the Social Work Committee (6/3/1898). iiav, ntv-292, Roosje Vos to the Conference Committee (12/5/1897). ntv 1899d, 21–40. De Jong van Beek en Donk 1918, 322. Vera, ‘‘De afdeeling ‘Maatschappelijk Werk’ op de Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ De Amsterdammer, October 2, 1898. Ida H.[Heijermans], ‘‘Brieven over de Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ Eigen haard, August 20, 1898. ‘‘Nieuwe banen,’’ Haagsche Courant, July 25, 1898. Floor M. Wibaut, ‘‘Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid: Afdeeling maatschappelijk werk,’’ De kroniek, August 28, 1898. Neij and Hueting 1989, 12. Waaldijk 1996, 114; ntv 1898d, 255. Bervoets 1994, 137. Mercier’s remark about Goekoop’s overly feminist tendencies can be found in Bervoets 1994, 136. See also Waaldijk 1996, 189–92; and Dudink 1997, 207. Maatschappelijk werk, a magazine with close ties to the Social Interest Alliance, reported extensively on the battle, for example in ‘‘Onderzoek naar de loonen in het naaistersvak,’’ Maatschappelijk werk, December 23, 1899. iiav, ntv-148, minutes of the Social Work Committee (5/7/1897). ‘‘Nationaal Bureau van Vrouwenarbeid of Centraal Bureau voor Maatschappelijk Werk?’’ Maatschappelijk werk, April 14, 1900. H. W. Heineken Daum, ‘‘Aan de redactie, April ’99,’’ Maatschappelijk werk, May 6, 1899. ‘‘Uit het maatschappelijk leven,’’ Maatschappelijk werk, February 18, 1899.

250

notes to chapter four 4. THE EXHIBITION EXPERIENCE

1 A. v. Br. [Breull], ‘‘Muziek en vrouwenarbeid,’’ De kroniek, August 14, 1898. 2 With a view to out-of-towners who might come to The Hague for the opening of the new session of parliament on September 20 and who might want to combine this with a visit to the exhibition, September 21 had been set as the closing date. iiav, ntv-20, fifth newsletter (April 1898), 62. The estimated number of visitors is based on newspaper reports and overviews of the sales of day tickets and coupons (valid for more than one entrance). The figures include return visitors. About the distribution, see A. van Leeuwen-Francken, letter to the editor, De nederlandsche spectator, September 24, 1898. 3 This is evident in the official exhibition album containing photographs by Charlotte Polkijn and Anna C. Leijer. Another example of this is a series of twenty postcards published by Mrs. A. M. Amiot, a bookstore owner in The Hague. Copies of the album Photographien are located at iiav and in the Enschede Municipal Archives, Tattersall & Holdsworth, no. 166. 4 Enschede Municipal Archives, Tattersall & Holdsworth collection. On the significance of postcards, see Mathur 1999. 5 Hooijer 1898, 199, 204. 6 Altena 1996, 14–20. 7 De Bodt 1997, 42. 8 The term elite days appeared in ntv 1898i, 6. 9 According to a photography magazine, the organizers had succeeded: ‘‘A real ‘exposition,’ not one that has degenerated into a sideshow.’’ See ‘‘De fotografie op de Nationale Tentoonstelling voor Vrouwenarbeid te ’s-Hage,’’ Lux: Tijdschrift voor fotographie (1898): 559–61. 10 The seamstresses’ outing was covered extensively in the media: Evolutie, July 14, 1898; ‘‘Nat. tentoonstelling van vrouwenarbeid,’’ Het Volksdagblad, July 27, 1898; ‘‘Binnenlandsch overzicht,’’ Sociaal weekblad, May 21, 1898. 11 Tibbe 1985; Coombes 1987; Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant [henceforth nrc], August 5, 1898. 12 F. W. N. Hugenholtz’s diary, entries dated July 14–28, 1898, private collection. Our thanks to Dineke Stam. 13 ‘‘Congres-Indrukken, vervolg,’’ Evolutie, August 10, 1898. 14 Hoven 1899, 2:3. 15 Sociaal weekblad, August 20, 1898; Vermeeren 1898, 12. 16 The only exception was a French-language book compiled by Rins Visscher, a friend of Johanna Naber’s, published on the occasion of the exhibition (Visscher 1898). 17 ‘‘Tentoonstelling van vrouwenarbeid,’’ Algemeen Handelsblad, July 15, 1898. 18 Announced in Dagblad van Zuid-Holland en ’s Gravenhage (July 24, 1898, and July 25, 1898). Sewall, a teacher and suffragist, had founded her own school for girls. She was also a Soroptimist and an honorary member of the American Historical Association. Eagle 1894, 771. See also Rupp 1997, 22.

notes to chapter four 19 20 21 22 23 24

25

26

27

28 29 30

31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

39 40 41

42

251

Dagblad van Zuid-Holland en ’s Gravenhage, July 26, 1898. Weimann 1981, 524–31. Ibid., 531. nrc, July 26, 1898. Evolutie, September 21, 1898; November 2, 1898; and April 19, 1899. The Hague Municipal Archives, Diepenbrock collection, Cecile Goekoop to Elizabeth Diepenbrock (8/11/1897); Algemeen Handelsblad, August 14, 1898; and Vrouwenarbeid, August 23, 1898, which calls her Baroness Gripesberg. We did not personally see these reports, but Dutch journalists referred to foreign press coverage. Algemeen Handelsblad, August 5, 1898; Evolutie, September 21, 1898. Evolutie, July 27, 1898, and ‘‘Tentoonstelling van vrouwenarbeid,’’ Utrechtsch Nieuwsblad, July 27, 1898, published reports on this visit. The delegation probably visited the Netherlands in late August or early September. Their report suggests that they attended the domestic servants’ conference on August 21. The society’s president and secretary both reported on their findings. The former represented the advisory chamber (chambre consultative) of French workers’ unions, the latter worked at a municipal charity office (Vincent and Mauriceau 1899). Vermeeren 1898, 10. ‘‘Der vrouwenwerk viii,’’ Dagblad van Zuid-Holland en ’s Gravenhage, July 29, 1898. ‘‘Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid Kijkjes vii,’’ nrc, August 2, 1898; ‘‘Der vrouwenwerk viii,’’ Dagblad van Zuid-Holland en ’s Gravenhage, July 29, 1898. ‘‘Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid Kijkjes vii,’’ nrc, August 2, 1898. ‘‘Der vrouwenwerk,’’ Dagblad van Zuid-Holland en ’s Gravenhage, July 29, 1898. Hoven 1899, 2:16. Vermeeren 1898, 12–13. ‘‘Insulinde op Insulinde iii,’’ Insulinde, July 19, 1898. ntv 1898i, 21; Hoven 1899, 2:14. Cecile played the piano (Pollmann 1984, 4). H. Heineken-Daum. ‘‘De plannen der muziekcommissie van de Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid te ’s Gravenhage,’’ Weekblad voor muziek, June 11, 1898. This was done by one J. van Oldenbarnevelt, Weekblad voor muziek, June 11, 1898. A. v. Br. [Breull], ‘‘Muzeik en vrouwenarbeid,’’ De kroniek, August 14, 1898. H. Heineken-Daum, ‘‘De plannen der muziekcommissie van de Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid te ’s Gravenhage,’’ Weekblad voor muziek, June 11, 1898. Brom 1931, 156.

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notes to chapter four

43 The performances in Arnhem sparked off the first scholarly study of gamelan music. The results were published in Groneman 1890. 44 Kunst 1942, 25. 45 Montijn 1989, 13; Bossenbroek 1996, 156–57. 46 Haagsche Courant, August 18, 1898. 47 Quoted by Brom 1931, 222–24. 48 See MacKenzie 1986; Said 1993. 49 Dr. A. A. Fokker, who also spoke at the conference on the Dutch East Indies, wrote an essay about this for the Amsterdamsche Courant, July 21, 1898. 50 I. H. [Ida Heijermans], ‘‘Brieven over de Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ Eigen haard, August 20, 1898. 51 ‘‘Losse grepen,’’ Evolutie, August 10, 1898. 52 H., ‘‘Uit de hofstad,’’ Recht voor allen, August 21, 1898. 53 Evolutie, August 24, 1898. 54 Keating 1976, 14. 55 Rabinowitz 1998. 56 nrc, August 27, 1898. 57 Schwartz 1998, 202. 58 McClintock 1995, 58. 59 See Fabian 1983. 60 Hooijer 1898, 195. 61 Mitchell 1989, 223, 227–28. 62 iiav, ntv-239, minutes of the West Indies Committee (10/3/1897). On the use of mannequins, see Schwartz 1998, 184–85. 63 De Cauter 1989, 134–44. 64 Jungius 1897, 4. 65 Braun 1992, 161–205; Fasseur 1998. 66 Abeling 1996, 108–44. See also Te Velde 1990. 67 Braun 1992, 163. 68 ‘‘Huldeblijk aan Koningin Wilhelmina,’’ De huisvrouw, October 24, 1896. Also see Everard 1991. 69 ‘‘De Koningin in het feminisme,’’ Evolutie, November 2, 1898. 70 ‘‘Nat. tentoonstelling van vrouwenarbeid,’’ Het Volksdagblad, March 16, 1898. 71 Weimann 1981, 137, 270–71. 72 Kieler 1897. 73 Van de Loo 1996, 24. 74 Karstkarel 1988, 89. 75 iiav, ntv-2, minutes of the general meeting in Utrecht (3/17/1897). 76 kha, archives of Emma’s private secretary, A-47-X: nos. 21, 161, 163, 165–68, 171, 174–75; and A50-XXa-1: nos. 315–16. This involved the East Indies Committee, the Committee for Industry Schools for Girls, the Visual Arts Committee, and the Music Committee. iiav, ntv-235, ‘‘Aan de vrouwen in Nederlandsch Oost-Indië en aan allen die in onze O.-I. bezittingen belang stellen!’’

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77 kha, archives of Emma’s private secretary, A47-X-161, letter from the ntv board signed by Cecile Goekoop and Hendrina Scholten-Commelin and addressed to the queen regent (12/13/1897) and a draft reply (12/15/1897). 78 iiav, ntv-20, first newsletter (February 1898), 36–37. 79 For Thérèse Schwartze’s career, see Hollema and Kouwenhoven 1998. kha, archives of Emma’s private secretary, A47-X-167, letter from Sientje Mesdag-van Houten, Maria Bilders-van Bosse, and Barbara van Houten to the queen regent (5/19/1898) plus draft reply. 80 ntv 1898a, 408. 81 kha, archives of Emma’s private secretary, A47-X-168, letter from the ntv board to the queen regent (June 1898) plus draft reply (6/23/1898). 82 ‘‘Tentoonstelling van vrouwenarbeid,’’ De Amsterdammer, July 17, 1898. 83 Grever 1999a. 84 Jeanne Voorbeijtel, ‘‘Bespreking over den maatschappelijken toestand der vrouw op 29 en 30 Augustus (slot),’’ Vrouwenarbeid, September 10, 1897. The conference programs, available beforehand, listed the following speakers: 2:30 p.m., Miss P. M. Heringa on the Groningen Women’s League; 3:30 p.m., Mrs. Versluys-Poelman on women’s suffrage (ntv 1899d). 85 Ibid. 86 ‘‘De koningin in het feminisme,’’Evolutie, November 2, 1898. 87 Poeze et al. 1986, 23–26; nrc, August 30, 1898. 88 Te Velde 1992. 89 ‘‘De koningin in het feminisme,’’ Evolutie, November 2, 1898. 90 kha, G28, no. 3,Wilhelmina to Lady De Kock (11/13/1898), qtd. in Fasseur 1998, 195. 91 Grever 1994b, 70–72. 5 . C O L O N I A L I S M O N D I S P L AY

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Poeze et al. 1986, 24. Idema 1924, 104. Legêne 1998. About Dutch feminism, see Burton 1994; Jansen 1997; and Coté 1997. Jansz 1990, 100–34; Bossenbroek 1996. Locher-Scholten 2000. McClintock 1995, 38; MacKenzie 1986. Mohanty 1988; Burton 1994. iiav, ntv-239, minutes of the West Indies Exhibit Committee (12/11/1897). Jungius 1897, 11–12. iiav, ntv-335, circular letter by A. H. van Wijlen. The call for contributions was published in several newspapers, one of which was Suriname, April 27, 1897. 12 iiav, ntv-2, minutes of the general meeting in Utrecht (11/26/1896). 13 iiav, ntv-2, minutes of the general meeting in Utrecht (3/17/1897).

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14 Heys 1995, 69–71. 15 Proceedings of the Second Chamber 1892–93, eighth meeting (10/18/1892), 138. 16 Proceedings of the Second Chamber 1892–93, ninth meeting (10/19/1892), 158. 17 Heys 1995, 69–71. 18 ntv 1898i, 9. 19 ‘‘Gemengel nieuws,’’ Haagsche Courant, July 12, 1898. 20 ntv 1898i, 9. 21 ntv 1898i, 10; ntv [1896/97], 19. 22 iiav, biographical files, ‘‘Ter gedachtenis’’ (about Anna M. Gerth van Wijk), undated newspaper article. The guide did not mention an author, but according to a newspaper article, Anna Gerth van Wijk had compiled it. ‘‘Gemenga nieuws,’’ Haagsche Courant, July 6, 1898. 23 This weekly was called Insulinde, just like the exhibition kampong. Insulinde: Weekblad gewijd aan koloniale zaken, a weekly devoted to colonial affairs, was published between 1896 and 1898 in The Hague. There was no formal contact between the exhibition’s Insulinde and the weekly. Its editor in chief, Rudolf van Sandick, did refer to ‘‘our namesake’’ regularly and with enthusiasm. 24 Auerbach 1999, 100–104. 25 Van Wesemael 1997, 189. 26 The examples are taken from Grand album 1868, 11, 13, 15, 21, 45, 51, 85–89. 27 See Kretschmer 1999, 82. 28 Ibid., 91–93. 29 Faber and Wachlin 1990, 4; Greenhalgh 1988, 85. 30 Coombes 1987, 154–58. 31 Greenhalgh 1988, 86; Mitchell 1989, 221. 32 Coombes (1988, 59) writes about this paradox: ‘‘Consequently, they cultivated at one and the same time, both a sense of the availability and the containability of those societies represented. The ‘villages’ successfully fostered a feeling of geographical proximity, while the sense of ‘spectacle’ was calculated to preserve the cultural divide.’’ 33 Faber and Wachlin 1990, 2. 34 Greenhalgh 1988, 86. 35 Van Wesemael (1997, 191–95) points out that the World Exposition in Paris of 1867 was the first event to experiment with habitat expositions. 36 Gudehus and Rasmussen (1992, 114) mentions 32 million visitors. 37 Goddefroy boasted about the fact that eminent French people like Emile Zola and Gustave Eiffel came to see his exhibit (Feith 1910, 71). 38 Van Baarsel (1994, 115) could not detect a trace of contemporary criticism on the nature of such an exposition. Goddefroy called the Africans ‘‘pure wild people,’’ ‘‘dogs,’’ and ‘‘slaves.’’ 39 Montijn 1989, 23. 40 Ibid., 12.

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41 Bernard probably met Goddefroy when the latter arrived from The Hague with the Angolans. 42 Greenhalgh 1988, 89. 43 Alexander Cohen, letter to the editor, Het Vaderland, September 29, 1898. 44 Naber’s mother wrote enthusiastic letters about this exhibition in Amsterdam. Naber 1939, 27, 28. 45 ‘‘De Javaantjes,’’ Telegraaf, September 29, 1898. 46 On October 4, 1898, Lucardie-Daum wrote a letter to the editor of Insulinde in which she mentioned that she had heard nothing but positive things about this group from a reliable person in Vienna. 47 Rosenberg, Vaillant, and Valentijn 1988, 335. 48 Cornelia van der Hart was an artist who painted, drew, etched, and illustrated. She was born in the Dutch East Indies in 1851. 49 ntv 1898i, 37. The names are spelled in accordance with their spelling in the guide to the kampong. 50 Poeze et al. 1986, 28. 51 In 1896 and 1897, the Ashanti had been put on display there. The ‘‘Congo negroes’’ were mentioned in Het Vaderland, September 29, 1898. 52 Lucardie-Daum, letter to the editor, Insulinde, October 4, 1898. 53 Java-bode, October 29, 1898. On the distinction between performance and display, see Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1998 and Rony 1996. 54 V. S., ‘‘Insulinde op Insulinde V,’’ Insulinde, August 30, 1898. 55 Poeze et al. 1986, 29–32. 56 ‘‘Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid, door een Haagsche V,’’ Algemeen Handelsblad, August 16, 1898. 57 ‘‘Nellie over de Javanen in Kampong Insulinde,’’ Insulinde, August 30, 1898. 58 See Morrison 1992; hooks 1990; McClintock 1995; Young 1995; and Stoler 1995. 59 We would like to thank Rahany Gramberg for pointing this out in her master’s thesis (1998). 60 Wachlin (1994) describes the history of this photographic studio, which had great impact on how the Dutch East Indies were represented. 61 A. A. Fokker, ‘‘Het Javaansche tooneel op de Tentoonstelling voor Vrouwenarbeid,’’ Dagblad van Zuid-Holland en ’s Gravenhage, July 16, 1898. 62 Fabian (1983) analyzes how European cultural anthropologists tend to ascribe ‘‘timelessness’’ to other cultures. It would be interesting to compare this tendency to the way in which women’s history was long disregarded in Europe. 63 Wilhelmina Drucker, ‘‘De tentoonstelling,’’ Evolutie, July 14, 1898. 64 ‘‘Insulinde op Insulinde ii,’’ Insulinde, July 19, 1898. 65 ‘‘Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid V, door eene Haagsche,’’ Algemeen Handelsblad, August 16, 1898. The term pasar malam was coined in Insulinde. In a sense, the event described was a precursor to the annual East Indies pasar malam tradition in The Hague. The 1898 event was more limited, however: it

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70 71 72 73

74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81

82

83

notes to chapter five promoted Javanese culture only. We would like to thank the Tong Tong Foundation for this information. ‘‘Pasar malam in ‘Insulinde,’’’ Insulinde, August 23, 1898. ‘‘Een bruiloft in Insulinde,’’ Haagsche Courant, July 23, 1898. ‘‘Insulinde op Insulinde V,’’ Insulinde, August 30, 1898. Insulinde, September 27, 1898, qtd. in Poeze et al. 1986, 28. Insulinde’s editor in chief Van Sandick now quoted from a conversation he had had with ‘‘one of the Javanese women’’ several weeks before. In August he had reported that they had said that Bernard had promised them they could return to Java as soon as the exhibition was over. In late September, he ‘‘quoted’’ them again. This time they reportedly said that Bernard had gone back on his word. ‘‘Ingezonden,’’ Dagblad van Zuid-Holland en ’s Gravenhage, September 24, 1898. Alexander Cohen, ‘‘Ingezonden stukken: De Javaantjes,’’ Het Vaderland, September 29, 1898. [Iris], ‘‘Haagsche vlugmaren,’’ Java-bode, October 8, 1898. Cremer may later have regretted this. In 1900, a group of Javanese was asked to travel to Paris as part of the Dutch contribution to the World Exposition in Paris, but to the dismay of the organizing committee ‘‘none of the natives wanted to leave their country.’’ The Javanese in question hailed from Parakan, not far from Solo, so they might have heard about the 1898 fiasco. Michiels van Verduynen 1901, 65, 207. [Iris], ‘‘Haagsche vlugmaren,’’ Java-bode, October 28, 1898. Dagblad van Zuid-Holland en ’s Gravenhage, September 24, 1898. Haagsche Courant, September 28, 1898. Poeze et al. 1986, 29. Lucas 1986, 81. Fasseur 1979, 122; Breman 1989; Quack 1915, 296–301. Swaving 1892. v.S., ‘‘Insulinde op Insulinde,’’ Insulinde, July 12, 1898. The financial records (ara/na ii, Cremer-219) do not reveal any direct, personal donations from Cremer. For the role of the government in covering up violent excesses, see Breman 1989. Bossenbroek 1996, 103. The list of donors included in the first annual report of the Deli tobacco company included Peter W. Janssen, Cremer’s successor and business manager (ntv 1898a, 353). On November 29, 1898, Insulinde reported on the debate in parliament. See Proceedings of the Second Chamber, fourteenth meeting (11/14/1898), 231. Janssen also put money into the Amsterdam School for Social Work established in 1899 (Waaldijk 1996, 25). It would be interesting to investigate what other private social initiatives were financed with ‘‘colonial’’ profits. ntv 1898a, 344. On June 29, 1898, the Nederlands Dagblad reprinted a story from De locomotief, describing how Kartini’s father had put his daughters’ contribution on public display back home. A few years later, Kartini and her sisters organized the export of Japara-made wood carvings, some of which they carved

notes to chapter five

84 85 86

87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98

99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108

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personally. Kartini 1987, 197; Wassing-Visser 1995, 116–23; Keesing 1996, 18– 19. ntv 1898a, 353. Ibid., 352; Langeveld (1998, 55–62) recounts how unarmed men, women, and children lost their lives in these attacks. In November 1897, Nellie van Kol, in an ‘‘address by women,’’ had called on the Second Chamber to end the war in Aceh. Kol, ‘‘Oorlog of niet,’’ Vrouw, September 25, 1897; ‘‘Eene waarschuwing,’’ De huisvrouw, November 26, 1897; ‘‘Maandelijkse revue,’’ De Indische gids 19, 2 (1897): 1223–464. As a member of parliament, Henri van Kol had put forward a motion to investigate the consequences of the Aceh war and the chances of ending it. Proceedings of the Second Chamber 1897–98, eleventh meeting (11/16/1898), 109. ‘‘Insulinde op Insulinde iii,’’ Insulinde, July 26, 1898. Geertruida A. N. van Zuylen-Tromp, ‘‘Oost-Indische rubriek,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, August 9, 1898. Van de Loo 1996, 30–45. Geertruida A. N. van Zuylen-Tromp, ‘‘Nijverheid en kunstnijverheid in OostIndië,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, September 27, 1898. ntv 1989, 364. Van de Loo 1996, 42–45. H. D. Levyssohn Norman had instigated the ‘‘first official investigation into a branch of Javanese industry.’’ Rouffaer and Juynboll 1900, 223. Van de Loo 1996, 44–45. See also chapter 2 of this book. Stoler 1989 and 1992. The exhibition conference on the colonies dealt extensively with this topic. Gertruida A. N. van Zuylen-Tromp, ‘‘Nijverheid en kunstnijverheid in OostIndië,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, September 27, 1898. Rouffaer and Juynboll 1900, vii. Poeze et al. 1986, 30; Rouffaer and Juynboll 1900, xi. The first installment was published in 1899, and subsequent installments followed up to 1914. Kartono also made available photographs of his sisters making batik. Keesing 1996, 148–49; Legêne and Waaldijk 2001. Geertruida A. N. van Zuylen-Tromp, ‘‘Kunstnijverheid in Oost-Indië,’’ Insulinde, October 25, 1898. Van der Hart 1898, 368. ‘‘Losse grepen,’’ Evolutie, August 10, 1898. Geertruida A. N. van Zuylen-Tromp, ‘‘Kunstnijverheid in Oost-Indië,’’ Insulinde, October 25, 1898. Catalogus 1894, 7; ntv 1898a, 14. Bossenbroek 1996, 49–84. Coté 1997, 315–18. Locher-Scholten 1981, 198. Montijn 1989, 13; Michiels van Verduynen 1901, 202, 204–6. ntv [1897/98] mentions two members in Batavia and one in Tandjong Pura.

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111 112 113 114

115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122

123 124 125 126 127

128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135

notes to chapter five The overseas committees in Curaçao and Surinam consisted of six and thirty members, respectively. Van Sandick 1898, 176. ntv 1898a, 349–50; her contributions were praised even before the exhibition opened. ‘‘Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ Nederlandsch Dagblad, June 29, 1898. Kartini 1923, 7–8. Ibid., 7. Ibid., 11. ‘‘Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ Nederlandsch Dagblad, June 29, 1898, quotes a description of Kartini’s contribution in De locomotief. Kartini 1923, 7–8. Kartini 1923, 8. Ibid., x–xi. Keesing 1996, 29. Kartini 1987, 125. See also Wassing-Visser 1995, 121. Kartini 1923, 10. She probably read the report published in Insulinde. ‘‘Insulinde op Insulinde iii,’’ Insulinde, August 26, 1898. ntv 1898g, 3. Van Panhuys 1898, 16. ‘‘Tentoonstelling van dames-handwerken,’’ De Surinamer, June 16, 1898; A. H. van Wijlen, ‘‘Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ Suriname, June 27. 1897; Onze West, November 17, 1897; Oprechte Haarlemsche Courant, February 12, 1898. De Surinamer, June 4, 1898. iiav, ntv-239, minutes of the West Indies Committee (2/7/1898). iiav, ntv-239, minutes of the West Indies Committee (5/10/1898). iiav, ntv-239, minutes of the West Indies Committee (1/28/1898). De Savornin Lohman (1909, 104–43) gives her view on the conflict that culminated in her father’s discharge. In her analysis, this hinged on the Protestant cabinet’s betrayal: even before her father’s fall, it had wanted to appoint another governor. She rejects all allegations that her father was anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic. She does not mention the violence. According to her, her father was popular with the black population in Surinam. Her own observations are steeped in racial prejudice. Buddingh 1995, 222–26. De Savornin Lohman (1909, 119) blames his discharge on nepotism and party-political machinations in the Netherlands. Everard 1992, 105–6. iiav, ntv-239, minutes of the West Indies Committee (8/13/1898). iiav, ntv-239, minutes of the West Indies Committee (4/3/1897). iiav, ntv-239, minutes of the West Indies Committee [3 or 4?/1898]. Goede tijding, June 15, 1897. iiav, ntv-239, minutes of the West Indies Committee (11/7/1897). Onze West, November 17, 1897.

notes to chapter five 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143

144 145

146 147 148

149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159

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iiav, ntv-28, Gallé to Pekelharing-Doyer (11/30/1898). iiav, ntv-28, De Savornin Lohman to the board (11/27/1898). iiav, ntv-239, minutes of the West Indies Committee (1/28/1898). iiav, ntv-239, minutes of the West Indies Committee (12/11/1897). ntv 1898a, 59–64; iiav, ntv-239, minutes of the West Indies Committee (2/7/ 1898). iiav, ntv-240, Haighton to her fellow committee members [10?/1898]; and iiav, ntv-240, Cohen Henriquez to the West Indies Committee (12/16/1898). Elise A. Haighton, ‘‘Enkele oogenblikken in de rubriek West-Indië,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, July 28, 1898. iiav, ntv-239, minutes of the West Indies Committee (11/7/1897). A koto misi is a woman of African descent dressed in traditional costume. The Paramaribo committee had called for a koto misi to travel to the Netherlands in an article entitled ‘‘Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ Goede tijding, August 31, 1897. Van Putten and Zantinge 1993. Ten Hove and Dragtenstein 1997. Thanks to Peggy Plet for finding this reference. Also ‘‘Sasa.’’ Perhaps another form of sisi, a term denoting a Surinamese (slave or former slave) woman who lived in concubinage with a white Dutchman (Henar-Hewitt 1990, 41). Elise A. Haighton, ‘‘Enkele oogenblikken in de rubriek West-Indië,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, July 28, 1898. iiav, ntv-240, West Indies Mail Service to Scholten-Commelin (8/12/1898). iiav, ntv-239, minutes of the West Indies Committee (5/10/1898). The definition of her working hours (‘‘until sundown’’) is strange, since the exhibit closed before sundown. iiav, ntv-239, minutes of the West Indies Committee (6/30/1898). iiav, ntv-239, minutes of the West Indies Committee (10/1/1898). Henar-Hewitt (1990) describes the history of this costume. Van Putten and Zantinge 1993. Henar-Hewitt 1990, 10–11. Ibid., 20. We are grateful to Twie Tjoa for helping us obtain this information from Christien van Russel-Henar. Jeane Voorbeijtel, ‘‘De glorie van het ongeziene,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, July 28, 1898. Elise A. Haighton, ‘‘Eenige oogenblikken in de rubriek West-Indië,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, July 28, 1898. Elise A. Haighton, ‘‘Eenige ogenblikken in de rubriek West-Indië iii,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, September 3, 1898. ‘‘Paramaribo, 16 Nov. 1897,’’ Onze West, November 17, 1898. See Legêne 1998, 384–89. Elise A. Haighton, ‘‘Eenige ogenblikken in de rubriek West-Indië,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, July 28, 1898; ntv 1898a, 59–64; iiav, ntv-239, minutes of the West Indies Committee (11/7/1897).

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160 See Voorhoeve 1953, 1–24. ntv 1898a, 62. 161 iiav, ntv-243, handwritten memo by Van Panhuys. 162 Short announcement of Van Panhuys, De vrouw in Ned. West-Indië, Tijdschrift voor geschiedenis en aardrijkskunde 14 (1899). 163 Even Van Panhuys’s first publication after the exhibition (Van Panhuys 1899) betrayed no special interest in gender. 164 Bosch 1994, 131–48; Grever 1994b, 113–31. 165 iiav, ntv-243, handwritten memo by Van Panhuys. 166 iiav, ntv-239, minutes of the West Indies Committee (2/14/1898). 167 Ibid. 168 Van Panhuys 1898. 169 Ibid., 11. 170 Ibid., 26–27. 6. EXHIBITION IN PRINT AND VISUAL IMPRESSIONS

1 Jacqueline Sandberg to Karel Alberdingk Thijm (9/19/1898), in Royaards-Sandberg 1981, 245. 2 ‘‘Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ Volksdagblad, September 21, 1898. 3 hgm, Diepenbrock collection, Cecile Goekoop to her sister Elisabeth (6/12/ 1898). 4 hgm, Diepenbrock collection, Cecile Goekoop to her sister Elisabeth (5/26/ 1896). 5 Ibid. 6 Den Bosch and The Hague Municipal Archives, Records Office. For Cecile’s biography, see Pollmann 1984 and Dieteren 1998. 7 hgm, Diepenbrock collection, Cecile Goekoop to her sister Elisabeth (9/25/ 1893). 8 Jackson 1959. 9 hgm, Diepenbrock collection, Cecile Goekoop to her sister Elisabeth [10 or 11?/ 1893]. 10 hgm, Diepenbrock collection, Cecile Goekoop to her sister Elisabeth (11/23/ 1897). 11 iiav, ntv-346, undated newspaper clipping signed by Ida Heijermans. 12 Braun 1998, 254. Braun quotes Romein (1967, 48), a passage about the loss of the bourgeoisie’s inner certainty. See also chapter 1 of this book. 13 Borel 1898, 121–22. 14 In turn, the history of how the novel was interpreted reveals the shift in focus of women’s history studies in the 1980s and 1990s: Pollmann 1984; Braun 1992; Bosch 1994; Van Eijl 1994; De Haan 1992; Dieteren 1998; Dudink 1997; and Van Drenth 1997. 15 Bosch 1994, 128–31. 16 hgm, Diepenbrock collection, Cecile Goekoop to her sister Elisabeth (8/11/ 1897).

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17 hgm, Diepenbrock collection, Cecile Goekoop to her sister Elisabeth (8/23/ 1896). She repeatedly sent parts of the manuscript and proofs to Elisabeth, thanking her sister profusely for corrections and suggested changes. 18 Goekoop-de Jong van Beek en Donk 1984, 466. 19 hgm, Diepenbrock collection, Cecile Goekoop to her sister Elisabeth (6/19/ 1896). 20 hgm, Diepenbrock collection, Cecile Goekoop to her sister Elisabeth (8/19/ [1896]). 21 For the significance of the weekly reception—a so-called jour on which upperclass ladies made social calls—and other such rituals, see Kuiper 1998, 207– 10. Kuiper does not mention the crucial role of women in maintaining these rituals. 22 hgm, Diepenbrock collection, Cecile Goekoop to her sister Elisabeth (1/3/1897). 23 hgm, Diepenbrock collection, Cecile Goekoop to her sister Elisabeth (11/6/ 1896). 24 hgm, Diepenbrock collection, Adriaan Goekoop to Elisabeth (12/9/1898). The same letter is quoted in Pollmann 1984, 5. 25 hgm, Diepenbrock collection, Cecile Goekoop to her sister Elisabeth (3/23/ 1897). 26 hgm, Diepenbrock collection, Cecile Goekoop to her sister Elisabeth (9/17/ 1896). In this letter, she also calls Hendrina Scholten-Commelin ‘‘a dear old soul, . . . it is touching to see how she quietly and full of dignity turns her immeasurable suffering into work for others! A bit too bourgeois for our committee, I find, and not open-minded enough.’’ 27 hgm, Diepenbrock collection, Cecile Goekoop to her sister Elisabeth (8/19/ [1896]). 28 hgm, Diepenbrock collection, Cecile Goekoop to her sister Elisabeth [2?/1898]. 29 hgm, Diepenbrock collection, Cecile Goekoop to her sister Elisabeth (8/11/ 1897). 30 hgm, Diepenbrock collection, Cecile Goekoop to her sister Elisabeth [1?/1898]. 31 ‘‘Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ Volksdagblad, September 29, 1898. 32 ‘‘De tentoonstelling van vrouwenarbeid,’’ De kroniek, July 17, 1898. 33 hgm, Diepenbrock collection, Cecile Goekoop to her sister Elisabeth [2?/1898]. 34 hgm, Diepenbrock collection, Cecile Goekoop to her sister Elisabeth (5/4/ 1896). 35 Schoon 1995, 149. 36 hgm, Diepenbrock collection, Cecile Goekoop to her sister Elisabeth [2?/1898]. 37 In the Netherlands, her fellow board members sympathized with the president. iiav, ntv-297, C. Worp-Roland Holst to E. Diepenbrock (1/31/1899). 38 Couperus 1996. See Van Geest-Jacobs and Klein 1985; and Van Vliet 1996, 17– 57. 39 iiav, ntv-286, M. [Mary] v. Dijk to Elisabeth Diepenbrock (11/24/1898). 40 Dieteren 1998, 54, 58. 41 De Savornin Lohman 1898, 46, 62. The brochure was reprinted twice in 1899.

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46

47 48 49

50

51 52 53 54 55

56 57 58 59 60

notes to chapter six See also Van Vliet 1996, 26. On the ‘‘Dutch Uncle Tom’s Cabin’’ and Hilda, see also Bel 1993, 148–51. Earlier, Anna de Savornin Lohman had protested against a tribute to Cecile Goekoop in her capacity as president of the exhibition, because Goekoop had allowed the kampong to stay open after sundown (see chapter 2 of this book). Van den Berg 1986. The first women to receive a degree in literature in the Netherlands were Aleida Nijland in 1896 and Hermine Moquette in 1898 (Grever 1994b, 115). For women’s reading rooms, see Duyvendak 2003, Van Gent 1991 and Prinse 1988. The Arts and Sciences Committee consisted of nine members and three special correspondents, including Betsy Perk. Seven members are known to have been published writers. One had been educated in the Amsterdam University Arts and Philosophy Department. Grever 1994b, 60, 119. The society had been founded in 1766. Other female members of the society were also active in the exhibition organization, for example, Cornélie Huygens, Louise de Neve, Emilie Knappert, and Aleida Nijland. ntv [1896/97], 15. Johanna A. Wolters, ‘‘Onze leeszaal,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, July 9, 1898. ‘‘Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid: Kijkjes vii,’’ nrc, August 2, 1898; ‘‘Kijkjes op de Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid I,’’ Belang en recht, July 15, 1898. iiav, ntv-208, circular letter from the Photography Committee (headed by Charlotte Polkijn); and ‘‘De fotografie op de Nationale Tentoonstelling voor Vrouwenarbeid te ’s-Hage,’’ Lux (1898): 559–61. ‘‘Wandelingen over de tentoonstelling ii,’’ De huisvrouw, July 30, 1898; ‘‘Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid: Kijkjes vii,’’ nrc, August 2, 1898. iiav, ntv-170, Cecile Goekoop to the Arts and Sciences Committee (2/18/1898). ntv 1898a, 101; ntv-169, Mrs. J. A. C. Kan-Verweij to the Arts and Sciences Committee (June 1897). iiav, ntv-169, Cecile Goekoop to Johanna Wolters (6/17/1898). iiav, ntv-169, C. V. Gerritsen to the Arts and Science Committee [Johanna Wolters?] (6/3/1898). The Gerritson Collection is now available online: http:// gerritsen.chadwyck.com. See also http://www.alettajacobs.org. iiav, ntv-169, Naber to Cecile Goekoop (6/19/1898); Cecile to Johanna Wolters (6/17/1898; 6/20/1898). Johanna A. Wolters, ‘‘Onze leeszaal,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, July 9, 1898. iiav, ntv-170, see the remarks by committee members at the bottom of Cecile Goekoop’s letter to the Arts and Sciences Committee (2/18/1898). ntv 1898a, 101–83. The Latin version of Anna Maria van Schurman’s Eucleria was published in 1673. Our thanks to Mirjam de Baar for this information.

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61 ntv 1898a, 392–97. 62 iiav, ntv-170, circular letter about the plans for Vrouwenarbeid. 63 For example, Elise Knuttel-Fabius’s article about children’s books, ‘‘Een praatje over kinderlectuur (naar aanleiding van de verzameling aanwezig in de Leeszaal der Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid),’’Vrouwenarbeid, September 15, 1898. 64 iiav, ntv-81, Johanna Naber to ? (2/12/1898). 65 J. Voorbeijtel, ‘‘In ‘t pers-bureau,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, September 22, 1898. 66 iiav, ntv-171. 67 iiav, ntv-169, Römelingh to Cecile Goekoop (5/31/1897); Cecile Goekoop to Johanna Wolters (6/2/1897). In 1909, Römelingh and Catharina Lubach established a publishing company under the name of G. Römelingh & Co. (Everard 1991; Grever 1994b, 188, 193; De Wilde 2001). 68 iiav, ntv-169, Römelingh to a ‘‘Miss’’ [Johanna Wolters?] (7/11/1897). Römelingh wanted to involve the publishers in order to be able to sell books during the exhibition. The profits of the sales would go to the ntv. 69 iiav, ntv-74, Römelingh to Groshans (11/7/1897). 70 ntv 1898a, 20. 71 Römelingh 1898; iiav, ntv-196, Römelingh to Groshans (6/23/1898). 72 iiav, ntv-169, Römelingh to Johanna Wolters (4/13/1898). 73 G. v. H., ‘‘Catalogus van boeken door Nederlandsche vrouwen geschreven,’’ De Amsterdammer, September 14, 1898. 74 On Römelingh, see De Wilde 2001. 75 See section ‘‘ntv Publications and Related Documents’’ in the references. 76 iiav, ntv-284, Annette Versluys-Poelman to Elisabeth Diepenbrock (8/1/1898; 8/15/1898; 8/19/1898). 77 iiav, ntv-20, sixth newsletter (May 1898), 86. It is unclear which specific funding request this refers to. 78 The publishing company had to be financially cautious during this period. Since Willem Versluys’s brother had sold out in 1894, Annette Versluys-Poelman had to help her husband run the business (Everard 1985, 117–18). 79 iiav, ntv-284, Annette Versluys-Poelman to Elisabeth Diepenbrock (8/1/1898). 80 Ibid. 81 ‘‘Onze leestafel,’’ Evolutie, November 1, 1898. 82 ‘‘Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ nrc, September 14, 1898. 83 ‘‘Gemengde berichten: Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ nrc, October 19, 1898. To view the prizes, visitors had to pay an entrance fee of 10 cents. This money went to the Association for Poor Relief (Vereeniging Armenzorg). 84 Cornelia van der Hart was given the ‘‘Sumatra-type granary’’ in appreciation for her work for the Insulinde Committee. 85 Various copies of the poster have survived. The iiav owns one. 86 ‘‘Gemengde berichten: Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ nrc, October 19, 1898.

264

notes to chapter six

87 ntv [1996/97], 18. The condemnation of amateur art is leitmotif in Hilda van Suylenburg. 88 Scheen 1981, 230. 89 ntv [1996/97], 17–18. 90 ntv [1996/97], 17. 91 Hollema 1989, 8. 92 Ibid. The enlarged eyes also made her face look younger, which helped to cultivate the image of innocence built around Wilhelmina. 93 Kyrova-Klerk 1980, 6–7. 94 In the kampong, Cornelia van der Hart’s artistic direction had allowed the integration of various forms of art into the exhibit (see chapter 5). 95 Van der Linden 1998, 51. See also Halbertsma et al. 1998. 96 ntv 1898b, 6. 97 De Jong van Beek en Donk 1918, 321. 98 We checked newspapers and periodicals, as well as the press documentation of the State Documentation Center for Art History (Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, rkd). 99 ‘‘Kunst op de Tentoonstelling voor Vrouwenarbeid te ’s-Gravenhage,’’ Arnhemsche Courant, July 15, 1898. Arnhem’s interest is intriguing and might have been promoted by Betsy Perk. She was the association’s Arnhem correspondent and actively promoted interest in the artistic and intellectual feats of women. See also chapter 2. 100 See Oele, Rijsingen, and Donk 1989, 7–13. 101 All letters by Gesina Mesdag-van Houten, M. Bilders-van Bosse, Barbara van Houten, Adrienne van Hogendorp-’s Jacob, W. J. L. Kiehl, S. Bisschop-Robertson, B. Akersloot-Berg, A. Abrahams, Jo Koster, Thérèse Schwartze, and Anna Veegens, kept in the Artists’ Letters collection at the Hague Municipal Archives, were checked for references to the exhibition. We would like to thank Jeroen Kapelle for his help. 102 As far as we have been able to establish, Anje Boswijk is the only author committed to a women’s history perspective to point out the work of male artists during the exhibition. She mentions Israels’s presence (Boswijk 1994, 4). 103 Wagner 1961, 53. 104 Perhaps Toorop himself later had new copies made without the raffle text (Hefting 1989, 104). 105 De Wilde (1982, 247–48) describes how the poster later adorned the cover of C. V. Gerritsen’s library catalog published in France. The catalog also contained Toorop’s interpretation of the lithograph. 106 ‘‘Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ nrc, September 14, 1898. 107 Qtd. in ibid. Toorop’s letters are kept in Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Royal Dutch Library). 108 I. [Isaac Israels] to Lientje [Royaards] (7/23/1898), in Royaards-Sandberg 1981, 475.

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109 Vellekoop 1997, 18. 110 ntv [1898i], 40. 111 Various reproductions of these paintings are in the rkd. The current whereabouts of all these works is unknown. 112 Scholten 1997, 15. 113 Incidentally, Israels went to paint at the Prince of Solo’s court. Wagner 1962, 13. 114 He did do some work for De Wekker, a cooperative store set up after the exhibition. He drew a D for the store’s name, for example (Van Wezel 1985, 8–11). In November 1899, Toorop wrote to G. H. Marius that he did not consider an exposition of Dutch and Dutch East Indies industry a good idea. At the time, he apparently also had contacts with the East-West Association (Vereeniging OostWest), an association founded by Geertuida van Zuylen-Tromp to boost sales of products from the East Indies in the Netherlands (Van Wezel 1985, 12–13). His notions about original Javanese art tie in with Van Zuylen-Tromp’s ideas about industry in the Dutch East Indies. 115 Reisel 1967, 60. 116 This process was repeated in women’s historiography about the exhibition (see note 102 of this chapter). 7 . C R E AT I N G A C O U N T E R P U B L I C

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Oprechte Haarlemsche Courant, September 3, 1898. Gudehus and Rasmussen 1992, 80, 87, 100. Klejman and Rochfort 1989, 54–56. For an overview of women’s conferences at nineteenth-century world expositions, see Grever 2000b, 19. ntv 1898e. In 1899, approximately 17 percent of Dutch households employed paid domestic help. Pott-Büter and Tijdens 1998, 198. Jungius 1897, 10; Poelstra (1996, 171) provides two figures: 146,444 on the basis of 1986–87 collected taxes and 189,585 based on 1899 labor statistics. ‘‘Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid: Kijkjes vi,’’ nrc, July 29, 1898. ‘‘Onze damesbeweging,’’ Recht voor allen, February 10, 1898 and February 11, 1898. Giebels 1989, 283. T. [Pieter L. Tak], ‘‘Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ De kroniek, December 19, 1897. ntv 1898j; ntv-301, correspondence about the domestic servants’ conference. iiav, ntv-301, Huygens to the Conference Committee (2/25/1898). Poelstra 1996, 219. ‘‘De Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ nrc, August 23, 1898. Poelstra (1996, 219) points out that the conference proceedings were not complete.

266

notes to chapter seven

17 ntv 1899c, 21; Cornélie Huygens, ‘‘Het dienstbodencongres op de Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ De Sociaaldemokraat, September 3, 1898; ‘‘Congresindrukken,’’ Evolutie, October 5, 1898. 18 ntv 1899c, 19–21. 19 ‘‘Vrouwencongressen,’’ Utrechtsch Nieuwsblad, August 25, 1898. 20 Cornélie Huygens, ‘‘Het dienstbodencongres op de Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ De Sociaaldemokraat, September 3, 1898. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid. 23 ntv 1899c. 24 iiav, ntv-188, ‘‘Vragenlijst van de Rubriek-Commissie voor Handel’’; ntv-189 contains replies and responses. 25 ntv 1899c, 16. 26 Shortly after the exhibition, Troelstra published a book in which he elaborated on his arguments vis-à-vis Huygens’s and Roland Holst’s arguments (Troelstra 1898). 27 T. [Pieter L. Tak], ‘‘Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ De kroniek, July 17, 1898. 28 ‘‘Nat. Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid. ’s-Gravenhage,’’ Het Volksdagblad, August 29, 1898. 29 ntv 1899b, 158. 30 Ibid., 137. 31 Ibid., 143. 32 Ibid., 157. 33 Ibid., 141. 34 Taken from ‘‘Feitenboek loopende van 2 Juli 1898–10 April 1902, van Henriëtte van Osselen-Spakler,’’ a contemporary diary, currently owned privately in Eindhoven. Our thanks to Jeroen Kapelle for providing us with this information. Naber 1908, 28; Muller-Lulofs 1949, 305. 35 Johanna W. Naber, ‘‘Besprekingen over vakopleiding voor vrouwen, tweede dag,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, July 19, 1898. 36 ntv 1898c, 228. 37 Ibid., 229. 38 Qtd. in De Meijer-van der Waerden 1960, 27. 39 iiav, ntv-290, letter by Suze [Groshans] (n.d.). 40 ntv 1898f, 129–31. 41 On the historical position of women teachers, see Van Essen 1990, 214–27. 42 iiav, ntv-268, responses collected by the Education Committee. 43 ntv 1898f, 225. 44 Paraphrase of J. A. Kosters’s words, qtd. in Johanna Naber, ‘‘Vierdaagsch Onderwijs-congres,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, August 16, 1898. 45 ntv 1899e, opening address. 46 Cornelia de Lange, m.d., ‘‘Verslag over den staat der ziekenverpleging in Nederland,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, August 23, 1898.

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47 ‘‘Over het vrouwen-congres te Parijs,’’ De huisvrouw, August 10, 1870; see also Grever 2000b, 19, 29. 48 ntv 1899f. 49 Johanna W. A. Naber, ‘‘Congres voor moeders en opvoedsters (eerste dag),’’ Vrouwenarbeid, September 17, 1898. 50 ntv 1899a, 15. 51 Johanna W. A. Naber, ‘‘Driedaagsche bijeenkomst tot bevordering der openbare zedelijkheid: Eerste dag,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, July 30, 1898. 52 ntv 1899a, 17. 53 Walkowitz 1992; De Vries 1997, 11–22, 267–77. 54 Nellie van Kol had lived in Batavia, Surabaya, and Buitenzorg for years. Her articles about life in the East Indies and her stories for children in the East Indies had brought her great fame (Dieteren 1989, 463). 55 ‘‘Insulinde op Insulinde iv,’’ Insulinde, August 2, 1898. 56 ntv 1898g, 237. 57 Ibid. 58 Ibid., 160–70. 59 Nellie van Kol, ‘‘Oorlog of niet,’’ De vrouw, September 25, 1897; ‘‘Eene Waarschuwing’’ De huisvrouw, November 26, 1897; ‘‘Maandelijkse Revue,’’ De Indische gids 19 (1897): 1223–464. 60 Belang en recht, qtd. in ibid., 1463. 61 ‘‘Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid,’’ De huisvrouw, November 20, 1897. 62 ‘‘Maandelijkse revue,’’ De Indische gid, October 15, 1897. 63 Idema 1924, 115. 64 Riley (1988, 44–66) has pointed out that the social arena in both Europe and America tended to be populated by women, who were experts as well as the objects of (state) intervention. 65 ntv 1898g, 8. 66 Nieuwenhuis (1988, 46) concludes that it was an ingrained habit to call earlier generations of Dutch people living in the East Indies ‘‘less civilized’’ and to complain about the lack of ‘‘class’’ in the Eurasian community. 67 See Willems et al. 1997, 7–11. 68 Bel 1993, 119. 69 Ming 1983. 70 ntv 1898g, 135. 71 Ibid., 13. 72 Goekoop-de Jong van Beek en Donk 1984, 358. 73 ntv 1898g, 142–43. 74 Ibid., 15. 75 Ibid., 45–85. 76 Ibid., 235. 77 Ibid., 154.

268

notes to chapter eight 8. AFTER THE SUMMER

1 The exhibition attracted over 94,000 paying visitors. Proceeds from ticket sales, donations, and the sale of goods yielded a profit of 22,000 Dutch guilders (or approximately U.S.$250,000 dollars in the year 2003; figures based on data from De Nederlandsche Bank). 2 The national bureau, established in 1901, was headed by Marie Jungius (Van Eijl 1994, 107–54). 3 Schnitger 1985; Poelstra 1996, 195, 223. On May 12, 1898, the first domestic servants union All for Each Other was established in The Hague. 4 Martina G. Kramers, ‘‘Nationale Vrouwenraad van Nederland,’’ Vrouwenarbeid, September 9, 1898. 5 Martina Kramers, ‘‘De Nationale Vrouwenraad,’’ Belang en recht, October 1, 1898. The meeting was called as a constituent assembly, but due to a lengthy debate on the prospective council’s objectives and structure, it ran until a late hour, and many of those attending went home. However, the remaining participants decided to go ahead and form a committee with Roosje Vos and Marie Jungius, whose task it was to found the Dutch umbrella organization. This committee first had to formulate the new council’s by-laws. Because of the resulting delay, the Dutch ncw was not officially founded until March 15, 1899. Still, the ncw regards October 29, 1898, as the real date of its establishment. 6 Elise Haighton, ‘‘Nederl. vrouwenraad en zijn aansluiting,’’ De Amsterdammer, April 2, 1899; ‘‘Terugblik op de vergadering van den Intern. Raad en het Intern. Congres van Vrouwen,’’ De Amsterdammer, July 16, 1899; ‘‘Indrukken,’’ Evolutie, May 3, 1900; Naber 1908, 60. The Dutch ncw’s first board of directors consisted of Lady Marianne Klerck-van Hogendorp (president), Marie RutgersHoitsema (vice president), Wilhelmina Drucker (treasurer), Martina Kramers (first secretary), and C. S. M. Kuenen (undersecretary). 7 The Dutch Woman’s Suffrage Association saw dramatic growth after 1908, the year when Amsterdam hosted various conferences of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance. Membership climbed from 5,400 in 1908 to 25,000 in 1919 (Bosch and Kloosterman 1990; Grever 1994b, 64–73). 8 Altink 1996, 21. 9 ‘‘Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid: De sluiting,’’ Dagblad van ZuidHolland en ’s Gravenhage, September 22, 1898. 10 Naber 1908, 34; Holtzer 1989, 148. The Dutch Women’s League for the Advancement of Moral Awareness, headed by Marianne Klerck-van Hogendorp, repeatedly appealed to Dutch women to support their campaign against stateregulated prostitution. 11 iiav, nvb-418, Propaganda-nummer maandblaadje vvvk (spring 1898). Schwegman and Withuis (1993, 559) argue that ‘‘the collective ‘maternal identity’ in late-nineteenth-century feminist thought was the justification on which women’s entry into the world and female citizenship were based.’’ However,

notes to chapter eight

12 13 14 15 16 17

18 19

20

269

our own research does not support this argument. For feminists’ use of the maternity argument in an international context, see Offen 2000, 213–56. Adams 1931, 343. iiav, ntv-346, undated newspaper clipping signed by Ida Heijermans. Auerbach reached the same conclusion about the London World’s Fair (1999, 151–58, 179). ntv [1899/1901], 4. kha, A50-XXa-140, no. 2595 (Queen Wilhelmina). We would like to thank Mineke Bosch for this information. Queen Wilhelmina and queen mother Emma had visited the 1898 exhibition. In 1913, they brought along young crown princess Juliana and showed even more interest. This time they were briefed in advance by the exhibition organizers and visited the grounds twice (Grever 1994b, 70–73, 75). Marga Altena points to the commercial use of company albums in this period. See Altena 2003. Enschede Municipal Archives, Tattersall & Holdsworth collection-166, photo album ‘‘Tattersall & Holdsworth: Herinnering aan 1898.’’ This album contains twelve black-and-white photographs, five of which were taken in the Hall of Industry. The Tattersall & Holdsworth collection in the Enschede archives also contains an album entitled ‘‘Photographieën’’ with its twenty-four photographs exclusively of the exhibition. The iiav owns a copy of this album identical to the one Jungius received as a present. The photograph that shows Yda has been retouched so that another woman seated at a desk on the far left is no longer visible. Evidently the image of the three women was staged. Van Putten and Zantinge 1993, 83–85. This book contains a picture of an angisa from the Surinaams Museum in Paramaribo with the same pattern that is on Louise Yda’s clothes in the postcard. According to Van Putten and Zantinge, the pattern is called Todo no abi wiwiri ma toku a tya loso, a Surinamese expression which translates as ‘‘frogs have no hair but they still have lice.’’ Another name for the fabric is Dri konkruman naga neigi kotoigi, or, ‘‘three tattletales and nine witnesses.’’

REFERENCES n

n

A R C H I VA L M AT E R I A L S

archives General State Archives (Algemeen Rijksarchief; ara), recently renamed Nationaal Archief (National Archives; na), The Hague Archives of the Provincial Executive of South-Holland (Provinciaal Bestuur Zuid-Holland), subsidies and minutes of the Provincial Executive (Gedeputeerde Staten), 1898 Archives of J. T. Cremer Municipal Archives (Gemeente-archieven; ga), Amsterdam, Den Bosch, Groningen, Kampen, Leeuwarden, Leiden, Nijmegen, Nunspeet, and Oldenzaal Records Office data The Hague Municipal Archives Records Office data Municipal Government archives, 1897–1899 (correspondence received from the ntv Board, permits from the Labor Inspectorate, Fire Department, and Building Inspectorate) Municipal Council proceedings, 1897–1899 Enschede Municipal Archives Records Office data Tattersall & Holdsworth archives, 1876–1916 The Hague Municipal Museum (Haags Gemeentemuseum; hgm) Musical archives, composer Alphons Diepenbrock collection Het Palthe-Huis Historical Museum, Oldenzaal J. H. Molkenboer photographic archives International Information Center and Archives of the Women’s Movement (Internationaal Informatiecentrum en Archief voor de Vrouwenbeweging; iiav), Amsterdam

n

272

references National Exhibition of Women’s Labor (Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid; ntv) archives ntv visual archive National Bureau of Women’s Labor (Nationaal Bureau voor Vrouwenarbeid) archives Biographical dossiers

International Institute of Social History (Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis; iisg), Amsterdam J. F. de Jongh archives Archives of the Dutch Royal House (Koninklijk Huisarchief; kha), The Hague Letters from the 1898 ntv board and from the organizers of the ‘‘Exhibition ‘Woman 1813–1913’’’ (the Queen’s Cabinet) Queen Emma’s Private Secretary archives, 1897–1898 Lord Chamberlain journals, 1898 Royal Dutch Institute of the Tropics (Koninklijk Nederlands Instituut voor de Tropen; kit), Amsterdam Commission Meetings of the Colonial Museum in Haarlem minutes, 1884– 1907 Photo album 86, Woodbury & Page (1870/80), and photo album 356, ‘‘Photographiën’’ (1870/80), photographic archives Royal Dutch Institute of Linguistics, Geography, and Ethnology (Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde; kitlv), Leiden East-West Association (Vereeniging Oost-West) archives Personal Archives of Kees Goekoop te Amsterdam Vincent van Gogh State Museum, Amsterdam Willemina van Gogh collection

contemporary newspapers and periodicals List of newspapers and periodicals (1895–1905) searched for references to the ntv (references to periodicals other than these are included in the notes) Algemeen Handelsblad (1898–99) Amsterdamsche Courant (1898) Belang en recht (1896–99) Dagblad van Zuid-Holland en ’s Gravenhage (1898) De Amsterdammer (1893–98) De Gids (1898–99) De huisvrouw (1894–99) De Ingenieur (1898) De Katholieke illustratie (1867–98)

references

273

De kroniek (1897–98) De Maasbode (1898) De Nederlandsche spectator (1894–99) De Sociaaldemokraat (1897–98) De Standaard (1898) De Surinamer (1898) De Telegraaf (1894–98) De Tijd (1898) De Vrije Socialist (1898) Eigen haard (1898) Elsevier’s Geïllustreerd Maandschrift (1898–99) Evolutie (1893–99) Goede tijding: Nieuws- en advertentieblad der kolonie Suriname (1897) Haagsche Courant (1898) Het Nederlandsche Dagblad tot Verspreiding van de Christelijk-Historische Beginselen (1898) Het Vaderland (1897–98) Het Volksdagblad (1897–98) Insulinde (1896–98) Java-bode (1893; 1898) Leidsch Dagblad (1898) Lux: Tijdschrift voor fotographie (1898) Maandblad Vereeniging voor Vrouwenkiesrecht (1898) Maatschappelijk werk (1899–1900) Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant (1897–98) Nieuws van den Dag (1895–98) Onze west: Nieuwsblad uit en voor Suriname (1897–98) Oprechte Haarlemmer Courant (1897–98) Recht voor allen (1898) Sociaal weekblad (1896–99) Suriname: Koloniaal nieuws- en advertentieblad (1897–98) Tubantia (1898) Utrechtsch Nieuwsblad (1898) Vragen des Tijds (1896) Weekblad de Nederlander (1897–98) N T V P U B L I C AT I O N S A N D R E L AT E D D O C U M E N T S

List of publications related to the Dutch National Exhibition of Women’s Labor of 1898 De Jong van Beek en Donk, Cecile. 1900. ‘‘Wat zal gedaan worden met het Batig Saldo der Tentoonstelling?’’ Belang en recht (9/15/1900).

274

references

Frederiks-van Cleeff, Suze. 1896. ‘‘Komt! Een woord ten behoeve van de Vereeniging ‘Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid.’ ’’ iiav, ntv-336. Offprint, Amersfoortsche Courant (11/30/1896). Groshans, Suze. N.d. ‘‘Een woord aan allen’’: Een Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid. N.p. iiav, ntv-337. Haighton, Elise A. 1898. ‘‘Aan allen, die wat meer wenschen te weten van het plan der Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid.’’ iiav, ntv-348. Offprint, inserted in De Amsterdammer (1/16/1898). Heringa, P. M. 1899. ‘‘De Groningsche Vrouwenbond,’’ Conference Proceedings, vol. 9. Huygens, Cornélie. 1898. Socialisme en ‘‘féminisme.’’ Amsterdam: J. A. Fortuijn. Jungius, Marie. 1897. Een woord over de voorgenomen Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid. The Hague: Vrede Printers [G. Römelingh]. iiav, ntv-11. , ed. 1899. Beroepsklapper: Exerpt uit de ‘‘Uitkomsten der beroepstelling in het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden op den een-en-dertigsten December 1889,’’ aangevende het aantal gehuwde en ongehuwde vrouwen (benevens het algemeen totaal) werkzaam als hoofd of ondergeschikte in eenig beroep of bedrijf, met inleidend woord en eenige supplementen door Marie Jungius. Naber, Johanna W. A., ed. 1898. Vrouwenarbeid: Orgaan van de Vereeniging Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid. Amsterdam: H. J. Poutsma. Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid, Vereniging (ntv). [1896/97]. Eerste jaarverslag van de Vereeniging Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid. N.p. iiav, ntv-3. . [1897/98]. Tweede jaarverslag van de Vereeniging Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid. N.p. iiav, ntv-4. . 1898a. Catalogus van de Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid (’s-Gravenhage juli-september 1898). N.p.: [G. Römelingh?]. iiav, ntv-22. The catalog included two lists: —‘‘Collection of books, brochures, musical compositions, etc. by, about, and for Dutch women, written or translated in the latter half of this century, collected by the Arts and Sciences Committee and on display in the Reading Room’’ —‘‘Foreign periodicals devoted to the woman question’’ (52 issues) . 1898b. Catalogus van de rubriek beeldende kunsten: Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid te ’s-Gravenhage juli-september 1898. The Hague: Mouton. iiav, ntv-207. . 1898c. Conference Proceedings, vol. 1: Besprekingen over Vakopleiding voor Vrouwen gehouden van 11–14 juli. Amsterdam: W. Versluys. . 1898d. Conference Proceedings, vol. 2: Besprekingen over Maatschappelijk Werk gehouden van 19–21 juli. Amsterdam: W. Versluys. . 1898e. Conference Proceedings, vol. 3: Congres voor Weezen-Opvoeding gehouden van 25–26 juli. Amsterdam: W. Versluys.

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INDEX n

Adams, Henry (1838–1918), 219 Agostini, Eduard, 27 Alberdingk Thijm, Catharina (1848– 1908), 47 Albert of Saxe-Coburg, Prince Consort (1819–1861), 26 Aristocracy, 16, 63, 65, 100 Auwerda, E. Gerardina (Dientje) (1861– 1933), 65, 196–97, 201, 222 Batik, 5, 11, 119, 134, 141–42, 146, 153–58, 160, 191, 221 Bauer, Marius (1867–1932), 185 Bernard, M., 145, 148, 150 Bilders-van Bosse, Maria (1837–1900), 186 Bisschop-Robertson, Suze (1855–1922), 187 Borgesius, Hendrik Goeman (1847– 1917), 53 Bosch, Mineke, 174 Bosch Reitz, Minca (b. 1870), 82 Bourgeois culture, 2, 11, 15, 19, 201; bourgeois character of women’s exhibition, 44–45, 48, 65, 92, 218 Bourgeoisie. See Class Bouten, Charlotte, 187, 188 Burton, Antoinette, 20 Butler, Josephine (1828–1906), 12

n

Carby, Hazel, 21 Carl Alexander, Grand Duke of SaxeWeimar (1818–1901), 131 Çelik, Zeynep, 21 Citizenship, 2, 6, 10, 13–20, 22, 67, 85, 93, 128, 132, 140–41, 151, 208, 222 Citroen, Jacob B., 71, 89–90 Civilization, 4, 16–18, 21, 26–27, 29– 30, 126, 143, 168, 206–7, 210, 212– 13, 218, 222; paid work for ‘‘civilized’’ women, 14, 40, 47, 78, 93–98, 198; versus ‘‘savagery,’’ 2, 157, 168; upper class as ‘‘civilized’’ class, 68, 169, 211–12 Class: differences of, 2, 13–14, 16–17, 45, 48, 65, 67, 83, 92, 99, 102, 104, 114, 115, 118–19, 124, 127, 195–203; middle class, 3, 115, 127, 205, 212; middle-class women, 13–14, 30, 38– 39, 48, 50, 61, 93–98, 106, 113, 115, 124, 175–76, 185, 194–204, 222; upper-class women, 3, 12, 17, 100, 106, 113, 120, 163, 172, 207; working class, 10, 17, 21–22, 99, 103, 205, 207; working-class women, 13–15, 39, 48–49, 65, 93–98, 104–6, 113– 14, 163, 169, 194–203, 215. See also Artistocracy; Bourgeois culture Coen, Jan Pietersz (1557–1629), 148, 161

n

298

index

Cohen, Alexander (1864–1961), 150 Colonialism, 3, 5, 6–7, 9, 11, 19–20, 126, 133, 135–37, 144, 148, 162, 190, 214; colonial discourse, 20, 141, 160, 170, 209; colonial exhibits, 9–10, 20–22, 29, 41, 60–62, 119, 126, 130, 134, 138–40, 142, 144–45, 147–48, 152, 154, 160–61, 167, 189–91, 220, 222; colonial patronage, 138, 159; colonial politics, 136, 151, 153, 155, 157, 160, 170; colonial violence, 11, 135, 152–53, 162, 134, 209–10, 216; colonized bodies, 4, 6, 147; Dutch colonies, 3, 11, 39, 44, 131, 134, 215. See also Imperialism; Sexuality: and colonialism Columbus, Christopher (1451–1506), 54 Conservatives, in Dutch politics, 16–17, 210 Consumption, 1–2, 6, 17–18, 27; women as consumers, 105, 158, 161, 170 Coombes, Annie, 1, 21 Counterpublic, 2, 4, 10, 15, 39, 52, 193, 218 Couperus, Louis (1863–1923), 178 Cremer, Jacob Theodoor (1847–1923), 137, 152 Cremer-Hogan, Annie H. (b. 1854), 146, 152, 162 De Beer-Lazarus, Betje, 48, 88–93 De Bosch Kemper, Jeltje (1836–1916), 30, 33–37, 45–48, 50, 53, 96, 154, 219 Debussy, Claude (1862–1918), 122 De Cauter, Lieven, 18 De Constant Rebecque-Hora Siccama, Henriette S. (1844–1924), 131 De Jong van Beek en Donk, Johan J. F. (1834–1890), 103, 172 De Jong van Beek en Donk-Nahuijs, Anna C. W. J. J. (b. 1826), 172 De Josselin de Jong, Pieter (1861– 1906), 55, 185

Dekker-Fortanier, Clazina (1860–1915), 64, 72, 77, 89–90, 92 De Lange, Cornelia (1871–1950), 206 De Savornin Lohman, Anna (1868– 1930), 162, 164, 179 De Savornin Lohman, M. A. (1832– 1899), 162, 166 De Veer-Rolandus, Maria de (1849– 1915), 162, 163 De Wit, Augusta (1864–1939), 122 Diepenbrock, Alphons (1862–1921), 57, 120, 173, 175 Diepenbrock-de Jong van Beek en Donk, Elisabeth (1868–1939), 9, 54–55, 57–58, 120, 172, 175–77, 179, 184 Dörpfeld, Wilhelm (1853–1940), 56 Drabbe, Mies, 189 Drucker, Wilhelmina (1847–1925), 33, 35, 41, 47, 64, 95–96, 124, 156, 197–98 Economic independence of women, 39–41, 204–5 Education, 179, 193; coeducation, 205; in the colonies, 169, 210–11, 212–13; as professional and vocational training of women, 6, 46, 95, 107–8, 187, 203–6, 212, 216, 222; of women, 11–12, 30, 32, 38–40, 60–61, 71, 75– 76, 78, 95–97, 132, 155, 169, 179, 182, 206–7, 216, 218. See also Home economics Eldering, Frouwina (1860–1944), 205 Emma, Queen Regent of the Netherlands (1858–1934), 11, 42, 47, 68, 81, 127–34, 160, 187, 207 Empire. See Imperialism Ethnographic displays: of indigenous people of the colonies, 1, 28–29, 123–26, 144–45, 164, 166, 189–91 Ethnographic museums, 164; colonial museum in Haarlem, 146, 165; in Leiden, 122, 146

index Feminism, 1–2, 4–7, 9–10, 13, 15, 17, 19–20, 22, 25, 37–38, 50, 52, 59, 61, 63–65, 97, 102, 107, 116, 123–24, 127–29, 134, 136–37, 147, 153–54, 160, 163, 174, 178–79, 181, 189, 194–203, 213–15, 219–20, 223 Fles, Anna (1854–1906), 41, 139 Fokker, Suze, 42, 71 Fraser, Nancy, 10, 14–15, 39 Frenkel, Michel, 178 Fröbel, Friedrich W. A. (1782–1852), 32, 206 Gad, Emma (1852–1921), 61 Gallé, Margaretha (b. 1862), 102 Gaze. See Visual representation Gerritsen, Carel V. (1850–1905), 64, 181 Gerth van Wijk, Anna Maria (1845– 1921), 142, 189 Gilbert, James, 18 Gillespie, Elizabeth D., 32 Goddefroy, L. J., 145 Goekoop, Adriaan E. H. (1859–1914), 37, 45, 50–51, 55–59, 172–73, 175, 177 Goekoop-de Jongh, Johanna (1877– 1946), 9, 58, 172 Goekoop-de Jong van Beek en Donk, Cecile W. E. J. P. (1866–1944), 3, 9, 33, 36–37, 40–42, 44–45, 47–49, 51– 52, 54–59, 63, 65, 68, 98–99, 101, 103, 106–7, 116, 120, 129, 132, 139, 151, 158–59, 171–80, 184–85, 212, 217, 219–20 Greenhalgh, Paul, 21 Gripenberg, Alexandra, 116 Groshans, A. P. Suze (1863–1944), 40, 45, 52, 76, 82–84, 86, 90, 94–96, 205 Gwinn, Nancy E., 27 Habermas, Jürgen, 2, 14–15 Haighton, Elise (1841–1911), 40, 52, 64, 162, 163, 164, 166, 184

299

Hall, Catherine, 2 Haverman, Hendrik (1857–1928), 185 Heijermans, Ida (1866–1943), 106, 123, 174, 202, 205, 219 Hinlopen, G. Sophia (b. 1874), 204 Historical exhibitions, 26, 29, 71, 74 Holdsworth, Richard (1837–1921), 80 Home economics, 60, 206; schools for, 46, 65, 74, 79, 95, 198–99, 206 Hooijer, G. B., 112–13, 126 Hoven, Thérèse (1860–1941), 115 Hudry-Menos, J., 116 Hugenholtz-Zeeven, Magdalena (Lena) (b. 1870), 114 Huygens, Cornélie (1848–1902), 99, 196–99 Imperialism, 2, 4, 7, 11, 18–21, 27, 65, 126, 135–37, 157–58, 162, 207, 209–11; Dutch, 40, 69, 134, 148, 153, 208, 210; imperial exhibits as anachronistic space, 6, 126; imperial history, 3–6; imperialist ideology, 213–14; metropole and colony, 2, 4, 6, 19; and spectacle, 1, 3–4, 7, 21; women’s contribution to Dutch, 41, 133, 139, 158, 169, 207, 211–12. See also Colonialism Indo-Europeans and ‘‘Indisch’’ people, 22, 120, 123, 135, 139–40, 149, 156– 57, 209, 211, 220 Indonesia (Dutch East Indies), 4, 11, 20–22, 28, 42, 65, 69, 89, 112, 115, 119, 122–23, 125–26, 131, 133, 135–42, 145–61, 167, 170, 175, 190, 203, 209–14, 219–20, 222. See also Colonialism Israels, Isaac (1865–1934), 185, 188, 189–91 Jackson, Helen Hunt (1831–1885), 173 Jacobs, Aletta H. (1854–1929), 31, 64, 181, 216 Janssen, Peter W., 152

300

index

Juliana, Princess (later Queen) of the Netherlands (b. 1909), 220 Jungius, Marie (1864–1908), 38, 40, 45, 52, 54, 59–61, 63, 69–71, 76–77, 84, 91–92, 95, 98–99, 108, 138, 172, 174, 176, 182, 183, 195, 203 Juynboll, Henderik Herman, 160 Kampong Insulinde, 5, 11, 21, 42, 69, 75, 89, 111–12, 119, 121, 123–25, 132, 134, 137–38, 141–42, 145–49, 151–53, 156, 170, 174, 185, 187, 189–91, 209 Kartini, Raden Adjeng (1879–1904), 5–6, 152, 158–61 Keating, Peter, 124 Kerdijk, Arnold. See Polak Kerdijk, Arnold Key, Ellen (1849–1926), 60 Kiehl, Wilhelmina, 188 Kieler, Laura (1849–1932), 60–61 Klerck-van Hogendorp, Marianne (1834–1909), 37–38, 41, 45, 131, 208, 211–12, 216 Knappert, Emilie Ch. (1860–1952), 132, 203–4 Koch, Emma, 120 Koene, N. D., 112 Kramers, Martina G. (1863–1934), 38, 64, 216 Kruseman, Mina (1839–1922), 13 Kuyper, Abraham (1837–1920), 210 Labor, 38, 67; agricultural labor, 10, 33, 61, 70–71, 73, 198; distinction between men’s and women’s work, 44, 158, 161; labor conflicts, 5, 12, 87– 93, 109, 150–52, 217, 222; legislation on, 103–4, 200; relations of, 88–89, 93, 99, 103, 196–203; virtue of productive, 13, 39, 71, 85, 99, 173, 176, 218 Labor Inspectorate, 40, 76, 96–97, 113; first women inspectors employed by, 96–98, 216

Legêne, Susan, 20 Lenin (1870–1924), 50 Levyssohn Norman, Bertha E. (1840– 1901), 36 Levyssohn Norman, Henry D., 140 Levyssohn Norman-Zoetelief, Elisabeth, 151 Liberalism, 15–17, 20; in Dutch politics, 13, 39, 59, 103, 136, 194 Lincoln, Abraham (1809–1865), 199 Locher-Scholten, Elsbeth, 156 Louise, Queen of Denmark (1817– 1898), 60, 129 Lubach, Catharina I. (1852–1942), 97 Lucardie-Daum, A. S., 69, 145, 146, 150, 160 Lumière, Auguste (1862–1954), 125 Lumière, Louis (1864–1948), 125 Luxemburg, Rosa (1870–1919), 50 Mataram, Pangeran Ario, 68, 115, 132 Matthijssen, Gerharda H. (1830– 1907), 30 McClintock, Anne, 6, 18, 21, 126, 137 Meijboom, Margaretha A. S. (1856– 1927), 36, 52, 61 Mendes da Costa, Joseph (1863–1939), 188, 189–91 Mercier, Hélène (1839–1910), 47–48, 99–100, 107, 109, 181 Merian, Maria Sybilla (1647–1717), 182 Mesdag, Hendrik W. (1831–1915), 186 Mesdag-van Calcar, Gesina (1851– 1936), 113 Mesdag-van Houten, Sientje (1834– 1909), 31, 75, 186–87 Migration: international migration, 135; labor migration, 136, 151, 169; regional migration, 151 Mills, Sara, 22 Missionary work, 135, 137, 153, 158, 162, 210–12 Mitchell, Timothy, 21, 126

index Molijn, François A., Jr. (1853–1912), 78 Molijn-de Groot, Diderica C., (1854– 1925), 77–78 Molkenboer-Trip, Hermanna E. (1851– 1911), 80 Monarchy, 10–11, 36, 60, 67–68, 74, 78, 81, 128–30, 187, 220. See also Wilhelmina Morice, Charles, 116 Motherhood, 64, 101, 177–78, 203–4, 206–7, 209, 218; illegitimate children, 12, 101; jobs for mothers, 60, 101; maternal identity, 218; maternity leave, 13; unwed mothers, 208 Mouton, J. G., 87–88, 205 Mouton, J. Th. (1840–1912), 53 Muller-Lulofs, Marie (1854–1954), 100, 107 Music, 70, 141–42, 146–47, 163, 167, 169, 172–73, 175, 179, 181, 190; gamelan, 5, 28, 69, 121–23, 146–47, 190; musical education, 122; performances at the exhibition, 120–23, 142, 150; women composers, 68–69, 120 Naber, Johanna W. A. (1859–1941), 47–48, 129, 134, 182, 204, 219 National exhibitions in the Netherlands, 25; Dutch National Exhibition (Amsterdam, 1866), 28–29; Exhibition of Products of Dutch National Industry and its Overseas Possessions (Arnhem, 1852), 28; General National Exhibition (Haarlem, 1861), 28; National Exhibition of Dutch and Colonial Arts (Arnhem, 1879), 28, 122; National Exhibition of Industrial and Applied Art (Dordrecht, 1897), 97; Public Exhibition of Products of the Nation’s Industry (Utrecht, 1808), 25; Sports and Fishery Exhibition (The Hague, 1891), 70

301

National identity, 26; contribution of women to the nation, 39–40, 109, 133, 206–7, 210, 218, 221; nationalism, 2, 4, 11, 35, 44; national unity, 139–40 Orientalism, 1, 6, 123, 144, 148, 150, 154, 156, 189–90 Orthodox Protestant Anti-revolutionary Party, 16, 210, 217 Oxholm, Sophie (1848–1935), 60–61 Palmer-Honoré, Bertha (1849–1918), 32–33 Pander, Pier (1864–1919), 58 Pekelharing-Doijer, Catherina G. (Cato) (1858–1913), 51, 54, 58, 132, 138, 146, 150, 177 Perk, Betsy (1833–1906), 30, 128 Philanthropy, 34, 42, 60, 62, 100–102, 186, 219 Photography. See Visual representation Pierson, Hendrik (1834–1923), 207–9 Pierson, Nicolaas G. (1839–1909), 53 Poeze, Harry, 151 Polak, Henri (1868–1943), 89–93 Polak Kerdijk, Arnold (1846–1905), 52, 96, 107 Pratt, Mary Louise, 1, 22 Private sphere, 14–15, 27, 32, 44 Progress, 9, 14, 18, 20–21, 25–27, 40 Prostitution, 12, 41–42, 95, 98, 207–8; Association for the Advancement of Morality in the Dutch Overseas Territories, 212; Dutch Anti-prostitution Association, 208; state regulation of, 12–13, 39, 203, 207, 212 Public domain. See Public sphere Public morality, 13, 40, 43, 87, 95, 103, 133, 195, 203, 207–14, 218. See also Prostitution Public sphere, 2, 6–7, 9–10, 12, 14– 19, 22–23, 27, 37, 39–40, 41, 44, 52, 56, 64, 76, 97–98, 100, 103, 107,

302

index

Public sphere (continued ) 109, 160, 171, 174, 178, 182, 185, 193– 203, 206–8, 217–20, 223. See also Counterpublic Rabinovitz, Lauren, 18, 125 Race, 1, 6, 19–20, 23, 29, 127, 157, 159, 220–21; interracial relations, 3, 155, 165, 214; racial hierarchy, 159, 168; racialized politics, 2. See also Whiteness Redjo, Niti di, 146 Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669), 10 Roland Holst-van der Schalk, Henriette (1869–1952), 48–50, 85, 92, 194, 200–201 Romein, Jan (1893–1962), 174 Römelingh, Geertruida (1850–1944), 182–84 Rouffaer, Gerret Pieter, 160 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712–1778), 15, 19 Rutgers-Hoitsema, Marie W. H. (1847– 1934), 36, 199, 203, 208 Rydell, Robert W., 18, 27 Schliemann, Heinrich (1822–1890), 56 Scholten-Commelin, Hendrina H. (1832–1917), 36–37, 64 Schook-Haver, Theodora (Dora) (1856– 1912), 35, 41, 64 Schwartz, Vanessa, 22, 125 Schwartze, Georgine (1854–1935), 130 Schwartze, Thérèse (1852–1918), 31, 69, 75, 130, 187, 191 Sewall, May Wright (1844–1920), 115, 116, 216 Sexuality, 6, 177, 208, 213–14; and colonialism, 19, 22, 147, 165–66, 209–10, 214; concubinage, 211–13; contraceptives, 208; and labor, 40– 41, 95; of women, 207–8. See also Prostitution; Public Morality

Sinha, Mrinalini, 2 Slavery, 6, 13, 82, 135, 151, 162, 165–66, 198–99, 221 Smithuysen, Trinette, 36 Social Democratic Labor Party, 16, 48–49, 132–33, 194–203, 210 Socialists, 10, 13, 44, 50, 56–57, 59, 77, 85, 88, 92, 98–99, 103, 106, 136, 194–203, 210, 213, 217 Social problems, 98–109, 194–203; Dutch Social Interest Alliance, 108; Committee to Discuss the Social Question, 103. See also Class; Labor: relations of; Visual representation: of social problems; Women’s labor as a solution for social problems Social work, 39, 61–62, 67, 71, 79, 116, 121, 132, 163; Association for the Improvement of Relief for the Poor, 100; education for, 107–8; poor relief, 100, 116, 203; exhibits of, 74, 85, 94, 98–109, 112, 175, 186, 193, 195 Soetaknja, Radhèn Kartô, 146 Sophie, Princess of the Netherlands (Grand Duchess of Saxe-Weimar) (1824–1897), 56 Sophie, Queen of the Netherlands (Princess of Wurtemberg) (1818– 1877), 30, 129–31 Sosrokartono, Raden Mas Pandij (Kartono), 147, 160 Sparnaay, Marie (1856–1923), 40, 79, 87, 93–97, 195 Stanton, Elizabeth Cady (1815–1902), 116 Stoler, Ann, 2, 6, 19–20, 147 Suffrage, 140, 162; male, 99, 194; women’s, 50, 99, 102, 131–33, 184, 194, 207, 220 Surinam and the Dutch Antilles in the Caribbean, 4, 6, 11, 13, 20–21, 28, 65, 74, 88, 132, 135–36, 139–40, 158, 161–70, 214, 220–23

index Tak, Pieter L. (1848–1907), 44, 196, 200–203 Tappenbeck, Hella, 199 Tattersall, John (1850–1937), 80–81, 83, 112, 120, 221, 223 Tattersall-Ludin, Julie (b. 1863), 80–81 Thorn Prikker, Johan (1868–1932), 102 Tolstoj, Lev (1828–1910), 44 Toorop, Jan (1858–1928), 71, 185, 188, 189, 190 Trachtenberg, Alan, 21 Tresling, Sophie (1873–1943), 183 Treub, Hector (1856–1920), 181 Troelstra, Pieter Jelles (1860–1930), 50, 194, 200–203 Trotsky, Leo (1879–1940), 50 Van Calcar-Schiotling, Elise (1822– 1904), 57, 206–7 Van der Hart, Cornelia (1852–1940), 71, 146, 150, 156 Van der Meij, Henriëtte (1850– 1945), 44 Van de Wall, J. F. R., 51, 56 Van Dijk, Mary L. W. (1869–1933), 178 Van Gogh, Vincent (1853–1890), 43 Van Gogh, Willemina (1861–1941), 43 Van Hogendorp, Anna (1841–1915), 34, 37, 45, 64, 131, 208 Van Hogendorp, Cécile M. (b. 1839), 45 Van Hogendorp, Marie A. (b. 1864), 45 Van Houten, Barbara (1862–1950), 186 Van Houten, Samuel (1837–1930), 39, 52 Van Kempen, L. J. S., 53 Van Kol, Henri (1852–1925), 194, 210, 213 Van Kol-Porreij, Nellie (1851–1930), 147, 152, 208–10 Van Oosterzee, Cornélie (1863–1943), 68, 120, 121 Van Panhuys, Louis C., 163–70

303

Van Rooijen, A. J. S. (1839–1905), 57 Van Sandick, Rudolph A. (1855–1933), 211, 213–14 Van Schurman, Anna Maria (1607– 1678), 74, 182 Van Tussenbroek, Catharine A. P. C. (1852–1925), 174, 178, 204 Van Tussenbroek, Hendrika (1854– 1935), 121 Veegens, Jacob D. (1845–1910), 51 Vermeeren, A. P., 119 Versluys, Willem (1851–1937), 184 Versluys-Poelman, Anette W. L. (1853– 1914), 41, 64, 131–33, 184 Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom (1819–1901), 129 Visscher, Rins (1868–1950), 183 Visual representation, 10, 17, 22, 39– 40, 72, 103, 109; in cinema, 18, 125; of the colonies, 5, 11, 137, 141, 148, 153, 164, 221; gaze as element of, 12, 18–19, 29, 109, 123–28, 143–45, 148–49, 164, 166, 170; of labor, 26, 108; in photographs, 30–31, 33, 73, 75, 81–83, 103, 112, 124, 137, 167, 171, 180, 221–23; in relation to exhibition conferences, 40, 42, 127, 183, 193; of social problems, 103, 107, 187, 189; as spectacle, 1–5, 7, 12, 21, 103, 126– 27, 148–49, 152, 190; of working women, 5, 6, 11, 14, 39, 189–91, 221– 23. See also Ethnographic displays Vos, Roosje (1860–1932), 48–49, 65, 106, 194, 201 Vreede-de Stuers, Cora (1909–2002), 4 Wagner, Richard (1813–1883), 69 Wesstra, H., Jr., 146 West Indies, Dutch. See Surinam and the Dutch Antilles in the Caribbean Whiteness, 6, 20, 29, 147, 157, 164, 207, 210, 212, 214; white women, 3–4, 44, 65, 159, 164. See also Race Wibaut, Floor (1859–1936), 85

304

index

Wilhelmina, Queen of the Netherlands (1880–1962), 10–11, 36, 42, 45, 47, 56, 68, 78, 80–81, 90, 112, 115, 129–34, 139, 160, 166, 187, 206–7 William II, King of the Netherlands (1792–1849), 56 William III, King of the Netherlands (1817–1890), 10, 30, 165 Wilson, Teresa, 37 Women’s associations, international: Congress of Representative Women, 33, 61, 116; International Council of Women, 37–38, 115–16, 216, 220 Women’s associations, in the Netherlands: Association for the Improvement of Women’s Clothing, 216; Association for the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor, 36, 37, 172, 174; Dutch National Women’s Association (‘‘Nobility through Labor’’), 30–32, 35, 46–47, 55, 101, 129, 155; Dutch Women’s League for the Advancement of Moral Awareness, 37, 41, 43, 87, 101, 207–8, 212; Dutch Woman’s Suffrage Association, 12, 35, 102, 106, 133, 184, 216–19; Free Women’s Association, 33–34, 41, 48, 114; General Dutch Domestic Servants Union, 216; Groningen Women’s League, 35–36, 106, 114; National Bureau of Women’s Labor, 63, 108, 216; National Council of Women, 37–38, 92, 116, 216; Rotterdam Association for the Protection of Women’s Interests, 114; Tesselschade General Dutch Women’s Association, 30–31, 33, 35–36, 45– 47, 101, 155, 219; Women’s Mutual Protection League, 41, 208. See also Women’s labor Women’s associations, outside the Netherlands: Finnish Women’s Association, 116; Société Féministe ‘‘L’Égalité’’ (France), 116

Women’s emancipation, 7, 13, 17, 19– 20, 37, 78, 137, 148, 159, 173, 206, 220 Women’s exhibitions, in the Netherlands, 11; Exhibition Bazaar of Female Industry and Art (Delft, 1871), 30, 129; Exhibition of Objects of Industry and Art Made by Women (Leeuwarden, 1878), 30, 90, 129–30, 186; Exhibition ‘‘Woman 1813–1913’’ (Amsterdam, 1913), 134, 220; Dutch Woman 1898–1948 (The Hague, 1948), 220 Women’s exhibitions, outside the Netherlands, 37; Pavilion of Women’s Labor (Vienna, 1873), 31, 37; Women’s Building (Chicago, 1893), 21, 31–37, 41, 42–43, 45, 60, 76–77, 116, 129, 173, 180; Women’s Exhibition from Past to Present (Copenhagen, 1895), 11, 35–36, 38, 60–62, 116, 129, 180; Women’s Pavilion (Philadelphia, 1876), 31, 37, 116 Women’s labor, 5–6, 10–11, 13–14, 31– 33, 38, 40, 42, 49, 62–63, 76–87, 93–98, 119, 139, 142, 148, 163, 179; conditions for, 12–13, 40, 49, 56, 76–79, 84–87, 103–4, 216, 222; domestic labor, 6, 103, 105, 114, 195–200; factory labor, 3, 55, 70, 71, 82–83, 87, 94–96, 103, 113, 217, 221; female supervisors of, 92–98, 195, 216, 218; in global cotton industry, 81–82, 221; labor protection of, 12– 13, 200–201; live demonstrations at exhibition of, 5, 69, 72–73, 76, 84– 93, 117, 123–24, 127, 132, 175, 191; low wages and, 79, 108–9, 117, 119, 200–201; statistical exhibits of, 32– 33, 62, 72, 76–77, 84; in sweatshops, 49, 100, 103, 105, 108, 191, 215; as a solution for social problems, 73, 104, 133. See also Motherhood; Visual representation

index Women’s movement, 10, 20, 61, 64– 65, 139, 179, 187, 189, 207; American, 13; British, 13, 20, 50, 136; Dutch, 11–12, 25, 37, 48, 63–65, 67, 74, 98, 120, 127, 132–34, 136, 152, 154, 174, 190–203, 212; German, 13, 50; Scandinavian, 13 Workers’ movement, 12; All for Each Other (Domestic servants’ union), 196–200; appeals for unionization, 94, 106, 196; Association of Female Diamond Cutters, 48, 90; General Dutch Diamond Cutters Union, 89– 91; lack of union tradition among women factory workers, 88; Seamstress Union (‘‘All United’’), 48, 114, 194 World exhibitions, 27, 126, 142; Amsterdam (1883), 27–29, 31, 81, 122, 144–45, 164; Antwerp (1894), 29;

305

Brussels (1897), 29, 34–37, 116, 174, 177, 193; Chicago (1893), 3, 9, 21, 29, 31–33, 37, 41, 76, 116, 129, 173, 193, 219; London (1851), 26–28, 143; Paris (1867), 25, 143–44; Paris (1878), 193, 206; Paris (1889), 116, 122, 145, 147, 150, 189–90, 193; Paris (1900), 26, 29, 158, 193, 220; Philadelphia (1876), 31–32; Vienna (1873), 31–32, 144 Worp-Roland Holst, Catharina (Cateau) A. (b. 1854), 36, 41, 46, 48, 52 Yda, Louise (b. 1858), 6, 74, 81, 89, 132, 165, 166, 220–23 Zilcken, Philipp (1857–1930), 185 Zuylen-Tromp, Geertruida A. N. (b. 1863), 97, 139, 154, 155, 156, 210

MARIA GREVER

is a Professor of History and Theory

at Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands. From 1990 to 2000 she was an Associate Professor of Gender History at Nijmegen University; currently she participates in the research program of the Nijmegen Center for Women’s Studies. She publishes on gender, historiography, and collective memory; colonial queens and royal rituals; and on the (re)shaping of canonized memories. Recently she edited with Fia Dieteren A Fatherland for Women (2000) and with Harry Jansen, De ongrijpbare tijd: Temporaliteit en de constructie van het verleden (2001). BERTEKE WAALDIJK

is an Associate Professor of Women’s

Studies at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. She publishes on race, gender and imperial culture; gender and the history of social work; and on new media and citizenship. Recently she edited with Sabine Hering History of Social Work in Europe (1900–1960): Female Pioneers and Their Influence on the Development of International Social Organisations (2003). Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Grever, Maria. [Feministische openbaarheid. English] Transforming the public sphere : the Dutch national exhibition of women’s labor in 1898 / Maria Grever and Berteke Waaldijk ; translated by Mischa F.C. Hoyinck and Robert E. Chesal. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-8223-3258-2 (cloth : alk. paper) isbn 0-8223-3296-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Women—Netherlands—History.

2. Women—

Employment—Netherlands—History. rights—Netherlands—History. Social conditions.

3. Women’s

4. Women—Netherlands—

5. Feminism—Netherlands—History.

6. Nationale Tentoonstelling van Vrouwenarbeid (1898 : Hague, Netherlands)—History.

I. Waaldijk, Berteke.

II. Title. hq1657.g7413 2004 305.4'09492—dc22

2003025003

figure 1 A rare portrait of the Regulation Committee that helped organize the exhibition. Seated far left is Cornelia van der Hart; seated third from left is Cecile Goekoopde Jong van Beek en Donk (holding gavel); next to her, behind the table, is Geertruida van Zuylen-Tromp; seated sixth from left is Marie Jungius (with a floor plan of the exhibition on her lap). Standing fourth from left and holding a notebook is Margaretha Gallé; Standing far right with her hand on Jungius’s chair is Willemina van Gogh, favorite sister of painter Vincent van Gogh. She was responsible for the personnel employed on the exhibition grounds (iiav, ntv Archives)

figure 2a (upper left) Jeltje de Bosch Kemper (1836–1916), the pioneer of the Dutch women’s movement, was opposed to a women’s exhibition (iiav, visual archives) figure 2b (above) Wilhelmina Drucker (1847–1925), a radical feminist, supported the exhibition from its very conception. Her magazine Evolutie devoted ample space to the event (iiav, visual archives) figure 2c (left) Henriette Roland Holstvan der Schalk (1869–1952) was a member of the Social Democratic Labor Party (sdap). She vehemently criticized the idea of a women’s labor exposition organized by middle-class women (iisg, visual archives)

figure 3a (left) Cato Pekelharing-Doijer (1858–1913). Some say she was the first to come up with the idea of a Dutch women’s exhibition (iiav, visual archives) figure 3b (below) Cecile Goekoop-de Jong van Beek en Donk (left) and her sister Elisabeth (1868–1930). Both were very active in the Exhibition Association. Cecile was its president, and Elisabeth chaired the Music Exhibit Committee (Private collection of Odilia Vermeulen)

figure 3c (above) The historian Johanna Naber (1859– 1941) was editor in chief of the successful exhibition newsletter Vrouwenarbeid. This publication had a major impact on how the exhibition was represented (Private collection of Maria Grever)

figure 4a Adriaan Goekoop (1859–1914), the husband of the exhibition president, was one of the wealthiest men in The Hague. His financial support made the exhibition possible (Private collection of Cees Goekoop) figure 4b The construction site of the exhibition in the dunes near The Hague. The land belonged to Adriaan Goekoop (standing alone, to the right of the rails). He later built homes on the property (The Hague Municipal Archives)

figure 5a Cecile Goekoop-de Jong van Beek en Donk (1866–1944), president of the exhibition board (iiav, ntv Archives) figure 5b The exhibition under construction (The Hague Municipal Archives)

figure 6a The card Cecile Goekoop gave to anyone interested in the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor to invite them to Tuesday afternoon tea in her home. This is an excellent example of how upper middle-class women turned their traditional social duties as hostesses into organizational work for the exhibition (iiav, ntv Archives)

figure 6b Facade of the main building at the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor (photograph Anna Leijer; iiav, ntv Archives)

figure 7a Hermanna Molkenboer-Trip (1851–1911). This linen and cotton manufacturer sent some of her female factory workers to give live demonstrations at the exhibition (‘‘Het Palthe-Huis’’ Historical Museum in Oldenzaal) figure 7b The Englishman John Tattersall (1850–1937), who manufactured machines for the textile industry. His factory in the Dutch city of Enschede provided machinery for the textile factory demonstrations in the Hall of Industry. He also published a booklet about women’s role in worldwide cotton production called Cotton: From Field to Fabric (Private collection of Henk Tattersall)

figure 8 Board of the Allen Een seamstresses’ union (est. 1897). Fourth from left is Roosje Vos. She gave two addresses during the exhibition: one about her experiences as a child in the Amsterdam Jewish Orphanage, and one about the need for women’s unions. She was one of the few working-class women invited to speak at the exhibition conferences (Jewish Historical Museum, Amsterdam)

figure 9a Minca Bosch Reitz’s life-size sculpture of a barrow woman hauling bricks in the Hall of Industry. The brick factories on the banks of Dutch rivers hired many women to haul and stack bricks (iiav, ntv archives) figure 9b In the Hall of Industry, the walls were lined with vitrines displaying objects and people giving live demonstrations (iiav, ntv Archives)

figure 10a The carpet factory workers at the exhibition were twelve to sixteen years old. A sign warned visitors: ‘‘Speaking with the girls is forbidden.’’ On August 17, the girls staged a short strike to demand higher wages (iiav, ntv Archives) figure 10b Live labor demonstration by Vrede Printer’s in the Hall of Industry. On the left, male and female typesetters are at work. The wall behind owner Johannes van der Veer and his wife boasts a portrait of Leo Tolstoy (iiav, ntv archives)

figure 11a The Nursing Exhibit. A dummy dressed as a wounded soldier lies in the tent (iiav, ntv Archives) figure 11b A table in the Social Work Exhibit displays garments tagged with the subsistence wages paid to manufacture them. On the left is a miniature replica of a sod hut, a small, sod-covered hole in the ground of the type that housed entire families in the northern province of Drenthe. A hatch in the roof gave visitors a view of the poor living conditions inside (iiav, ntv Archives)

figure 12a Postcard depicting the West Indies Exhibit, a random collection of arts and crafts products (iiav, ntv Archives) figure 12b Johanna Naber (left) and Ida Pierson in the Reading Room, which housed books by, about, and for women. The walls displayed an exposition of pictures by female photographers (Private collection of Maria Grever)

figure 13a The vegetarian restaurant attracted much publicity (iiav, ntv Archives) figure 13b The Conference Hall served as a venue for conferences, lectures, and musical performances. Several institutions also held their 1898 annual meetings here (iiav, ntv Archives)

figure 14a Posing in the inner courtyard, from left to right: Marie Jungius (1864– 1908); her friend Suze Groshans (1863–1944); the little girl is probably Lily Stok, who spoke the first words at the exhibition’s opening ceremony; and seated, Lady Jacoba E. van Hoeufft. To their left are the instruments of the ladies’ orchestra (iiav, ntv Archives)

figure 14b Impression of Kampong Insulinde, drawn by G. J. Hooijer and reproduced in Elsevier’s geïllustreerd maandschrift (photograph Utrecht University Library)

figure 15 Several statues of Javanese dancers by sculptor Joseph Mendes da Costa were inspired by a visit to the exhibition (State Documentation Center for Art History, The Hague)

figure 16a Raden Kartini, seated right, and two of her sisters, demonstrating batik dyeing. Kartini’s brother had the picture taken in 1898 and gave it to Gerret Rouffaer, who included it in his book on the art of batik. (Rouffaer and Juynboll 1900; photograph Utrecht University Library) figure 16b Postcard depicting Kampong Insulinde (The Hague Municipal Archives)

plate 1 Suze Fokker’s exhibition poster with sunflowers, lilies, and beehive. The beehive was traditionally used as a symbol for industrial and applied art exhibitions. The initial reason for organizing the exhibition—Queen Wilhelmina’s inauguration—made this symbol particularly apt, as a hive is led by a queen bee (iiav, ntv Archives)

plate 2 Exhibition floor plan showing the layout of the exhibits and listing the committee members. The main entrance at the bottom of the drawing led to the Hall of Industry with working machinery and live demonstrations. The grounds in Kampong Insulinde were designed in Romantic landscape style. The main building was symmetrical, enclosing a central courtyard. The Conference Hall is located at the top center of the drawing (iiav, ntv Archives)

plate 3 Drawing of Kampong Insulinde, a replica of a Dutch East Indies village and one of the colonial exhibits, by N. D. Koene. The shield with the stork is the official coat of arms of The Hague (The Hague Municipal Archives)

plate 4 The Woman’s Building at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago had been a source of inspiration for exhibition president Cecile Goekoop-de Jong van Beek en Donk (iiav, ntv Archives)

plate 5 Drawing of women in typically male professions displayed in the Social Work Exhibit. From left to right: wallpaper paster, bookbinder, tram ticket seller, mountain guide, engineer, labor inspector, cashier, industrial draftsman, typesetter, notary public, diamond cutter, preacher, and tax collector (iiav, ntv Archives)

plate 6 Official portrait of Queen Wilhelmina by Thérèse Schwartze, 1898. It was displayed three months before her inauguration in the exhibition’s Visual Arts Exhibit as a sneak preview for exhibition visitors (photograph Archives of the Dutch Royal House)

plate 7 Lithographed poster, designed by famous Dutch artist Jan Toorop, announcing a raffle held in the final days of the exhibition. The anvil bears the inscription ‘‘Labor for Women’’ (iiav, visual archives)

plate 8 Louise Yda posing with two textile factory workers. The women are flanked by the textile machines used in live demonstrations in the Hall of Industry. The machines were supplied by their manufacturer John Tattersall, who also had this and other photographs taken of the display (Enschede Municipal Archives, Tattersall & Holdsworth collection, 1876–1916)

plate 9 One of the twenty-two postcards produced for the exhibition shows Louise Yda, who worked at the West Indies Exhibit. The caption calls her ‘‘Sassa, a Mulatto Woman’’ (iiav, ntv Archives)

plate 10 Postcard showing trimming workers in the Hall of Industry (iiav, ntv Archives)

plate 11 The cookery school at the exhibition (iiav, ntv Archives)

plates 12a and 12b The six stages of batik with two dye colors. These were among the samples on display in Kampong Insulinde’s ‘‘Sumatran Dwelling,’’ where visitors could acquaint themselves with batik dyeing techniques (Rouffaer and Juynboll 1900, photograph Utrecht University Library)

plate 13 Length of batik fabric from the collection of Bertha Levyssohn NormanZoetelief. Many batiks displayed at the exhibition came from the private collections of women who had lived in the East Indies (Rouffaer and Juynboll 1900; photograph Utrecht University Library)

plate 14a Javanese weaver (sitting) and a batik maker in front of the ‘‘Sumatran Dwelling.’’ In Kampong Insulinde, Javanese men and women demonstrated various types of home industry (Wereldkroniek 5, 19; photograph Utrecht University Library)

plate 14b The daily Javanese dance performances accompanied by gamelan music quickly became very popular (Wereldkroniek 5, 19; photograph Utrecht University Library)

plate 15a Members of the Javanese group that gave performances and demonstrations posing before a rice granary. When the exhibition ended, Cornelia van der Hart was given the Sumatratype granary in appreciation for her work for the Insulinde Committee (Wereldkroniek 5, 19; photograph Utrecht University Library)

plate 15b The ‘‘East Indies Kitchen’’ was used to demonstrate Javanese cooking. The picture, by photographer Miss Sluiterman van Loo, accompanied an article in a weekly magazine (Wereldkroniek 5, 19; photograph Utrecht University Library)

plate 16 Water color of a Javanese dancer. In 1898, artist Isaac Israels painted this figure in the guest book at the Kurhaus Hotel, Scheveningen (near The Hague). He had seen the subject at the National Exhibition of Women’s Labor (photograph P. and D. Romijn)