De Moderne Tijd - Volume 8, Issue 1/2, 2024

Abstract Religious and civic realism. A comparison between the novel poetics of De Tijdspiegel and De Gids In the second half of the nineteenth century, the monthly magazine De Tijdspiegel (established in 1844) developed a novel poetics that could be described as ‘religious realism’ to distinguish it from the more liberal ‘bourgeois realism’. Like the liberals, De Tijdspiegel attached great importance to the modern novel, Read More

Abstract ‘A penny for my sustenance’. Strategies used by letter writers in the correspondence archive of Willem Albert Scholten In this article, several letters from the extensive archive of Willem Albert Scholten (1819-1892) are discussed and analysed, in order to discover what strategies were used by the people who asked Scholten for a favour. The letters were chosen to serve as examples of broader trends or because t Read More

Abstract Per ardua ad astra. Why J.C. Kapteyn never got an observatory Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn (1851-1922) was appointed professor of astronomy in Groningen in 1877. Three times he submitted a plan for an observatory, but each one was rejected. There are two explanations for this, but neither is supported by evidence. The archives of the Arts and Sciences Department of the Ministry of the Interior offer a third e Read More

Abstract Roots of innovation? The machine industry of the Eindhoven region 1870-1920 Nowadays, the city of Eindhoven is known for its technical innovation, with companies like Philips and, more recently, ASML. It has been assumed, though never thoroughly researched, that this innovative character had already cultivated been in the early stages (1870-1920) of the industrialization of the city. The results of this article show t Read More