Most European immigrants, including the Dutch, were rural people from isolated areas. They valued an ordered, traditional society based on kinship, village and church. When these people emigrated, they sought to transplant their village cultures, religion, and family networks. This was especially true of the Dutch. Most were not innovators, but rather conservatives seeking to maintain their culture in a new environment, where they could enjoy greater economic and religious freedoms. Robert Swierenga, a noted researcher of Dutch immigration, remarked about it, saying the Dutch Protestant immigrants were the most “clannish” of all the European peoples
For our Van Doorn immigrants:
The church is important. Although economics tended to explain the “why” of emigration, religion tended to explain the “how.” Religious institutions facilitated the move, guided people to specific destinations, and influenced the pace of adjustment to the new land.
According to Swierenga, the church community was a “shelter in a time of storm”, a provider of benevolent and charitable services, an employment agency, and the center of social and cultural life. Religious faith offered stability at a time when most immigrants were feeling a sense of loss and “rootlessness. In Adriaan’s case, the presence of his brother John probably lessoned his reliance on the Church somewhat, as compared to other immigrants.
Like his brother John, Adriaan attended services at the First Reformed Church of Rochester. Pew records from the church prove it. In his later years, he was an elder in the Third Reformed Church in Grand Rapids. His association with the Reformed Church was somewhat surprising, as he was “seceder” in The Netherlands. Over three fourths of seceder or separatist immigrants in the period 1857-1880 joined the fledgling Christian Reformed Church upon arrival or shortly thereafter. And a surprising one half of Dutch Reformed immigrants also joined this church. The Christian Reformed Church was clearly seen as the preserver of the Dutch Reformed heritage. Whereas, the Reformed Church was perceived as promoting a quicker assimilation into mainstream American life. Perhaps Adriaan found the religious freedom offered to the Reformed Church in this country sufficient.
Adriaan initially settled in Rochester, New York, remarried and started a second family. He made his living working as a mason. He lived in two different homes, both located near his brother John and the First Reformed Church of Rochester. Some years later, Grand Rapids was reported to have a great demand for furniture makers. In 1876, Martin, the oldest son, moved to the Grand Rapids area to verify these reports. He confirmed that business was brisk and there were great opportunities for furniture factory workers. Adriaan and his family moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1879.
David Vanderstel, in his study of the Dutch in Grand Rapids (1850 - 1900), identified twelve distinct neighborhoods, each composed mainly of immigrants from specific communities and regions in the Netherlands. While it would be accurate to characterize each neighborhood as "little Holland", it would be more accurate to characterize each as "little Zeeland" or "little Groningen." Unlike the Dutch immigrants in the Holland, Michigan area, Grand Rapids Dutch immigrants did not show a propensity to align themselves according to their old villages. However, they did align themselves according to their old provinces.
Each neighborhood was not merely an aggregate of Netherlands people residing on adjacent city block, but rather each Dutch neighborhood possessed certain characteristics that distinguished it from others, such as provincial origin, years since emigration, occupation, among others.
Zeelanders comprised forty percent of the Dutch households in the city's population. They tended to emigrate from specific communities, most located in the northern part of the province. One of these communities was Oud-Vossemeer.
Initially, Adriaan Van Doorn settled in a neighborhood identified by Vanderstel as the East-Wealthy neighborhood so named because of the streets that intersected there. The majority of the residents were unskilled laborers from the province of Groningen.
A few years later, Adriaan and his family moved to the "Fulton-Lake" neighborhood. The Fulton-Lake community was founded in about 1880. The vast majority of its households were from the province of Zeeland. The neighborhood contained a large number of skilled furniture workers.
According to an account published in the Grand Rapids Evening News, “the houses on the narrow courts and alleys are so close together that in many cases if a busy housewife should discover that she was out of tea, she could borrow from a neighbor without leaving the house. All she would have to do would be to raise the window of her kitchen and stretch a little. The entire district is as densely populated as a beehive and on a summer’s day it resembles one, with countless persons bustling in and out and scores of children playing in the roadway.”
Lots in the Dutch neighborhoods of Rochester and Grand Rapids were typically 50 feet wide. By today’s standards we might consider this congested or crowded. However, homes in the cities and villages of the Netherlands were built up against each other, with no space in between. The only way to get to the backyard was to go in through the front door and out the back door. The poor typically shared a home with others who were not members of the family.
Measured against these standards, the Van Doorn’s living conditions and overall quality of life improved dramatically as the result of their immigration to the United States.
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