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Heren van de Stoom
De Willinks, Winterswijk en het Twents-Gelders industrieel patriciaat (1680-1980)
by Willink, Bastiaan
A supurb regional Eastern Dutch history book covering an industry now largely gone. In the period between 1680-1980, the textile industry in the eastern Dutch regions of Twenthe (Overijssel) and the Achterhoek (Gelderland) was dominated by an intertwined network of no more than about twenty widely linked merchant and manufacturing families. These leading clans decreed where factories sprang up and where railways and stations were built. The author approached his subject through the eyes of the very rich but sober living Willink family. The book, in English the title may well have read Lords of the Steam, traces the region's social elite and their role in the economic rise of the industry, and its development from home-based weaving to steam engine-generated factories and railway transportation. It also pays attention to local government, and to three generations of dynamic entrepreneurs such as grandfather Hendrik, father Abraham and sons Hendrik and Jan. The context always is the entire region and its textile industry, including its eventual demise.
Paperback, 384 pages, illustrated, bibliography, index, Dutch language, special import.
USD 13.95 / CAD 19.95