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The Abraham Kuyper Political Cartoon Collection

 Collection
Identifier: SCM 366

Scope and Contents

This collection contains hundreds of large prints of political cartoons featuring Abraham Kuyper that span almost his entire political career. The bulk of them, however, cover his time as prime minister (from 1901 to 1905). While a good portion of them come from the Bijroegsel van de Amsterdammer, Weekblad voor Nederland, many come from other sources. See also the contents of series 2 of Kuipers’s Collection on Kuyper for caricatures and portraits of Kuyper and his contemporaries.

Dates

  • 1887 - 1919

Conditions Governing Access

There are no restrictions on these records; they are all open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Single photocopies or digital images may be ordered for personal research purposes. Images or copies of any collection materials may only be republished with the permission of Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries and, if applicable, the copyright holder. Researchers are responsible for determining any copyright questions.

Biographical / Historical

Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) is best known for his strong leadership of the major center-right, protestant political party of the Netherlands from 1879 to 1920. He served as prime minister of the country from 1901 to 1905. Kuyper was also a Dutch Reformed minister, a newspaper editor, a university professor, and a social activist. He used all these platforms to become the foremost Calvinist intellectual and proponent in the Netherlands during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Kuyper was home-schooled by his father, also a Dutch Reformed pastor, in various towns in the Netherlands before going to high school and then university at Leiden. After serving as minister for several congregations in the late 1860s, he settled in Amsterdam and wrote for and soon edited a Sunday paper, De Heraut, which advocated on behalf of orthodoxy in the Dutch Reformed Church (and after 1886, outside it). Soon after, he founded and edited a daily, De Standaard, to discuss national and world news from a Protestant perspective. After dabbling in politics (including a few years in parliament) and leading a movement in support of greater public funding for religious schools, Kuyper founded the Free University in Amsterdam in 1880, where he served as professor of theology.

In the meantime, he founded the Anti-Revolutionary Party in 1879, which sought to expand government assistance to religious institutions and to govern from the perspective of conservative Protestantism. He returned to parliament in 1894 on a campaign to expand suffrage—either to all adult males or male heads of households. He won reelection and his party won a plurality in 1901, allowing him to form a cabinet with coalition partners. He assumed the position of prime minister with the home affairs portfolio. Under his leadership, laws improving working conditions for laborers were proposed, and for some industries, approved. He was criticized, however, for unsympathetically putting down a large 1903 railway strike. Kuyper also finally realized his longtime goal of providing additional financing to religious schools.

His party was defeated in polls in 1905, and Kuyper left parliament for a grand tour of the Mediterranean. His health was fading, and though he was elected to parliament again in 1908, he was not able to accomplish as much as he had in his prime. He survived allegations in 1909 that he had received a bribe while home minister; the investigative committee declared him innocent. He chaired a committee that wrote a Dutch orthography, and he served on the 1910-1912 committee that proposed constitutional change. He died in 1920 at age 73.

Extent

1.25 Linear Feet

Language of Materials

Dutch; Flemish

Abstract

Abraham Kuyper is best known for his strong leadership, including four years as prime minister, of the major center-right, Protestant political party of the Netherlands from 1879 to 1920. Kuyper was also the foremost Calvinist proponent and intellectual of the late nineteenth century Netherlands. This collection contains large prints of political cartoons that feature Abraham Kuyper.

Arrangement

Political cartoons are arranged chronologically.

Related Materials

Special Collections, Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries, is the home of the Abraham Kuyper Center of Public Theology, which contains a number of Kuyper-focused collections including the Kuipers and Puchinger Libraries on Abraham Kuyper, the Center’s own collection of books and articles by and about Kuyper, The Kuipers Collection of objects about Kuyper, and Kuipers’s complete set of De Heraut and De Standaard, the newspapers Kuyper edited.

Bibliography

Works Cited:

The Abraham Kuyper entry on Wikipedia.com (January 26, 2007) was consulted during the composition of this finding aid’s biography section.

General

Creator: Free University (Vrije Universiteit) of Amsterdam This collection was given to Special Collections by the Free University of Amsterdam from amongst their duplicates. It was received at Special Collections, Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries, in May 2006. Its accession number is 2006.28.

Title
The Abraham Kuyper Political Cartoon Collection
Subtitle
1887-1919
Author
Matthew Reeder
Date
January 2007
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
Undetermined
Script of description
Code for undetermined script

Repository Details

Part of the Princeton Theological Seminary. Library. Special Collections Repository

Contact:
Princeton Theological Seminary
Wright Library
25 Library Place
Princeton NJ 08540 USA