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The boards of the KIVI Department of the History of Technology and the Histechnica Association invite you to attend an online lecture titled:

R E U Z E N A R B E I D : The construction of modern Holland in pictures, 1861 - 1918

Speaker: Dr Willem van der Ham

Date: Thursday 6 May 2021

Start time: 19.30 (half past seven in the evening)

Duration: 45 minutes, plus short break, followed by discussion.

Summary of the lecture

Willem van der Ham takes you in words and images to the nineteenth century. From 1860, the state took the initiative to prepare the Netherlands for the future. No more words but deeds. In no time at all, the Netherlands had a national railway network, the most striking of which were the enormous bridges. The North Sea Canal was built and the Nieuwe Waterweg, new canals were dug and huge locks built, the river problems tackled. People of those days could hardly believe their eyes. Because of all this Giant labour, the whole of the Netherlands was going up in smoke. Construction activities were buzzing all over the country.

The remarkable thing is: that building process was photographed everywhere! Thousands of photos bear witness to how the Netherlands changed. The photos were taken by the best photographers. They were the first landscape photos of the Netherlands. The photo collection is no longer complete anywhere.

Van der Ham will talk about the wonderful book he is making and writing, about how he is bringing the fragmented collection together on a platform and about making this special history in the landscape visible. He will ask for your support to make this a reality. See https://issuu.com/nai010publishers/docs/reuzenarbeid_brochuresmallestfilesize.

He also wants to draw attention to the importance of preserving the unique heritage of TU Delft, of which the photographs are a part. It is time to present and showcase this properly.

About the speaker

Dr Willem van der Ham is a social geographer and historian and a well-known water expert. Among other things, he wrote the biography of the founder of the Zuiderzeewerken Cornelis Lely, the biography of founder of the Deltaplan Johan van Veen, wrote the book Modern Wereldwonder on the history of the Delta Works with a number of others, and with Toon Bosch Twee eeuwen Rijkswaterstaat, and completed his PhD at TU Delft on the history of Rijkswaterstaat in the twentieth century. This year, his book Reuzenarbeid will be published as part of a larger project. He ensured that the great cultural-historical value of the Afsluitdijk came to the fore during the preparations for The New Afsluitdijk. With the NTR, he is preparing a documentary about Johan van Veen and a documentary series about The Delta in the Future. Together with Gert Tetteroo, he is organising De dijk is dicht in 2022, a Zuiderzee film festival to mark 90 years of the Afsluitdijk, which will also include a book and a film. For more information, see: www.willemvanderham.nl.

Register via the KIVI website, you will be sent the link upon registration.

For further information on

- the Association of Friends of the Academic Heritage of TU Delft Histechnica, see www.histechnica.nl
- the KIVI Department of the History of Technology, see www.kivi.nl/gdt

Documents