Hendrik Willem van Loon

Hendrik Willem van Loon

Hendrik Willem van Loon[lower-alpha 1] (January 14, 1882 – March 11, 1944) was a Dutch-American historian, journalist, and award-winning children's book author.

Life

On December 20, 1939, a great sympathy meeting for Finland, then embroiled in the Winter War, was arranged in Madison Square Garden. In the picture from the left are former president Herbert Hoover (chairman of the Finland-committee), Dr. van Loon, and the mayor of New York Fiorello La Guardia.

He was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands, the son of Hendrik Willem van Loon[2] and Elisabeth Johanna Hanken.[3] He went to the United States in 1902 to study at Cornell University, receiving his degree in 1905. In 1906[4] he married Eliza Ingersoll Bowditch (1880–1955), daughter of a Harvard professor, by whom he had two sons, Henry Bowditch and Gerard Willem. The newlyweds moved to Germany, where van Loon received his Ph.D. from the University of Munich in 1911 with a dissertation that became his first book, The Fall of the Dutch Republic (1913). He was a correspondent for the Associated Press during the Russian Revolution of 1905 and again in Belgium in 1914 at the start of World War I. He lectured at Cornell University from 1915 to 1917; in 1919 he became an American citizen.

Van Loon had two later marriages, to Eliza Helen (Jimmie) Criswell[5] in 1920 and playwright Frances Goodrich Ames in 1927, but after a divorce from Ames he returned to Criswell (it is debatable whether or not they remarried); she inherited his estate in 1944.

Writer

Frontispiece to Hendrik Willem Van Loon's 1922 book Ancient Man.
"The Young Nile", illustration by Hendrik Willem Van Loon for his book Ancient Man, 1922.

From the 1910s until his death, Van Loon wrote many books, illustrating them himself. Most widely known among these is The Story of Mankind, a history of the world especially for children, which won the first Newbery Medal in 1922. The book was later updated by Van Loon and has continued to be updated, first by his son and later by other historians.

However, he also wrote many other very popular books aimed at young adults. As a writer he was known for emphasizing crucial historical events and giving a complete picture of individual characters, as well as the role of the arts in history. He also had an informal and thought-provoking style which, particularly in The Story of Mankind, included personal anecdotes. As an illustrator of his own books, he was known for his lively black-and-white drawings and his chronological diagrams.

After having revisited Germany many times in the 1920s, he was banned from the country when the Nazis came to power. His 1938 book Our Battle, Being One Man's Answer to "My Battle" by Adolf Hitler earned him the respect of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in whose 1940 presidential campaign he worked, calling on Americans to fight totalitarianism.

The titles and subtitles of his books are notable for being lengthy. Van Loon had a remarkable command of the English language, and the 1946 and other editions of "Roget's International Thesaurus" are dedicated "To the memory of Hendrik Willem Van Loon who month after month, year after year, sent additions and changes for this edition".

Works

Supposed etymology of the word "mother" in The Story of Mankind, by Hendrik van Loon

A list of works by van Loon, with first publication dates and publishers.

Books about Van Loon

In popular culture

The Italian songwriter Francesco Guccini has composed a song, dedicated to the memory of his father, who was a lover of van Loon's works when he was young. The song is titled "Van Loon," and appears in the album Signora Bovary.

The journalist Charlie Pierce publishes a quote from van Loon every Wednesday on his politics blog for Esquire in a post titled, "Your Weekly van Loon."

Notes

  1. ↑ Asked how to pronounce his name, he told The Literary Digest "I still stick to the Dutch pronunciation of the double o—Loon like loan in 'Loan and Trust Co.' My sons will probably accept the American pronunciation. It really does not matter very much."[1]
  2. ↑ My School Books was a chapter from the unpublished autobiography of Hendrik Willem van Loon made by the DuPont chemical company to demonstrate their new 'PX Cloth' on school books, and distributed free at the 1939 New York World's Fair.

References

  1. ↑ Funk, Charles Earle (1936). What's the Name, Please?. Funk & Wagnalls.
  2. ↑ National Archives and Records Administration. "Passport Applications, January 2, 1906 - March 31, 1925;". U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925 [database on-line]. Ancestry.com. Retrieved 3 Jul 2013.
  3. ↑ Van Loon, Gerard Willem (1972). The story of Hendrik Willem van Loon. Philadelphia: Lippincott. p. 19.
  4. ↑ Van Loon, Eliza Bowditch. Papers, 1906–1907, Radcliffe College
  5. ↑ Helen "Jimmie" Criswell Van Loon at Find a Grave

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hendrik Willem van Loon.
Awards
Preceded by
(none)		 Newbery Medal winner
1922 		Succeeded by
Hugh Lofting
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/5/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.