In the nineteen-twenties the American interest in the Netherlands slackened. Holland-Mania faded away. Fortunately, the interest in the small country on the North Sea did not disappear completely. In the interbellum period for instance, children's books with a typically Dutch character appeared on the American market.

In traditional Dutch immigrant regions such as Michigan and New York, some interest in the old country of origin was kept alive. In Michigan, Hope College located in the town of Holland and Calvin College in Grand Rapids both maintained the ties with the Netherlands. See also: www.hope.edu and www.calvin.edu.

In Albany, in New York State, Dr Charles Gehring in 1974 started the New Netherland Project. Gehring graduated in Germanic languages and took his doctoral degree on the use of the Dutch language in colonial New York. See also: www.nnp.org. The project was developed under responsibility of the New York State Library and the Holland Society in New York. It aimed to transcribe, translate and eventually publish as many original seventeenth century documents as possible concerning the early history of New York.

In fact this was the continuation of a project started in the nineteenth century when, commissioned by New York State, an 'agent' was sent to the Netherlands, London and Paris to search the archives for documents about the history of the state. In the mid-nineteenth century this agent, John Romeyn Brodhead, spent a lot of time in the National Archives in The Hague. There he had clerks make copies of documents concerning the early history of New Netherland and New Amsterdam. E.B. O'Callaghan translated Brodhead's findings into English. The results of their work are still being used today in research into Dutch-American history.

In recent years various books have been published, both in America and in the Netherlands, on Dutch-American history. Lately two much discussed novels about New-Amsterdam appeared. Beverly Swerling wrote City of Dreams: A Novel of Nieuw Amsterdam and Early Manhattan. Russel Shorto published The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America.

Recently Janny Venema, who has been working on the New Netherland Project for twenty years, took her doctoral degree on a thesis entitled: Beverwijck: A Dutch Village on the American Frontier, 1652-1664.

The conclusion seems to be justified that, even if there is no question of renewed Holland-Mania, the 'old Holland' on the other side of the ocean has not yet been forgotten.