On the Waterfront 42

The continued covid-19 pandemic and concomitant lockdown measures have made it impossible to convene any Friends’ meetings for the second year in a row now. Unfortunately, the pandemic has also forced us to break with our long-standing tradition of publishing two issues per year of On the Waterfront. Like everybody else, we hope that the latest lockdown and temporary closing of the Institute in December will have been the last time this was necessary, and that we will be able to organize a Friends’ meeting as soon as possible, including a presentation of interesting new acquisitions. Although all work at the Institute, as in the rest of society, has obviously been affected by the pandemic, our colleagues of the Collection Department have been impacted especially hard, because much of their work, such as selecting and inventorying incoming new materials, can be done only at the Cruquiusweg premises. We are therefore especially grateful that we can nonetheless present a new selection of interesting acquisitions, with some remarkable stories.

One of the most important events for history aficionados in the Netherlands, the Maand van de Geschiedenis (History Month) took place this fall, despite the pandemic. This was particularly fortuitous for the iish, because this year’s theme was tailor-made for our Institute: ‘Get to work!’

The history of work is a central theme in our collections and research, and the Institute was therefore logically the theme partner of the History Month’s organizers. Thanks to our new communications officer Rose Spijkerman and others, a series of successful events was organized, including an 8:hour:festival, debates on topical issues around work and the labour market, and the presentation of the monumental book on the global history of work from prehistory to the present, written by the Friends' co-founder Jan Lucassen. Reports on all events are featured in The Institute is known as an organization where staff tend to stay on longer than at the average workplace in the Netherlands. As a result, several colleagues have retired in recent years. We open this issue with an interview with Jacques van Gerwen, who retired in January of this year, the last of the original neha staff to leave the Institute.

Aad Blok