A video of Holland in the winter, 1917
September 21, 2019 5:49 PM   Subscribe

 
This is so amazing, thanks for the post!
posted by Dumsnill at 5:55 PM on September 21, 2019 [3 favorites]


Such happiness even in the midst of WWI.
(Neutral in the war, but mobilized and under enormous pressure. Food riots to come in '18.)
posted by doctornemo at 6:49 PM on September 21, 2019 [2 favorites]


The world started warming significantly in the 30-50s, you forget how much colder it was in the 1800s and the early 1900s.

All those kids in shorts and wool socks or tights and no gloves in the snow are giving me flashbacks to my own childhood going to a north European school that had a similar school uniform. How we all didn't die of hypothermia before the 6th grade surprises me. Modern warm and lightweight and flexible clothes are such luxury.
posted by fshgrl at 7:29 PM on September 21, 2019 [4 favorites]


Huh. A lot of people are actually wearing wooden clogs. I thought that was more of a country/ pre industrial age thing.
posted by tavella at 8:49 PM on September 21, 2019 [2 favorites]


Here’s the actual archive that holds those films: EyeFilm
EyeFilm’s YouTube Channel
Guy Jones reposts lots of other archives’ film and newsreel footage, but his added sounds are usually poorly done.
posted by Ideefixe at 9:52 PM on September 21, 2019 [3 favorites]


That's Friesland, not Holland. It's in the Netherlands though.
posted by Pendragon at 12:56 AM on September 22, 2019 [5 favorites]


I too wondered about the many people in traditional clothes and clogs. Did they really wear that, or put it on for the camera?
Also: all that ice and no snow? Fascinating.

When I was a kid in England in the 60's and 70's, the winter school uniform had socks and skirts. Bare knees, and no gloves. But I don't remember any really freezing weather. England is warm. Back in Denmark, kids were and are dressed for polar expeditions, but Danish pedagogy prizes outdoor life very highly.
posted by mumimor at 1:11 AM on September 22, 2019


Lovely film, parts of it looked like a monochrome rendering of a Breugel painting. Interesting to see the clogs, looks like they are good for walking in icy conditions - that must explain why people wore wore them in a land full of canals, couldn't understand why otherwise.

Speaking of English winters, the winter of 62-63, known as the Big Freeze, is one of the coldest British winters on record, and I have a photo of my sister-in-law standing in the snow that year with big banks of snow piled high on either side of her. She's probably about 12, and she's wearing hat, coat, gloves, short skirt, bare legs, daps and cotton socks. People here are cavalier about dressing for the weather, maybe it's optimism.
posted by glasseyes at 2:48 AM on September 22, 2019


mumimor, I'm pretty sure people still wore traditional clothes regularly back then, even in the 90s some (older) people in specific villages still wore those types of clothes. I remember hearing somewhere that women in those villages decided to stop clothing their kids like that in the 60s/70s, but some kept wearing it themselves till they died.

It's a bit early for skating fever, but this made me rewatch 'Als 't kan, dan moet het' (when we can, we must) shot completely from skates, celebrating contemporary Dutch nature-ice skating culture. Now I wanna go out, but the temperature is still about 30 degrees to high...
posted by kwartel at 3:15 AM on September 22, 2019 [1 favorite]


Interesting to see the clogs, looks like they are good for walking in icy conditions - that must explain why people wore wore them in a land full of canals, couldn't understand why otherwise.

Clogs are extremely robust work shoes, lift the feet out of mud, and the full-wood type offer a level of foot protection that leather shoes don't. They are extremely practical for work in a damp and low-lying country.
posted by Vortisaur at 3:16 AM on September 22, 2019 [2 favorites]


Food riots to come in '18

Amsterdam Potato Riot.

On the history rhymes front, the food shortage was even worse in 1944.
posted by BWA at 4:45 AM on September 22, 2019


When I was in Amsterdam in 2002 I saw street construction workers wearing clogs. I promise this was not a hallucination as I had only just arrived.
posted by affectionateborg at 6:11 AM on September 22, 2019 [3 favorites]


Huh, apparently still a thing. I guess it makes some sense for laying stone pavement, even better protection than a steel-toed boot if you drop a paver.
posted by tavella at 7:24 PM on September 22, 2019


That bit of skaters going in to the cabin with the Friesian flag, at 2:13 -- it doesn't have a title card, but I wonder, were they going to get a card stamped in the third Elfstedentocht (NL)?

(What's an Elfstedentocht, you ask? Wonder no more.)
posted by sldownard at 5:21 AM on September 23, 2019


I don't really understand the ice sleds. It seems like sitting on a narrow tippy sled with your legs straight out and poling would be more awkward than just skating.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 7:40 AM on September 23, 2019


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