From http://www.lib.niu.edu/2001/ihy010451.html
Change in South Holland in 1900
Geraldine Cochran
Thornwood High School, South Holland
An important part of life, in fact, an important factor in every community’s life is change. The year 1900 served as an important transition for South Holland, Illinois. South Holland, a small suburb south of Chicago, was founded by Hendrik de Jong, his wife Geertje (de Vries), and their twelve children. South Holland began as an agricultural, Dutch community. Most of the early families settling in the South Holland area known by the Dutch as de Laage Prairie engaged in truck gardening, growing grain, and raising livestock and poultry. To the advantage of agriculture, most of the families were large and provided lots of farm labor. The town was not governed by a secular body but by the church; it was a theocracy.
Change was hard for this old-fashioned Dutch community. Its people did not wish to become Americanized. For example, Dutch was spoken for some ninety years. The South Holland’s church from its beginning was the First Reformed Church. South Hollanders adhered to the Dutch Reformed Church of Holland that John Calvin established during the Reformation. Fourteen families were the first church’s nucleus. Descendants of four families are still found in the present membership� Gouwens, Paarlberg, DeYoung, and Van Vuren. As a result little changed before 1900. South Hollanders had worked to establish their community, their church, their lifestyle, and their livelihoods, and they were not ready to change them. Nevertheless, the need for change came. With the increase of population came an increase of variety.
In the years just before and after 1900, South Hollanders felt the need to change. One significant result was in the name of the South Holland Church. The Protestant Dutch Reformed Church in America adopted the name First Reformed Church of South Holland, a fitting name because it was, as declared in one community history, “the first church in South Holland, the first Reformed Church in the Chicago area, the first church in the community to have an English service, the first to have a Sunday school, and the first to have organ music to replace the voorsinger.”
Following the name change of the Protestant Dutch Reformed Church, several other churches were founded in South Holland: Bethany Christian Reformed Church, Thornridge United Church of Christ, the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church, and Redeemer Evangelical Lutheran Church. Residents of South Holland no longer relied on one church for the entire community. As the population grew, more churches were founded and their increase eventually earned the town’s nickname, “a community of churches.” South Holland’s old Dutch ways were beginning to disappear.
Before 1900 residents of South Holland focused on building the town and getting recognition from the government. For example, before 1900 South Hollanders worked to be recognized as a town with governmental services such as a post office. They received it in 1870. However, as they approached 1900, their goals changed. They began to see the need for other town services. The plans for such services began in 1900 and about a decade or so afterward the facilities for it were built. For instance, the South Holland police department was organized in 1894, but it was not modernized until much later because there was not much need for it. Another example was the South Holland Fire Department. It was organized in 1914, about a decade after 1900. Not long after the establishment of the fire department in 1914, the firefighters began to achieve respect and eventually were well-respected and praised by their neighbors.
Similar circumstances were obvious in building the Calvin Christian School. Before 1900 the church educated children and religion was kept out of school. There was little need for religion in school because it played such a major role in family and recreational life. Nevertheless, South Holland residents soon felt the need for change. They no longer wanted religion to be taught at home and church alone. Therefore, by 1912 the Calvin Christian School was built.
The reasons South Hollanders felt the need for changes in so many aspects of life in the year 1900 is hard to say. However, population definitely played a big role. Population rose from 1,005 in 1894 to 1,650 in 1910. This may not seem like a big change in comparison to population increases of other places during this time. For a small, close-knit, old-fashioned, and closed community, though, it was a great change. Because of this great change in the surrounding population, great changes resulted in the town. Despite the cause, the results of this change can be seen in the decade just after 1900 as well as later decades.
[From South Holland Centennial-1894-1994.]
