Washington Irving was born in 1783 in New York City, shortly before the end of the American Revolution. He grew up in an era of rapid change for New York and the Hudson River Valley. The region's traditional Dutch culture, which played an important part in Irving's imaginative development, was beginning to fade due to the influence of new settlers from other areas of New England and other forces of modernization. As these changes unfolded Irving felt a sense of loss that he eventually expressed in his work.
Dutch heritage in the Catskill Mountain region. In 1609 Henry Hudson, an employee of the Dutch East India Company, explored the river that has since been named for him. The first group of permanent settlers to lay claim to the region that became New York arrived from Holland in 1624. These Dutch settlers called the region New Netherland. Though other Dutch travelers joined the colony, it remained small. Holland was relatively prosperous during the seventeenth century and was one of the few European centers that practiced religious tolerance. Few people living there wanted to leave their homes for an unsettled colony in the New World.
This is a free page. This page contains 201 words. This
article contains 3,560 words (approx. 12 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Article with our "Rip Van Winkle" Access Pass.
