{"id":6830,"date":"2015-10-29T10:47:13","date_gmt":"2015-10-29T14:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/?p=6830"},"modified":"2022-03-23T13:30:41","modified_gmt":"2022-03-23T17:30:41","slug":"our-millers-tale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/our-millers-tale\/","title":{"rendered":"Our “Miller\u2019s Tale”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Book<\/a>Move over, Chaucer! Kalamazoo College has its own “Miller\u2019s Tale,” that of Alisa Crawford \u201991<\/strong>, who recently won the state history award from the Historical Society of Michigan for her book “De Zwaan: The True Story of America\u2019s Authentic Dutch Windmill.” Alisa is the resident miller at the De Zwaan windmill, which is located in Holland, Michigan. Achieving qualifications for that job was no “run of the mill” effort; nor was piecing together the origins and history of the mill she operates and loves. After many years learning to speak Dutch, study, apprenticeship, and testing, Alisa became a Dutch-certified miller. Then after more testing, she was admitted to an elite Dutch guild of professional grain millers. Through that process, she came to know a number of mill historians in The Netherlands. Together they dug through dusty archives in The Netherlands, interviewed people connected to the mill, and crawled through the windmill searching for archaeological clues.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the time of its purchase,\u201d notes Alisa, \u201cauthorities in The Netherlands thought it had been built in 1761 in the Zaan region in North Holland to make hemp rope, but then clues began trickling in that made that impossible.\u201d Without giving away the end of the book, Alisa says of the mill that now stands on windmill Island in Holland: \u201cDe Zwaan began its career far from North Holland and does not have a \u2018purebred pedigree\u2019, as originally presumed.\u201d She indicates that it was assembled from the parts of several mills much later than 1761. However, that lineage, she writes in the book, \u201cis what makes De Zwaan unequivocally authentic. Windmills were and continue to be working machines. When they break, they are repaired. When they become outmoded, they are re-purposed. When the parts wear out, they are replaced.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alisa received the award at the State History conference held in Saginaw. In her acceptance speech she noted, \u201cI like to say I\u2019m a miller by trade, an historian by degree, and now an author by award, and I thank the Historical Society of Michigan for that honor.\u201d Her book is available on Windmill Island in Holland, at local retailers and online at In-Depth Editions<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Move over, Chaucer! Kalamazoo College has its own “Miller\u2019s Tale,” that of Alisa Crawford \u201991, who recently won the state history award from the Historical Society of Michigan for her book “De Zwaan: The True Story of America\u2019s Authentic Dutch Windmill.” Alisa is the resident miller at the De Zwaan windmill, which is located in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":6832,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[232],"tags":[31,30,64],"post_formats":[],"class_list":["post-6830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","tag-alumni","tag-awards","tag-history"],"yoast_head":"\r\nOur "Miller\u2019s Tale" - News and Events<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Move over, Chaucer! Kalamazoo College has its own "Miller\u2019s Tale," that of Alisa Crawford \u201991, who recently won the state history award from the\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/our-millers-tale\/\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Our "Miller\u2019s Tale" - News and Events\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Move over, Chaucer! Kalamazoo College has its own "Miller\u2019s Tale," that of Alisa Crawford \u201991, who recently won the state history award from the\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/our-millers-tale\/\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"News and Events\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/KalamazooCollege\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-10-29T14:47:13+00:00\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-03-23T17:30:41+00:00\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2015\/10\/rawfordThumb.jpg\" \/>\r\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1010\" \/>\r\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1023\" \/>\r\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jim Van Sweden\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@kcollege\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@kcollege\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jim Van Sweden\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\r\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/our-millers-tale\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/our-millers-tale\/\",\"name\":\"Our \\\"Miller\u2019s Tale\\\" - News and Events\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/our-millers-tale\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/our-millers-tale\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2015\/10\/rawfordThumb.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-10-29T14:47:13+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-03-23T17:30:41+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/33b812ef7fd17031ab566856049c97af\"},\"description\":\"Move over, Chaucer! 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aria-label=\"archive of category Alumni\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/category\/alumni\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Alumni<\/a>","tags_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/tag\/alumni\/\" rel=\"tag\">alumni<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/tag\/awards\/\" rel=\"tag\">awards<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/tag\/history\/\" rel=\"tag\">history<\/a>","social_share_info":"<a data-share=\"facebook\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/our-millers-tale\/\" class=\"pl-facebook-share social-share-default pl-social-share\" target=\"_blank\"><i class=\"fab fa-facebook-f\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/a><a data-share=\"twitter\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/our-millers-tale\/\" class=\"pl-twiiter-share social-share-default pl-social-share\" target=\"_blank\"><i class=\"fab fa-twitter\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/a><a data-share=\"linkedin\" href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/shareArticle?url=https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/our-millers-tale\/\" class=\"pl-linkedin-share social-share-default pl-social-share\" target=\"_blank\"><i class=\"fab fa-linkedin-in\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/a>","wordExcerpt_info":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2015\/10\/eZwaan-Medium.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright wp-image-6831 size-full\" src=\"\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2015\/10\/eZwaan-Medium.jpg\" alt=\"Book cover of "De Zwaan: The True Story of America\u2019s Authentic Dutch Windmill"\" width=\"400\" height=\"469\" \/><\/a>Move over, Chaucer! Kalamazoo College has its own “Miller\u2019s Tale,” that of <strong>Alisa Crawford \u201991<\/strong>, who recently won the state history award from the Historical Society of Michigan for her book “De Zwaan: The True Story of America\u2019s Authentic Dutch Windmill.” Alisa is the resident miller at the De Zwaan windmill, which is located in Holland, Michigan. Achieving qualifications for that job was no “run of the mill” effort; nor was piecing together the origins and history of the mill she operates and loves. After many years learning to speak Dutch, study, apprenticeship, and testing, Alisa became a Dutch-certified miller. Then after more testing, she was admitted to an elite Dutch guild of professional grain millers. Through that process, she came to know a number of mill historians in The Netherlands. Together they dug through dusty archives in The Netherlands, interviewed people connected to the mill, and crawled through the windmill searching for archaeological clues.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt the time of its purchase,\u201d notes Alisa, \u201cauthorities in The Netherlands thought it had been built in 1761 in the Zaan region in North Holland to make hemp rope, but then clues began trickling in that made that impossible.\u201d Without giving away the end of the book, Alisa says of the mill that now stands on windmill Island in Holland: \u201cDe Zwaan began its career far from North Holland and does not have a \u2018purebred pedigree\u2019, as originally presumed.\u201d She indicates that it was assembled from the parts of several mills much later than 1761. However, that lineage, she writes in the book, \u201cis what makes De Zwaan unequivocally authentic. Windmills were and continue to be working machines. When they break, they are repaired. When they become outmoded, they are re-purposed. When the parts wear out, they are replaced.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Alisa received the award at the State History conference held in Saginaw. In her acceptance speech she noted, \u201cI like to say I\u2019m a miller by trade, an historian by degree, and now an author by award, and I thank the Historical Society of Michigan for that honor.\u201d Her book is available on Windmill Island in Holland, at local retailers and online at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.in-deptheditions.com\/\"><strong>In-Depth Editions<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","comment_info":"No Comments","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6830"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9892,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6830\/revisions\/9892"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6830"},{"taxonomy":"post_format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_formats?post=6830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}