Quiz answer: Leonard de Vries

by Bart Bakker – miniFabLab

‘What is the name of a gentleman from jewish heritage who wrote a book and started a movement to learn young people how to work with modern technology?’
 
Yes, it was the Dutch tech writer Leonard de Vries.
 
During WWII, when he hid for the nazi’s, he wrote a book ‘De Jongens van de Hobbyclub’, ‘The boys from the Hobby Club’. It was published in 1947.
 
It is about a group of teenagers that could experiment with the most advanced technology of that time: building your own radio, recording sound, filming, even radio controlling a model boat. For kids in the sober postwar time this was a dream; most of their fathers did not even have an electric drill.
 
Through his book de Vries inspired young people to hobbies of which they could later make their profession. 66 years ago. Then, as now, society was in need of young people with technical insight.
 
The book was a mix of a novel and tech education. It was a hit: real hobbyclubs were formed. With club spaces. It became a movement.
 
By 1949 there were 70 hobby clubs in Holland. Quite nerdy though, mainly interested in tech, not in society. With an emphasis on building and hacking radio. They even had their own magazine.
 
The clubs were based on peer learning and had no formal leader. Quite novel at that time. They were the hacker/makerspaces of the era.
 
In the fifties the focus was on radio and electronics. De Vries wrote a series of how-to-books: ‘Het Jongensradioboek’, ‘The Boys Radiobook’. In the early sixties the clubs’ interest shifted to photography. They flourished, but with more affluency, the impact of television and the Zeitgeist of 1968 the clubs dwindled away. By 1974 they were all gone. The postwar generation of boys (and girls) had grown up.
 
De Vries’ book became iconic for a whole generation of dutch makers. You will hardly find a copy of the first print that has not been read to pieces. I still have mine.
 
Neil Gershenfeld wrote ‘FAB’ in 2005. It too started a movement. How will people in 2071 look back at FabLab ?