Arnold Mulder

Arnold Mulder was born in 1885 on a farm in Holland Township, Michigan to Dutch immigrant parents. After graduating from Hope College in Holland in 1907 in English and Classical Literature, he spent two years working as an editor at local newspaper Holland City News. Subsequently he received a master’s degree in English Literature from the University of Chicago.

He returned to Holland in 1912, where he joined the other local newspaper, the Holland Sentinel as its editor. He published his first novel, The Dominie of Harlem, in 1913. His novels are set in small-town Dutch-America. Mulder treats his subjects with critical respect and his novels explore the inevitable cross-generational clashes between the original immigrant generation, steeped in old-country tradition and religion, and their Americanized offspring.

In 1929 after twenty years as a newspaper editor and after having published five novels, Mulder was appointed Professor of Creative Writing at Kalamazoo College, a position he held until his retirement in 1953. He wrote no more novels, but did publish two historical works, of which Americans from Holland is the most notable. Mulder died in 1959.

The first of Mulder’s books to be republished by Mokeham will be available later in 2022.