191. The Tulipomania in Holland: 17th Century¹

The extreme forms of crowd behavior may be called mental epidemics or psychological contagions. The crowd easily changes into the mob. With the more violent expressions found in an intense crowd, or in a mob, the release of repressions goes on rapidly. Every age and people seem to experience these more extreme forms of crowd behavior. And in the earlier writers on crowd psychology the tendency was to lay down a set of universal laws of this action. If we accept the standpoint of the present volume, however, we shall see that a purely psychological explanation is not adequate. While there are doubtless many features in common in all violent crowds, each expression of crowdish manner must be studied in the light of its social and cultural setting as well as in terms of the psychological changes in the individuals who make up the particular crowd. In short, we shall have to deal again not with one but with three variables, the individual, the culture setting, and the social interaction or group situation, if we are to comprehend the full meaning of mental contagions throughout history.

In the present chapter selections have been made of historical incidents from the Middle Ages to the present day. Examples might have been chosen from primitive peoples and from classical or biblical literature. The crowd situations which developed in Athens are known to us all. So, too, the crowd phenomena in the treatment of the prophets in the Old Testament and the mobs that cried of Jesus "Crucify Him" and the crowds which harassed Paul are equally familiar to us. But for our purposes we have chosen a series of instances of mental epidemics of medieval and modern periods, which we may describe as the more violent sorts of crowd behavior. These have a spread over a territory and have persisted for a certain period of time. Yet they did not become formalized into institutions.

The opening selection from Sidis reviews briefly the place which suggestion and social pressure play in crowd phenomena. Sidis believes that the personality, being determined largely by social influences, is throughout highly suggestible. By translating his terms into present-day psychology, we can see that his point of view is akin to that of Scott and especially Martin cited in Chapter XXII. Sidis wisely appreciates the place which culture patterns, customs and codes of society, play in fostering crowd behavior and mental epidemics.

The second selection from Sidis lists the best-known examples of crowd contagions throughout later Medieval and Modern historical periods. Of the first period, the Medieval, only two short examples are given, the Crusades, especially the curious Children’s Crusade, and the Flagellants. One may consult Sidis and especially Mackay for further illustrations for this period.

At the outset of the Modern period there was an outbreak of demonology or witchcraft mania which swept over all Europe. Here upon the basis of the Christian dogmas about Satan and his powers, all of Europe seemed for a time filled with delusions of persecution and other paranoid types of thought. This touched both Catholic and Protestant countries and reached all social classes from serf and peasant to learned doctor and nobleman.

Within a century speculative manias being to appear in northern Europe. In Holland one Of the most curious types of speculative crazes occurred, the whole thing revolving about the buying and selling of tulip bulbs. This was perhaps the beginning of that series of speculative manias which reach down to our own time. As the Middle Ages was culturally marked by the Christian doctrines, so the Modern period is marked by the capitalistic thesis, of which desire for profits looms large. The speculative tendency, the primitive belief in luck, comes into great prominence and from the 17th century on to the latest boom of Florida land and Nevada goldfields, the interest in pecuniary speculation is omnipresent in the areas affected by the capitalistic order of society.

The Mississippi Bubble is a classic illustration of crowd behavior. The rather mild-mannered and keen John Law was largely the victim of circumstances. This case shows the craze of wealth, of the desire to get something for nothing which the present writer believes is very strong in all peoples, certainly in those in our Occidental cultures. It shows furthermore how the masses project upon a leader qualities almost divine. The veneration accorded Law during the halcyon days of the Mississippi company in Paris indicate the mad extremes to which the populace will go under the influence of social stimulation and emotion.

The selection from Anthony from the life of Catherine the Great gives us a picture of mob behavior in which there is a conflict between scientific procedures in medicine and religious superstition of the masses. This sort of crowd situation may be duplicated almost in our own time. One need hardly mention the crowdish attitudes of those organizations which oppose vivisection, vaccination and the teaching of the theory of biological evolution in our public schools.

While the speculative manias loom large in the last three hundred years, religious interest has not completely disappeared. In fact, as Max Weber and Tawney have shown, there is no genuine conflict between Protestant dogmas and capitalism. Hence, religious concern may exist independently but alongside of pecuniary interests in the Occidental peoples. While there were religious manias during the Middle Ages such as the Crusades, the Dancing Mania and the Flagellants, with the coming of the Reformation there was an outburst of religious expression in which the most violent and extreme crowd phenomena were witnessed. The behavior of such divergent sects of Germany as the Anabaptists, the rise of Methodism in England, and the Edwards and Whitefield revivals are cases in point.

Miss Cleveland’s paper presents some of the crowd behavior seen in a backwoods revival in the early nineteenth century in the United States. This outburst of religious expression can only be understood, however, in terms of the whole historical setting of the time and place. To secure the more complete picture the student should read the full cultural history of the period. The material here given is only illustrative of the psychological phase.

The interest in the El Dorados of the world has always been noteworthy. The discovery of gold in the New World led to feverish search for gold both in North and South America. So, too, in the American period, the finding of gold at Sutter’s Mill, produced a mad rush to the Pacific coast of thousands upon thousands of our population then largely located east of the Mississippi. The selection from Cleland shows the beginning of the epidemic in California itself with some notes on the mania as it reached the eastern half of our country.

In our own time we have had the oil booms of Oklahoma and more recently the land boom of Florida. The paper by Shelby gives a picture of some aspects of the crowd behavior in the latter instance.

The final paper of the chapter is selected from Ross’s well-known discussion of counter-agents to mob mindedness. He shows the importance of intellectual training, of stable social tradition and custom, especially the existence of the strong ties of family, morality and religious practice. One may infer, I think, from his discussion that periods of change and chaos like the present are much more apt to see violent crowd situations than the more conservative, unchanging societies of other historical periods. The Crusades, for instance, constituted one of the first expressions of coming change in the medieval life. The speculative manias arose during the great commercial outburst following the discovery of the New World and the establishment of commercial contacts with the Orient. Today, while the contiguous crowd may not develop any more frequently than before, certainly the existence of easy means of communication, like the press, makes possible the building up of crowd attitudes and the spread of various mental manias over wide areas and through various classes of people who are not in physical proximity. We shall examine some features of this latter sort of collective behavior in subsequent chapters.

In 1634, the rage among the Dutch to possess tulips was so great that the ordinary industry of the country was neglected, and the population, even to its lowest dregs, embarked in the tulip trade. As the mania increased, prices augmented, until, in the year 1635, many persons were known to invest a fortune of 100,000 florins in the purchase of forty 703 roots. It then became necessary to sell them by their weight in perits, a small weight less than a grain. A tulip of the species called Admiral Liefken, weighing 400 perits, was worth 4400 florins; and Admiral Van der Eyck, weighing 446 perits, was worth 1260 florins; a Childer of 106 perits was worth 1615 florins; a Viceroy of 400 perits, 3000 florins; and, most precious of all, a Semper Augustus, weighing 200 perits, was thought to be very cheap at 5500 florins. The latter was much sought after, and even an inferior bulb might command a price of 2000 florins.

The demand for tulips of a rare species increased so much in the year 1636, that regular marts for their sale were established on the Stock Exchange of Amsterdam, in Rotterdam, Haarlem, Leyden, Alkmar, Hoorn, and other towns. Symptoms of gambling now became, for the first time, apparent. The stock-jobbers, ever on the alert for a new speculation, dealt largely in tulips, making use of all the means they so well knew how to employ, to cause fluctuations in prices. At first, as in all these gambling manias, confidence was at its height, and every body gained. The tulip-jobbers speculated in the rise and fall of the tulip stocks, and made large profits by buying when prices fell, and selling out when they rose. Many individuals grew suddenly rich. A golden bait hung temptingly out before the people, and one after the other, they rushed to the tulipmarts, like flies around a honey-pot. Every one imagined that the passion for tulips would last for ever, and that the wealthy from every part of the world would send to Holland, and pay whatever prices were asked for them. The riches of Europe would be concentrated on the shores of the Zuyder Zee, and poverty banished from the favoured clime of Holland. Nobles, citizens, farmers, mechanics, seamen, footmen, maid-servants, even chimney-sweeps and old clotheswomen dabbled in tulips. People of all grades converted their property into cash, and invested it in flowers. Houses and lands were offered for sale at ruinously low prices, or assigned in payment of bargains made at the tulipmart. Foreigners became smitten with the same frenzy, and money poured into Holland from all directions. The prices of the necessaries of life rose again by degrees: houses and lands, horses and carriages, and luxuries of every sort, rose in value with them, and for some months Holland seemed the very antechamber of Plutus. The operations of the trade became so extensive and so intricate, that it was found necessary to draw up a code of laws for the guidance of the dealers. Notaries and clerks were also appointed, who devoted themselves exclusively to the interests of the trade. The designation of public notary was hardly known in some towns, that of tulip-notary usurping its place. In the smaller towns, where there was 704 no exchange, the principal tavern was usually selected as the "showplace," where high and low traded in tulips, and confirmed their bargains over sumptuous entertainments. These dinners were sometimes attended by two or three hundred persons, and large vases of tulips, in full bloom, were placed at regular intervals upon the tables and sideboards for their gratification during the repast.

At last, however, the more prudent began to see that this folly could not last for ever.

Hundreds who, a few months previously, had begun to doubt that there was such a thing as poverty in the land, suddenly found themselves the possessors of a few bulbs, which nobody would buy, even though they offered them at one quarter of the sums they had paid for them. The cry of distress resounded everywhere, and each man accused his neighbor. The few who had contrived to enrich themselves hid their wealth from the knowledge of their fellow-citizens, and invested it in the English or other funds. Many who, for a brief season, had emerged from the humbler walks of life, were cast back into their original obscurity. Substantial merchants were reduced almost to beggary, and many a representative of a noble line saw the fortunes of his house ruined beyond redemption.

¹ Reprinted from C. Mackay, Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions, Vol. I: pp. 86–87; 89–90; 90. London, 1852.