Judith Siegel (1979) is PhD-student at the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communications at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam and takes part in the joint research program of the RCMMH on modern Dutch shipbuilding between 1870 and 1983
In 2016 she finished her master in Culture Studies at the Open University with historical research into learning in humanitarian aid and recovery in Zeeland after the flooding of 12 and 13 March 1906 which is published in the Yearbook of 2016 of the Koninklijk Zeeuwsch Genootschap der Wetenschappen.
Her current research focuses on the Dutch shipbuilding industry between 1914 and 1945. A period in which this industry repeatedly had to cope with radical changes on the political, economic, social and cultural level caused by two world wars and a severe financial crisis. Particular focus will lie on the question of the role of the upcoming knowledge infrastructure in the Netherlands in the first half of the twentieth century in relation to the innovativeness of the Dutch shipbuilding industry and the underlying motives to innovate or not. How important was innovation for the shipyard as mode to survive the capricious years it found itself in and to what extent was this influenced by the shipping companies as both investor and customer/designer?
This research consists of an in-depth analysis of the interactions with the various actors in the shipbuilding network and the evolving knowledge infrastructure and a multiple case-study of three of the largest shipyards in the Netherlands: Wilton-Fijenoord (Schiedam), the Rotterdamsche Droogdok Maatschappij (Rotterdam) and De Schelde (Vlissingen).
Recent Publications
- With Mark Straver, Networks, innovation, and competitiveness: Changing market conditions and industry structure within Dutch shipbuilding, 1914-1983. Working paper prepared for the research seminar on “Causes and Consequences of the Decline of West European Shipbuilding, 1945-2000”, organised by Business History @ Erasmus, 14 November 2018, Rotterdam.
- ‘”Die zoete waan…”. Historisch onderzoek naar leerprocessen in hulpverlening en herstel in Zeeland na de overstromingsramp van 12 maart 1906’, in: Jaarboek van het Koninklijk Zeeuwsch Genootschap der Wetenschappen (Middelburg 2017)
- ‘De overstromingsramp van 12/13 maart 1906 in het waterschap Oud-Vossemeer. Leerprocessen en omgangsstrategieën in de Zeeuwse polder’, in: Tijdschrift voor Waterstaatsgeschiedenis 24 (6/2015)
