Pieter Lodewijk Tak (

Middelburg Middelburg may refer to: Places and jurisdictions Europe * Middelburg, Zeeland, the capital city of the province of Zeeland, southwestern Netherlands ** Roman Catholic Diocese of Middelburg, a former Catholic diocese with its see in the Zeeland ...

, 24 September 1848 –

Domburg Domburg is a seaside resort on the North Sea, on the northwest coast of Walcheren in the Dutch province of Zeeland. It is a part of the municipality of Veere, and lies about 11 km northwest of the city of Middelburg, the provincial capital. ...

, 26 August 1907) was a Dutch journalist and politician. Tak was the son of a steward in Middelburg, where, after failing law school in 1878, he started writing foreign reviews for the Middelburgsche Courant. He was friends with Floor Wibaut, who like him was a member of the Sociëteit Sint-Joris. Both Middelburgers moved to Amsterdam, Tak in 1882. There he wrote for

De Groene Amsterdammer ''De Groene Amsterdammer'' () is an independent Dutch weekly news magazine published in Amsterdam. It is one of the five independent opinion magazines in the Netherlands, alongside '' HP/De Tijd'', '' Vrij Nederland'', ''Elsevier'' and the Jewish ...

and

De Nieuwe Gids (from Dutch: ''The New Guide'') was a Dutch illustrated literary periodical which was published from 1885 to 1943. It played an important role in promoting the literary movement of the 1880s. Its contents covered a wide range of topics, extend ...

. He took over the financial management of the latter from Frank van der Goes, but left in 1895 to create an own magazine, De Kroniek. Tak was initially left-liberal, supporter of Treub. In 1899 he became a member of the Social Democratic Workers' Party (''"Sociaal-Democratische Arbeiderspartij"'' / SDAP), and started working for Het Volk. He became editor-in-chief of the socialist party newspaper in 1903, after the party board had removed Pieter Jelles Troelstra from this position. In 1905 Tak fired the journalist Jacob Israël de Haan after the publication of his novel Pijpelijntjes. The homosexual tendency in the book was not acceptable to Tak. He did, however, advocate women's rights. From 1905 until his early death he was also party leader, member of parliament for the constituency of Franeker, member of the Provincial Council and member of the city council of

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

. P.L. Tak founded the housing association De Dageraad (The Dawn Council) in 1901. This corporation named a complex of houses in

Amsterdam-Zuid Amsterdam-Zuid (; Amsterdam South) is a Boroughs of Amsterdam, borough (''stadsdeel'') of Amsterdam, Netherlands. The borough was formed in 2010 as a merger of the former boroughs Amsterdam Oud-Zuid, Oud-Zuid and Zuideramstel. The borough has almo ...

in the 1920s after its founder. He died of heart failure, in 1907 during a holiday on the Duinvliet estate near Domburg.

Literature

* Gilles W. Borrie: ''Pieter Lodewijk Tak (1848-1907), Journalist en politicus. Een gentleman in een rode broek''. Aksant, Amsterdam, 2006

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tak, Pieter Lodewijk Dutch journalists People from Middelburg, Zeeland 1848 births 1907 deaths