The A. C. Van Raalte Institute was established in 1993, through the generosity of a Hope College graduate and trustee, Peter H. Huizenga (Class of 1960). The initial idea for an institute was provided by James Ver Meulen, a former member of the Hope College Board of Trustees with a strong interest in the history of Hope College and the nineteenth-century Dutch immigration to Western Michigan. Before his death in the mid-1980s, Mr. Ver Meulen wrote to fellow trustee Huizenga, proposing that they meet to discuss his concept of a research institute on Dutch-American studies, which would be located at the college. A few years later, Mr. Huizenga provided the means to translate the idea into reality.