Tulipmania: The Myth That Never Was
The Truth Behind the World’s First Mythical “Bubble”
In 17th-century Holland, people sold their homes for tulips — or so the meme would have you believe. Dutch society spiraled into a frenzy so wild that fortunes were lost, reputations ruined, and the economy collapsed in spectacular fashion.
Again, the meme doing its thing.
But what if this was a global farce that never happened?
The infamous tulipmania scheme, often cited as the world’s first financial bubble, has been immortalized in economic textbooks, pop culture, and even Hollywood. Yet historians now tell us this tale of madness and ruin is more fiction than flowers, and our propensity to believe the worst. Why? Pehaps it makes us feel better?
The Myth of Tulipmania
The idea of tulipmania as an economic catastrophe originates with Charles Mackay, the 19th-century Scottish economist and author of Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. According to Mackay, the otherwise level-headed Dutch lost their minds in 1636, trading tulip bulbs for prices that rivaled the cost of houses. His narrative suggested the smart, practical Dutch would spend an entire year’s salary on the bulbs. It wasn’t fragrance or color that made them fall in love. It was profit. He called it “Tulipomania.”
“A golden bait hung temptingly out before the people, and one after the other, they rushed to the tulip-marts, like flies around a honey-pot,” Mackay wrote. He described a mania where merchants, farmers, and even maids dabbled in tulips, selling their treasures, even their souls if need be, only for the bubble to burst spectacularly in 1637, plunging the country into chaos.
For more than a century, Mackay’s account has been accepted as gospel. Economists like John Kenneth Galbraith echoed it, and pop culture figures like Wall Street’s Gordon Gekko declared: “Back in the 1600s, the Dutch got speculation fever — to the point where you could buy a house by the canal for the price of one bulb.”
It’s a great story. If only it were true.
The Truth Behind the Tulip Craze
But, as historian Anne Goldgar has revealed, it’s mostly untrue. A historian and professor at King’s College London, Goldgar spent years combing through Dutch archives to uncover the truth. Her book, Tulipmania: Money, Honor, and Knowledge in the Dutch Golden Age, dismantles Mackay’s version of events.
Goldgar discovered that tulipmania was hardly the widespread economic collapse Mackay described. The frenzy was confined to a niche group of wealthy enthusiasts who treated tulips as luxury goods, akin to today’s designer handbags or rare sneakers.
After the runaway success of ESPN’s Jordan documentary The Last Dance in 2020, interest in Air Jordan sneakers surged. According to GQ, at Sotheby’s auction, an ultra-rare pair of Jordan 13s that he played with during the final game of the 1998 NBA Finals were hammered at $2.2 million. They had the same effect on the American economy that tulips had on the Dutch. According to Goldgar, none.
“It was more like a line in front of Tiffany’s than a national crisis.”
Although tulip bulb prices did rise sharply, and some rare bulbs fetched astronomical sums — 5,000 guilders, the cost of a house — but these cases were exceptions, not the rule.
Goldgar found that in all, only 37 individuals paid more than 300 guilders for a bulb, about a year’s wages for a carpenter. And contrary to Mackay’s claims, there is no evidence of bankruptcies caused by tulips. The oft-repeated story of a sailor imprisoned for eating a tulip bulb? A colorful anecdote with no basis in fact.
Why the Myth Endures
Why has the tulipmania story persisted for centuries? Goldgar believes Mackay relied on sensationalized 17th-century pamphlets that mocked the Dutch elite. These pamphlets exaggerated the mania to deliver moral lessons about greed and excess. You match sensational storytelling with a reality show, and voila, a meme that never dies.
“It’s a great story because it makes people look stupid,” Goldgar says.
The idea that even the rational, pragmatic Dutch could lose their minds over flowers is irresistible — and it’s why the myth continues to flourish.
Modern Parallels
The tulipmania myth is a cautionary tale that resonates today, not because it’s true, but because it mirrors the supposed cycles of greed and speculation we see in modern times. From the dot-com bubble of the 1990s to the cryptocurrency craze of the 2020s, society remains captivated by the allure of “the next big thing.” Then when it crashes, it looks to blame the first villain it can find.
Goldgar’s research offers a valuable reminder: just because a story feels true doesn’t mean it is. As she puts it, “My problem with Mackay and later writers is that they take commentary and treat it as fact.”
Tulips and Truth
What can we learn from the myth of tulipmania?
Perhaps it’s this: history’s best stories often tell us more about our own fears and desires than about the past itself. Gekko was right in that respect. He was giving us Hollywood’s version, not what actually happened. Just like a Netflix documentary, the story of the bubble wasn’t totally untrue. The market for tulips declined after a year and disappeared, as they do in all manias. By 1637, it was discount outlet season on tulips.
