As part of historical research for the book that I am writing, in conversations with my father, he remembers there being “organized” snowball fights to help children burn off energy from being pent up and indoors during winter weather. He said he was too young to be involved in building the structural forts, but he remembers being assigned snowball making activities.
I researched “organized snowball fights in Haarlem”, the small town in The Netherlands where my father spent his young childhood and, yes, there were organized snowball fights, but it turns out that my current societal assumption that parents or the community organized these for the children was absurd – the children organized it themselves! As a former self-proclaimed and shamed helicopter mom, I am fascinated by this!
Further research introduced me to the concept of verzuiling, in Dutch, or pillarization, in English. Interestingly, Webster’s English dictionary does not have a definition for this word, but the word is known to mean a social pattern in vertical pillars. The system famously characterized society in the Netherlands and Belgium from the late 19th century until the 1960’s, especially around Catholics and Protestants, or Socialists vs Liberals.1
This concept of pillarization is actually well documented in Dutch history and literature, and it appears exceptionally well in snowball fights. For example, a Dutch children’s book published in 19022 , Hilbrandt Boschma’s Blank en Bruin, contains a detailed fictitious snow battle in Chapter 4 and provides fascinating evidence for the conventions they would recognize:
The scene: There is already a rivalry between boys from two schools. A plan for a snow battle spreads among the children. Then the three oldest boys from each school meet and agree that it will be a friendly fight. They establish rules, set the location, and specify that the battle will occur Saturday from 1:30 to 3:00. Each school chooses its own “general” and officers. One side is outnumbered, so it is permitted to build defensive fortifications. The defending children spend the week constructing a snow fort. They collect snow with sleds, shovels, baskets and even old rubbish bins. Younger children ask to participate and are assigned the job of making snowballs and carrying them to the fighters in old baskets and school bags. Other children prepare the battlefield by trampling snow so the attackers cannot easily turn it into ammunition.
So the concept of children themselves organizing a fairly elaborate snow “war” was culturally recognizable in the Netherlands long before my father’s memories and almost matches his memories in detail.
Additionally, from the time of my father’s childhood, I found a WWII diary entry from January 25, 1942 by 12 year old Jon Römelingh3, who wrote that after heavy snow he went sledding and then had a sneeuwgevecht. He identifies the sides casually:
“Gerda, Corrian, Jeanne and I, against Bert, Herman and Kees.”
Then he says that their opponents got soundly beaten. I don’t see a mention of parents, teachers, registration, or anyone arranging it. Apparently, who belonged on which side was self-evident enough that it did not require explanation.
So how did the children know who’s side they were on?
The answer lies in pillarization. For a neighborhood battle, the dividing line could simply be geography: our street against your street. For a school battle: our school against your school. It could be girls against boys or my church against your church. For an established group or club: our club/team against yours. And sometimes a spontaneous crowd could simply divide itself. The 1942 child’s diary shows exactly that — seven children quickly becoming a four-versus-three battle without any explanation of how the sides were selected.
I find this a fascinating historical find. Children in the 1940s didn’t need official organized activities to find one another. They were already outside together. The street was an everyday social institution. Snow, instead of screens, provided the occasion.
Footnotes:
Elisabeth Hartog Hess 
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