Museum History

History Of The Polish Museum Of America

The Polish Museum of America was established in 1935 as the “Museum and Archives of the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America.” The first public display area opened on January 12, 1937 in a specially designed and constructed room within the headquarters building of the PRCUA. From that date the Museum’s collection and importance grew very rapidly and quickly gained autonomous status as “The Polish Museum of America” with its own governing board of directors.

There were two events that caused the rapid expansion of the Museum’s collections. The first originated from the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City, New York. The year 1939 marked the 20th anniversary of the Second Republic of Poland and the government of Poland marked that anniversary with a large exhibition at that World’s Fair. Unfortunately, in September of 1939 Poland was invaded and war had gripped Europe. At the close of the World’s Fair, it became clear that the Polish exhibits could not return to Poland and their disposition was uncertain. In order to preserve at least a portion of the exhibits the directors of the Museum determined to purchase from the government of Poland nearly three fourths of the exhibits. Display of these exhibits required a very significant expansion of the Museum’s public display areas into the 3rd and 4th floor auditorium facilities of the PRCUA headquarters building. In June of 1941 this expanded display area opened to the public. Thus, the Museum was able to preserve a very significant collection of art from the Polish inter-war period, 1919 to 1939, as well as significant Polish historical items.

The second significant event was the donation to the Museum of the personal possessions of Ignacy Jan Paderewski following his death in June 1941. Both Ignacy Paderewski and his sister, Antonina Paderewska Wilkonska, were enthusiastic supporters and generous sponsors of the Museum. Antonina, executor of Ignacy’s will, decided to donate these personal possessions to the Museum. In addition, the management of the Buckingham Hotel in New York City, where Ignacy spent the last months of his life, allowed Antonina to obtain the furnishings from the suite of rooms he had occupied. These furnishings were also donated to the Museum. With the assistance of Ignacy’s personal secretary, the furnishings and his personal mementos were arranged for public display in the room that had been the first display room of the Museum in 1937. This revised space was officially re-opened with a special dedication ceremony on November 3, 1941.

During those first few years of operations the Archival collections also grew substantially through very aggressive acquisition policies. Under the direction of Mieczyslaw Haiman, a large collection of books and pamphlets about Poland and by Polish authors was collected. Later, this collection was catalogued into “Polonica Americana” and “Polonica in English.” Complete collections of Polish-language newspapers, religious records, photographs and maps were also acquired. The maps, mostly of Eastern Europe, turned out to have some significance. It seems that the Archives had the only detailed maps of the area outside of German occupied Europe. The visitor’s logbook records, without other comment, that on May 7, 1943 twenty employees of U.S. Navy Intelligence Service spent some time in the Museum’s facilities. There are no further entries in the logbook after that entry on May 7 until May 17, 1943. During those ten days all our maps were microfilmed. At the end, the Museum was given two steel storage cases to properly store the maps in a flat configuration. The cabinets still have the labels "U.S. Naval Intelligence" on them.

During the succeeding decades, the Museum has continued to acquire many books, other publications and other artifacts as well as a great deal of works of art. The Museum has, from its beginning, and still does benefit from the generous support and sponsorship of the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America.

Today, the Museum is a recognized resource for materials pertaining to Poland and the Polish-American community. Managing this eclectic collection is a very challenging and complex task. Only a relatively small portion of the Museum’s assets are on display at any given time. The remainder must be preserved and stored in ways that allow for convenient reference and future research. The Museum is determined to continue its mission to Polish and Polish-American past for the benefit, instruction and education of current and future generations.

return to top of page | return to museum home page

History Of The PRCUA Building

(work in progress)

The building we occupy dates to 1913. Here is a photo of the groundbreaking ceremony for the building. (The eighth person from the left, not holding shovel, in the front row is Andrzej Kujawa, my great-grandfather.)

It was designed and built to be the national headquarters of the Polish Roman Catholic Union. Like any insurance company, the Union wanted to make a statement to the community that it was a strong and reliable business. The additional space was also to be used to provide extra income from the investment. Originally, the rooms on the first floor were to be rented out to other businesses. One of the spaces quickly became home to the PRCUA Library in 1915. You can see it and the other storefronts in the photo below, circa 1940.

The PRCUA offices were on the second floor with administration on the right in this photo and doctor's offices on the left. In 1936, with the establishment of the Archives and Museum of the PRCUA, the doctor's offices were torn out and the space converted into the original Museum. It now houses or Paderewski Collection. On the third floor, right in this photo, was the entry hallway to the Auditorium, now the Great Hall of the Museum. To the left was a coffee shop and coat room. On the forth floor, right, was the balcony section for the auditorium and to the left, a restaurant, now our Archives. The Library later moved to occupy the space to the left of the main entry door and the old library space turned into additional Library/ Museum offices. About 10 years ago the space was revised to house our music collection and to provide a Library Annex (aka Conference Room). Ironically, I am writing this in the Annex because it houses most of our computer equipment.

The construction of the building was fairly typical of the day. There is extensive use of steel I-beams surrounded by concrete and refractory blocks. In some cases the thickness exceeds fourteen inches. Architects in this city have been traditionally obsessed with fire resistance and this building is no exception. Refractory blocks are much more heat resistant than concrete blocks and the concrete wrapped I-beams are also highly resistant to heat. For the most part the building is over engineered. Unfortunately, it was decided to imbed all of the utilities in the concrete and, as such, these have been very difficult to repair and upgrade. The roof is supported by four large trusses that project half over the roof and half into the Great Hall and are covered with concrete on both sides. You can easily see where the concrete pilings are under each support column, with the larger and deeper (fourteen feet!) pilings being on either side of the main entry. The columns there are about 24" square! It often feels like I'm sitting in a WWI era fortress.

One interesting feature of the building was an early attempt at air conditioning. The system I will describe was intended to cool only the Auditorium and Balcony. Air was drawn across coils by a large fan located on the fourth floor. Inside the coils, city water flowed that cooled the air which was then pushed by the fan out large grilles located on either side of the stage. The cooled air was drawn across the auditorium into grilles located in the floor of the balcony and grilles located below the balcony and exhausted by a second fan locate in a roof-top housing. The second fan's speed could be varied and would control the amount of cooling. The rheostat, now gone, looked like something out of the original movie "Frankenstein."

Rich Kujawa

return to top of page | return to museum home page