Traitors and True Poles. Karen Majewski
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commodification of cultural production, developed along patterns common to the American and European popular book industry. Like the American cheap fiction Michael Denning describes, and the work of Polish positivists of the same era, immigrant publishing, including that by Poles, had strong ties to journalism, sharing the same technologies, distribution methods, writers, and readers. According to Werner Sollors, these ties are so universal that it is “appropriate to focus an account of America’s polyethnic literature not merely on the development of books but on the centrality of journalism in the literature of practically all ethnic groups.”2
This connection to the press helped shape the physical forms, literary styles, and thematic content of the literature offered to and created by the immigrant communities, taking on particular coloring within each ethnic context. In the Polish case, it encouraged an emphasis on polemics and partisanship that reflected the divisions within Poland and Polonia even as the literature argued for proper avenues of unification.3 If literature and journalism were intertwined, so were journalism and politics, and so the literature reflects these affiliations and rivalries, as well as the inevitable intraorganizational struggles for power and focus.
Printery of Robotnik polski, published by the Polish Socialist Party, Chicago, circa 1900. The paper, which also printed immigrant fiction, later moved to New York. Courtesy Polish Museum of America, Chicago
Immigrant literary efforts were not only published in book or pamphlet format by publishers who were often affiliated with newspapers, but also printed in the columns of these same, sometimes highly partisan, papers. Just as every major Polonian organization was represented by its own newspaper, the journalistic arm of a fraternal or other community organization might also take up book publishing: for instance, Dziennik zjednoczony, the PRCU’s official paper, published several of Artur Waldo’s works, including the novel Czar miasta Kościuszko (The charm of the town of Kosciuszko) and the collection of short stories about Gen. Józef Haller’s Blue Army, which Waldo edited, Czyn zbrojny Polonii Stanów Zjednoczonych w nowelkach, gawędach, i opowiadaniach wojskowych (The armed effort of U.S. Polonia in novellas, tales, and short stories).4 The paper put out by the Resurrectionist Order of Catholic priests, Dziennik chicagoski, besides printing Polish-American fiction in its columns, published works by Karol Wachtl and popular playwright Szczęsny Zahajkiewicz. In addition, its affiliate, the Polish Publishing Company (Spółka Wydawnictwa Polskiego), issued works under its own imprint.
Among other institutions and their affiliate newspapers that branched into publishing was the Polish National Catholic Church. Its newspapers, Rola Boża and Straż, and the Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Polskiej Narodowej Szkoły (Society of Friends of the Polish National School) issued works supporting the National Church and its fraternal, Spójna. One of these was PNCC founder Franciszek Hodur’s apocalyptic novella Faryzeusze i Saduceusze (The Pharisees and the Sadduccees). Another newspaper that branched into book publishing was the socialist Dziennik ludowy, along with its satirical supplement, Bicz Boży, and its affiliate bookstore, Księgarnia Ludowa.5 The Smulski Company published not only Gazeta katolicka and parochial school textbooks, but works by Karol Wachtl, Stanisław Osada, Iza Pobóg, and Stefania Laudyn, long-standing editor of the PWA’s Głos Polek. Milwaukee’s Nowiny polskie, another staunchly Roman Catholic paper, published novels by conservative activist Józef Orłowski.
Other newspapers that published or printed literature by Polonian authors before World War II include New Britain, Connecticut’s Przewodnik katolicki; Baltimore’s Jedność-Polonia and the affiliated Markiewicz i Pula company; Bay City, Michigan’s Prawda; Pittsburgh’s Gwiazda; Winona, Minnesota’s Wiarus; New York’s Telegram codzienny; Buffalo’s Dziennik dla wszystkich, Telegram, and Polak w Ameryce; and Chicago’s Dziennik narodowy. A handful of newspapers like New York’s Nowy świat and Ognisko and Cleveland’s Jutrzenka, as well as magazines like the women’s and children’s monthly Ogniwo (Chicago) and the literary and current affairs journal Jaskółka (Stevens Point, Wisconsin) also published Polish-American works in their columns that were never released under separate imprint.
Staff of Polak Amerykański Press, Buffalo, 1901; Stanisław Slisz is on chair in front. Courtesy State University of New York at Buffalo, University Libraries Polish Collection
Although newspaper publishers played the greatest role in Polish-American book production, it must be added that a dozen or so publishers operated independently of the press: in Chicago and Niles, Illinois; in Detroit; in South Bend, Indiana; in Pittsburgh; and in Pulaski and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Some of these, like Bolesław Straszyński of Chicago and J. Sobierajski of Detroit, produced only a few volumes. Others, like the Sajewski Company of Chicago, were well established and long-lived.6 Books were published by institutions like Detroit’s Polish Seminary and its later Orchard Lake, Michigan, complex, and by ephemeral organizations like the Polski Klub Artystyczny (Polish Arts Club) and the Zjednoczenie Prasy Polskiej w Ameryce (Associated Polish Press of America). Although the difficulty of compiling a complete bibliography of post-1900 Polonian publications makes any conclusions tentative, between eighty and one hundred book publishers appear to have operated in American Polonia before World War II, some of them very short-lived and small-scale, some extraordinarily prolific.7 About a third of these included in their catalogs literary works by members of the immigrant community, including poetry and drama.
Even during the most prolific years of Polonian publishing, this original writing by immigrants was only a tiny portion of its total output. But occasionally organizations or publishers sponsored literary contests to encourage local writers. One of the earliest was the 1893–94 Copernicus competition, which called for “short stories, novels, satires, plays, and scientific treatises . . . written in Polish, using Polish-American life as the background.” The need for a distinct Polish-American literature had developed because
our general character has changed. . . . So have our habits of thought changed, our manners and customs, even our language, which has acquired new virtues and new faults. Thus, the literature of our homeland is no longer adequate, and a real need arises for the creation of our own literature, based on the lives of our countrymen here in America. Such a literature will constitute a school that will teach a greater love for drama and books, at the same time giving our brethren across the sea a better opportunity of acquainting themselves with us, thus strengthening the bonds between ourselves and our homeland.
Immigrant authors would make similar pleas, but the publication of immigrant works continued to be constrained by ideological disagreements and political opportunism. The Copernicus contest resulted in controversy, for instance, when the first prize winner turned out to be Zygmunt Słupski, a member of the awards committee and the originator of the contest. The second prize winner wished to remain anonymous, but requested that any monetary award be made to the same Mr. Słupski.8
A 1903 competition sponsored by the Polish National Alliance was plagued with similar problems: it drew just three submissions, which were promptly awarded first, second, and third places. The top prize of fifty dollars went to Stanisława Romanowska for Nad Michiganem (On Lake Michigan), a highly partisan novella about immigrant politics in Chicago.9 Romanowska was a music teacher with two boarders, both of them journalists. One was in fact Tomasz Siemiradzki, editor of the PNA weekly Zgoda and also a contest judge. Only one other work by Romanowska has turned up: a short story printed in the PNA almanac for 1910. The possibility has to be considered that others may have had a hand in Romanowska’s work.10
Office of the Polish National Alliance’s Zgoda, circa 1910. Courtesy Polish Museum of America, Chicago
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