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  4. Philadelphia, PA, 5-8 January 2023

The Polish American Historical Association’s 79th Annual Meeting

Philadelphia, January 5–8, 2023

 

In affiliation with the 136th yearly meeting of the American Historical Association

Thursday, January 5

  1. Opening Event (1.30-3.00 PM)

 

Documenting Polish American Spaces: Triumphs, Challenges, and Questions

Introducing and celebrating Footprints of Polonia: Polish Historical Sites Across North America

Edited by Ewa Barczyk (Hippocrene Books, 2022)

Ewa Barczyk, Anna Jaroszynska-Kirchmann, and Robert Sloma

Facilitated by Marta Cieslak 

  1. Tracing Various Polish Diasporas in the United States (3.30-5.00 PM)

Chair: Anna Muller (University of Michigan-Dearborn)

  • Joanna Kulpinska (Jagiellonian University), A Comparison of Migration Strategies from Polish Lands to the East and West Coasts of the United States at the Turn of the 20th Century
  • Pien Versteegh (Maastricht University), Intergenerational Mobility Patterns of Polish Migrants in the United States 1890-1940
  • Mary Patrice Erdmans (Case Western Reserve University) and Polina Ermoshkina (Case Western Reserve University), The Migration Projects of late 20th Century Undocumented Polish Migrants in Chicago
  • Kathleen E. Callum and Robert A. Sloma (Independent Scholars), The “Pulaski Tunnel” and “Vajunka”: Toponyms and Other Evidence of Western North America Polonia, and Their Potential to Connect Us to Each Other

 PAHA Board of Directors meeting: 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM

Friday, January 6

  1. Bloc Shots: Roundtable on Experiences of Americans Playing Professional Basketball in Poland (8.30 -10.00 AM)

 Chair: Neal Pease (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)

  • Sheldon Anderson (Miami University, Ohio), AZS Lublin, 1987-1988, Jumping to a Higher Degree: Doing PhD Research in Communist Poland on a Basketball Junket
  • Christopher Elzey (George Mason University), ENKA Minsk (Belarus), 1992-1993 and Mazowszanka Pruszkow, 1993-1994, I Met Norman Mailer: Hoopin' in Belarus and Poland after the Fall of the Wall
  • Kent Washington (Independent Scholar, New Rochelle, NY), KS Start Lublin, 1979-1981 and Zaglebie Sosnowiec, 1981-1983, A Black Basketball Player in Communist Poland

2.  Cold War Networks (10.30 AM-12.00 PM)

Chair: Kazimierz Bem (Evangelical School of Theology, Wroclaw)

  • Francis D. Raška (Charles University, Prague), American and West European Support for Human Rights and Dissidents in East-Central Europe in the 1970s and 1980s
  • Kinga Alina Langowska (University of Gdańsk), Polish Political Exiles During the Cold War Period in the Structures of the Liberal-Democratic Union of Central and Eastern Europe
  • Agata Blaszczyk (Polish University Abroad), The British Government’s Response to Solidarity and the Imposition of Martial Law in Poland: A Critical Analysis of Recent Releases from the National Archives
  • Sławomir Łukasiewicz (John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin), Significance of Adam Ulam’s Professional Networks for His Soviet Studies
  1. Literature as a Response to History (1.30-3.00 PM)

Chair: Sławomir Łukasiewicz (John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin)

  • Jill Walker Gonzalez (La Sierra University), “In Mourning Robes with Fettered Hands”: Polish Woman as Nation in Nineteenth-Century American Literature
  • Thomas Aiello (Valdosta State University), The Farm Animal Revolts: Reymont, Kostomarov, and Orwell in Conversation
  • Silvia Dapía (John Jay College and the Graduate Center, CUNY), Witold Gombrowicz and The Performance Mandate
  • Grażyna J. Kozaczka (Cazenovia College), From Kalisz to Toronto: Eve Zaremba’s Feminist Journey
  1. Gender, Class, Nation(s) and Work (3.30 -5.00 PM)

Chair: Marta Cieslak (University of Arkansas at Little Rock)

  • Natalie Cornett (McGill University), Revisiting Rosa Luxemburg’s Relationship to the Polish Question, 1898-1914
  • Neal Pease (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee), Dorothy Day’s ’Fellow Traveler’: Nina Polcyn Moore and the Catholic Worker Movement
  • Kazimierz Bem (Evangelical School of Theology, Wroclaw), “Anxious to Engage in Missionary Work as Soon as It Shall Be Made Possible” – Women, Theology, and Class in Congregational Missions to Polish Immigrants in the United States Until the 1920s
  • Magdalena Blackmore (University of Manitoba), Mother International: The Legacy of Mary Panaro
  1. Transatlantic Histories and World War II: Between World History and Intimate Perspectives (5.30 -7.00 PM)

Chair: Neal Pease (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)

  • Izabella Kimak (Maria Curie-Sklodowska University), Unfolding the Memory of World War Two: John Guzlowski’s Echoes of Tattered Tongues
  • Iwona Flis (University of Gdansk), From Professional Contacts to Personal Friendship: Haiman and Halecki Through Their Letters (1942-1945)
  • Vivian Reed (Independent Scholar), The Personal Service of Hugh Gibson and Anthony Drexel Biddle to Poland during WWII
  • Special appearance by Anthony and Karen Biddle, who will reflect on Anthony Drexel Biddle’s work and life

Saturday, January 7

  1. Looking for Women’s Voices: A Comparative Perspective Across Time and Space (8.30 -10.00 AM)

Chair: Grazyna Kozaczka (Cazenovia College)

  • Sylwia Kuźma-Markowska (University of Warsaw), “Babska robota”: Polonia Women and (Wage) Work in Early 20th-Century Chicago
  • Marta Cieslak (University of Arkansas at Little Rock), Lives Uncharted: Polish Immigrant Women in the United States and the Risks and Opportunities of Public History
  • Angelica Docog (Polish Heritage Center), Resiliency of Guatemalan Maya Women
  • Anna Muller (University of Michigan-Dearborn), Fighting Fascism – A Life Mission or a Life Adventure: Polish Female Volunteers to the Spanish Civil War
  1. Nonobvious Sources for Migration History (10.30 AM-12.00 PM)

Chair: Joanna Wojdon, (University of Wrocław)

Commentator: Adam Walaszek (Jagiellonian University)

  • Anna Fiń (Pedagogical University in Cracow), Migration Photography as a Source in Research of Migration Groups and its Role in research of Polish Americans
  • Anna Rudek-Śmiechowska (Independent Scholar/Polish Institute of World Art Studies), A Story That Has Been Painted: Can We Treat an Artwork as a Historical Source? What Are the Basics and What Does It Mean?
  • Dorota Choińska (University of Wroclaw/Open University of Catalonia), Police Interrogations as Sources in Migration Studies – Case of Polish Refugees in the Spanish Province of Gerona During the Second World War
  • Jerome Krase (Brooklyn College), Seeing Greenpoint Change Again: Vernacular Landscapes in Flux
  1. Transatlantic Migrations of Goods, Ideas, and Practices (1.30-3.00 PM)

Chair: Natalie Cornett (McGill University)

  • Bozena Popiolek, Anna Penkała-Jastrzebska, and Urszula Kicinska (Pedagogical University of Cracow), ‘Migration of Preferences, Migration of Taste’. Reception of American Luxury Goods at Noble’s Courts in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth the 18th Century
  • Paweł Grajnert (Polish American Association), Our Ancestors of Haiti: Cazale - A Haitian-Polish Connection
  • Anna D. Jaroszynska-Kirchmann (Eastern Connecticut State University), Selling Pierogi: Polish American Food and Ethnic Entrepreneurship
  • Kristina Kwacz (Independent Scholar), Exploring Cultural Identity via Family Photographs
  1. Individual Polish American Lives as Sources of Transatlantic History (3.30 -5.00 PM)

Chair: Pien Versteegh (Maastricht University)

  • James S. Pula (Purdue University), Kościuszko — The Universal Altruist
  • Janusz Romanski (Independent Scholar), Erazm Jerzmanowski: Patriot, Philanthrope, and His Impact on the Roman Catholic Community in New York City in the 19th Century
  • Robert A. Sloma (Independent Scholar), Portrait of a Polish Immigrant: Janusz Korwin Bieńkowski (1891-1961)
  • Jan S. Plachta (Independent Scholar), Ralph Modjeski: Artist in Concrete and Steel

Awards Ceremony and Banquet (6.30 - 9.00 PM)