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  4. San Francisco, CA, 4-7 January 2024

The Polish American Historical Association’s 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco (CA) January 4–7, 2024

In affiliation with the 137th yearly meeting of the American Historical Association

 All sessions take place in the Hilton Union Square, Union Square 3&4 (Fourth, Hilton), 333 O’Farrell Street, San Francisco, CA 94102 unless listed otherwise

 Thursday, January 4

  1. Opening Event (1.30-3.00 pm)

Transnational Journeys, Intimate Stories:

Celebrating Anna Muller’s An Ordinary Life? The Journeys of Tonia Lechtman, 1918–1996 (Ohio University Press, 2023; Polish and Polish American Studies Series)

Panelists:

Magdalena Blackmore (University of Manitoba)

John Bukowczyk, Polish and Polish American Studies Series Editor (Wayne State University)

Anna Muller, (University of Michigan)

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

PAHA Board of Directors meeting: 3:30 – 5:30

Union Square 8 (Fourth, Hilton)

Friday, January 5

  1. Changing Landscapes of Polish American Communities (8.30 -10.00 am)

Chair: Anna Mazurkiewicz (University of Gdańsk) 

Benjamin J. Bax (Swansea University/University of Central Oklahoma), Borderlands, Assimilation, and a Red River Rivalry: The Legacy of Polonia in Harrah, Oklahoma

Jan M. Lorys (Polish Museum of America), Polish Falcons of America and the Challenges of their Archival Holdings

Mark Dillon (Independent Scholar), Generation Vexed: The Rise and Fall of Two Polish American Groups

 

  1. Migrations and Material Culture (10.30 am-12.00 pm)

Chair: Izabella Kimak (Maria Curie-Sklodowska University)

Joshua C. Blank (St. Francis Xavier High School, Ottawa), From Wawel to Wilowski in Wilno: The Enduring Saga of Poland’s Treasures in Canada

Peter J. Obst (Researcher, Poles in America Foundation), Return of the St. Luke Brotherhood Paintings to Poland

Neal Pease (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee), From Artistic Rebel in People’s Poland to Artistic Partner of the Grateful Dead: The Long, Strange Trip of Jan Sawka

Marta Kopiniak (University of Wrocław), A Comparative Perspective on Public Participation in Polish and Polish American Museums in the 20th and 21st Century 

  1. Exploring Ethnicity and Gender (1.30-3.00 pm)

Chair: Pien Versteegh (Independent Scholar)

Sylwia Kuźma-Markowska (University of Warsaw): Americanizing Immigrant Household: Polonia Women and Household Appliances in Early 20th Century and Interwar Chicago

Marta Cieslak (University of Arkansas at Little Rock), “One of the Tragedies of Motherhood”: Infanticide in the Polish/Polish American Community in the United States in the Early 20th Century

Izabella Kimak (Maria Curie-Sklodowska University), The Women of Polish (Literary) Chicago: Reading Elizabeth Kern’s “Wanting to Be Jackie Kennedy”

  1. Mapping the Vernacular Polonia of the North American West (3.30 -5.30 pm)

Chair and Commentator: John J. Bukowczyk

Andrzej E. Mańkowski (Independent Scholar/Consul General of the Republic of Poland, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada), Fernie and Revelstoke: 2 Polish Centers in the Canadian Rocky Mountains at the Beginning of the 20th Century

Kathleen E. Callum (Independent Scholar/ USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service) and Robert A. Sloma (Independent Scholar/ Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation), Polish American Place Names in the North American West: Mapping Ideology and Management of Diverse, Significant Polonia Sites

Wojciech Owczarzak (Independent Scholar/Fundacja Centrum Inicjatyw Naturalnych/The Center for Natural Initiatives Foundation), Traditional Natural Building Techniques Used in Poland

Gabrielle R. Harlan (Independent Scholar/ National Park Service), “It Takes a Village”: The Communitarian Ethos in the Architecture of Polish American Konstany Stys

Happy Hour hosted by the Polish Arts and Culture Foundation, MIXED Lounge – Back Bar, 140 Ellis Street, 6:00 – 8:00 PM. Open to all conference participants. [Cancelled]

 Saturday, January 6

     1. Evolutions of Migrant and Ethnic Identities (8.30 -10.00 am)

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

 Aleksandra Gorka (San Jose State University), The Literary Footprint of Early Polish Immigration in the San Francisco Bay Area: Polish Pioneers in California in the 19th Century

 Pien Versteegh (Independent Scholar), Intergenerational Mobility Patterns of Polish Women in the United States 1890-1940

Magdalena Blackmore (University of Manitoba), Creating Identities: A Case Study of Second Generation Polish Immigrants in Manitoba after World War II

Benjamin J. Bax (Swansea University/University of Central Oklahoma), Defiant Poles and the Displaced Persons Act

  1. Biographies and Life Stories as Historical Sources (10.30 am -12.00)

Chair: Neal Pease (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)

Mark Dillon (Independent Scholar), Meet the Polereczkys: How a Refugee Family’s Identity Changed in 18th-Century Poland, and Was Reborn in France and the USA

Iwona Flis (University of Gdańsk), Ewa Gierat and Her Ways to Integrate Polish Intellectuals in Post-War America

Jan S. Plachta (Independent Scholar), Ralph Modjeski: The Mastermind of the San Francisco Bay Bridge

Barbara Krupa (Stanford University), Zygmunt Haupt’s Journalism at Voice of America in 1951–1960

  1. Post-World War II Transnational Collaborations and Exchanges (1.30 -3.00 pm)

Chair: Iwona Flis (University of Gdańsk)

Anna Mazurkiewicz (University of Gdansk), William J. Tonesk: The Inconspicuous Cold Warrior

Vivian Reed (Independent Scholar), The Faithful Cow Goes to Warsaw

Francis Raška (Charles University, Prague), Polish and Czechoslovak Dissidents: An Example of Transnational Collaboration in the Late Cold War Period

PAHA Annual Awards Banquet and Dinner,

6:30 - 9:00 PM at McCormick & Kuleto's, 900 North Point St, San Francisco, CA 94109.