• PaNP Home
• Welcome
• Related Links
• Contact Us
• History of PA Newspapers
• Colonial Papers
• German Press
• The New Nation
• The 19th Century
• Polish Papers
• The 20th Century
• Bibliographies
• PaNP Phase I (1983-1990)
• Background
• Cataloging Phase
• Microfilming Phase
• End of Phase I
• Other Efforts
• PaNP Phase II (2004-2006)
• About Phase II
• PaNP Phase III (2006-2008)
• About Phase III
• Title Selection Process
• Title Selection Criteria
• Submit a Title
• Titles Filmed
• View All Titles
• By County
• Rare Newspaper Digital Archive

History of PA Newspapers:

Polish Papers

Although the Germans are the most prominent European ethnic group to leave a record of their settlement through the medium of newspapers in Pennsylvania, there were many setters from Italy, Lithuania, Slovakia, Ukraine, and Sweden. The Poles were one of the largest European ethnic groups to settle in Pennsylvania. Scholars agree that two million Poles settled permanently in the United States between 1850 and 1924.

Poland did not exist as a nation in the 19th century. Polish immigrants departed from a homeland that was divided by the partitioning powers of Prussia, Russia, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The newcomers found work in the expanding industrial cities of the Northeast and in the anthracite coal mines of Pennsylvania. By 1920, Pittsburgh had about 200,000 Poles and Philadelphia had at least 50,000. Another 75,000 had settled in the anthracite cities of Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, and Hazleton and its smaller towns of Shenandoah, Mount Carmel, and Shamokin. The cities of Reading, Conshohocken, and Erie also had prominent Polish populations.

Just as the German press served to assimilate the immigrants to life in the New World, so did the Polish press. The role of the ethnic press was directly related to the stages at which the group was assimilated. The press carried news of the old and new countries, educated the community about customs and circumstances of life in the United States, and disseminated news about religious and fraternal affairs.

Although Zgoda (Harmony), Kuryer Polski (The Polish Courier), Dziennik Chicagoski (The Chicago Daily News) and Polak w Ameryce (The Pole in America) were not published in Pennsylvania, these titles had subscribers in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and other states where Poles had settled. In total, about 110 Polish newspaper titles were established in the 1880s and 1890s.

Straz (The Guard), founded in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1897, is the oldest continuously published Polish American newspaper. Philadelphia's Gwiazda (The Star), typical of the smaller Polish newspapers, was more short-lived. Established by Stephan Nowaczyk (1869-1923) in the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia in 1902, Gwiazda's circulation was limited primarily to the Delaware Valley. Circulation hovered at 6,000 to 7,500 from the 1930's to 1985. Originally published entirely in Polish, an English section was introduced and gradually expanded to fill half the newspaper.