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Digital Collections

  • Album Pamiątkowe: a guide to Buffalo’s Polonia from 1906

    The Album pamiatkowe i przewodnik handlowy : osady polskiej w miescie Buffalo, z dolaczeniem okolicznych miejscowósci ze stanu New York is an important historical and genealogical resource for Buffalo and Western New York. The title, which translates to: “Souvenir album and commercial guide of the Polish settlements in the City of Buffalo, and neighboring villages in the State of New York.”, was first published in Buffalo in 1906 and is now available online.

  • Archacki Cartoon Collection

    Henryk Archacki, 1907-1988, a Polish immigrant, journalist and well-known graphic artist, drew weekly cartoons for Polish-language newspapers for over 20 years. With his wife, he researched current events, sports, literature, and historical curiosities, and presented them in these factoid cartoons, with a strong flavor of pride in being Polish. This syndicated series was entitled “Czy wiecie, że…” (“Do you know that…”).

    In the mid-20th century, Polish Americans were simultaneously assimilating and realizing a new pride in their heritage, as Poland arose after World War I from over a century of partition. An unknown Buffalo subscriber clipped the cartoons in this collection from Buffalo’s Dziennik dla Wszystkich (Everybody’s Daily) from 1931 to 1952 and saved them in scrapbooks; the scrapbooks were recently acquired by Steven Piwowar and donated to UB’s Polish Collection. Mixing serious and light content, Archacki both enlightened and entertained his beloved Polonia.

  • Jan Bulhak Collection

    Jan Bułhak was a prolific Polish photographer who specialized in landscape and architectural photos in Poland and present-day Lithuania and Belarus. Jan Bułhak was born on October 6, 1876 in Ostaszyn, near Navahrudak, which can be seen in some of the University at Buffalo’s collection. In 1905, Bulhak became interested in photography and began to publish his works in various Polish magazines.

  • Polish Peace Posters

    This collection of Polish posters were originally printed for the World Peace Council, an international organization that advocates universal disarmament. Our collection came from a set of reproductions selected by Karol Małcużyński published by Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza around 1978.