The BEST Guide to POLAND
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Posts by literaturecat  

Joined: 10 Aug 2008 / Female ♀ 		Last Post: 18 Oct 2009
Threads: Total: 5 / Live: 1 / Archived: 4
Posts: Total: 10 / Live: 1 / Archived: 9 		From: Jacksonville
Speaks Polish?: No
Interests: language, art, cooking

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literaturecat   
18 Oct 2009
History / What Was Happening in Poland around 1905? [73]

Thanks for responding, everyone. Clearly the situation was more complex than I had imagined. I was assuming the reasons were economic, but clearly there might have been political reasons as well.

Cheechaw--my family didn't settle in New York. They settled in a town called Chicopee outside of Springfield, Massachusetts. There's a very large Polish community there, and I remember going to the Keilbasa festival as a young girl and paying a dollar to see the world's largest keilbasa. LOL. (Sadly, they've done away with that festival.)

Can anyone recommend a good book on Polish history? I picked up some ancient tome from my local library but it was pretty dull and unreadable. (And I have a high tolerance for dry material.)

Oh, one more thing--
I was just told that they came from the Tarnów area of Poland. If I'm correct, that particular area was under Autria-Hungarian rule at the time?

If anyone has any interesting cultural/historical facts about that area, I'd love to hear them.

Thanks.
literaturecat   
16 Oct 2009
History / What Was Happening in Poland around 1905? [73]

Hi Everyone--

I've recently started researching my Polish roots, and I've discovered that my great-grandfather emmigrated to the U.S. in 1905 and my great-grandmother did likewise (alone, at the tender age of 15!). The little research I've done seemed to suggest that A LOT of Polish people emmigrated to the U.S. Between 1890 or so and 1905. I was just curious about the conditions in Poland at that time that might have prompted so many people to leave. World War I didn't occur until quite a bit later, and to my knowledge (which, granted, is limited) there were no other wars at that time. I figured if anyone would know, you folks would. :-) Thanks so much for any information that you can provide.

Also, my family name is Kupiec. Is that name more prevalent in certain parts of Poland than others, and if so, where is it most prevalent? Thanks so much.

Melissa