1 “Polonia” refers to a national or ethnic community outside Poland.Google Scholar

2 The largest community, the Felicians (Congregation of St. Felix), have been the most prolific writers. Unusually objective and well researched is Sr. Mary Janice Ziolkowski CSSF, The Felician Sisters of Livonia, Michigan: First Province in America (Detroit: Harlo Press, 1984). Other community studies include Sr. Ellen Marie Kuznicki CSSF, Journey in Faith: The History of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Province of the Felician Sisters Buffalo, New York 1900–1976 (Grand Island, NY: Relsco Printing, 1996); Sr. Josephine Marie Peplinski SSJ-TOSF, A Fitting Response: The History of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Third Order of St. Francis (South Bend, IN: n.p., 1982, 1992), 2 vols.; Sr. Ann Marie Knawa OSF, As God Shall Ordain: A History of the Franciscan Sisters of Chicago 1894–1987 (Stevens Point, WI: Worzalla Publishing Company, 1989); Sr. Mary Dunstan Klewicki OSF, Ventures for the Lord: A History of the Sylvania Franciscans (Sylvania, OH: n.p., 1990); Sr. M. DeChantal CHFN, Out of Nazareth: A Centenary of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth in the Service of the Church (Jericho, NY: Exposition Press, 1974). Polish nuns appear in similar histories of mixed communities such as Sr. M. Caedmon Homan “Years of Vision, 1903–1928,“ (M.A. thesis, Catholic University of America, 1956); Sr. Mary Richard Boo OSB, The House of Stone: The Duluth Benedictines (Duluth, MN: St. Scholastica Priory Books, 1991).Google Scholar

3 A dated but balanced study is Antoni Karbowiak, Dzieje edukacyjne Polaków na obczyznie (Lwów: n. p., 1910). Statistically useful is Bolek, Rev. Francis The Polish American School System (New York: Columbia Press Corporation, 1948). An important overview informed by a Marxist perspective is Miąso, Józef The History of the Education of Polish Immigrants in the United States (Warsaw: Polish Scientific Publishers, 1977). Critical of Miąso is Regina Kościelska and Piotr Taras, SAC, “Szkoła polonijna jako czynnik kulturowej tożsamości w systemie działania społeczności polonijnej w Stanach Zjednoczonych,” Studia polonijne 7 (1983): 51–125. A survey of one city is Dorota Praszolowicz, “The Cultural Changes of Polish American Parochial Schools in Milwaukee, 1866–1988,” Journal of American Ethnic History 13 (Summer 1994): 23–45.Google Scholar

4 Pula, James S. Polish Americans: An Ethnic Community (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1995), 18–19.Google Scholar

5 Kaestle, Carl F. Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American Society, 1790–1860 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983); Tyack, David B. The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974); Cremin, Lawrence American Education: The Metropolitan Experience, 1876–1980 (New York: Harper and Row, 1988).Google Scholar

6 Elson, Ruth Miller Guardians of Tradition: American Schoolbooks of the Nineteenth Century (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1964); Mosier, Richard D. Making the American Mind: Social and Moral Ideas in McGuffey Readers (New York: Russell and Russell, 1965).Google Scholar

7 Elson, Guardians of Tradition, 60–62, 166–168; on ethics in general, 41–43, 212.Google Scholar

8 Walch, Timothy Parish School: American Catholic Parochial Education from Colonial Times to the Present (New York: Crossroad, 1996), 23–36, 53–66; Dolan, Jay P. The American Catholic Experience: A History from Colonial Times to the Present (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1985), 263, 268–273.Google Scholar

9 Kulczycki, John F. School Strikes in Prussian Poland, 1901–1907: The Struggle over Bilingual Education (Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1981) includes background to this period.Google Scholar

10 Staszyński, Edmund Polityka ośświatowa caratu w Królestwie Polski (od powstania styczyniowego do I wojny światowej (Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1968).Google Scholar

11 Dybiec, Jan Mecenat naukowy i oświatowy w Galicji 1860–1918 (Wrocław:Ossolineum, 1981), 10, 16; Wroczynski, Ryszard Dzieje Oświaty Polskiej 1795–1945 (Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1980), 209–216.Google Scholar

12 Glos Narodu, January 27, 1894.Google Scholar

13 “Stand der Klerus 1880,” Statistisches Jahrbuch für das Jahr 1881 (Vienna: n.p., 1884); “Kirchliche Verhältnisse 1910,” Österreichisches Statistisches Handbuch (Vienna: A. Hölder, 1912); Kumor, Boleslaw Historia Kościoła Czasy najnowsze 1915–1914 (Lublin: Redakcja Wydawnictwa KUL, 1991) 7: 370, 383; 385–387.Google Scholar

14 Kumor, Historia Kościoła, 7: 372–373, 385, 404–405; Dobrzanowski, Stanisław “Restauracja diecezji krakowskiej w latach osiemdziesiątych XIX wieku,“ Studia z historii Kościoła w Polsce 3: 236.Google Scholar

15 Kuznicki, Journey in Faith, 1–9; DeChantal, Out of Nazareth, 20–43.Google Scholar

16 A suggestive approach not yet directed at Polish communities is Magray, Mary Peckham The Transforming Power of the Nuns: Women, Religion, and Cultural Change in Ireland, 1750–1900 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), esp. 10–12, 46–73; dated but still useful is Ewens, Mary The Role of the Nun in Nineteenth Century America (New York: Arno Press, 1978).Google Scholar

17 I agree with the conceptualization of ethnicity as dynamic, developing through negotiation among elements in the ethnic community and also with reference to the larger society. Kathleen Neils Conzen et al., “The Invention of Ethnicity: A Perspective from the U.S.A.,” Journal of American Ethnic History 12 (Fall 1992): 3–41.Google Scholar

18 Greene, Victor For God and Country: The Rise of Polish and Lithuanian Ethnic Consciousness in America, 1860–1910 (Madison: The State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1975), 66–68, 85–90; Pula, Polish Americans, 32–34.Google Scholar

19 Cygan, Mary “Political and Cultural Leadership in an Immigrant Community: Polish American Socialism, 1880–1950“ (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Northwestern University, 1989) notes much attention to adult enlightenment but little to children. On the leading fraternal federation see Pienkos, Donald E. PNA: A Centennial History of the Polish National Alliance of the United States of North America (Boulder: East European Monographs, 1984), 24–25; 91–92.Google Scholar

20 E.g., Ameryka-Echo, December 12, 1903; March 8, 1913; Kuryer Polski, April 9, 1912.Google Scholar

21 Sanders, James W. Education of an Urban Minority: Catholics in Chicago, 1833–1965 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 Wiarus, June 10, 1886; October 14, 1886.Google Scholar

23 Dolan, American Catholic Experience, 280; Linkh, Richard M. American Catholicism and European Immigrants (New York: Center for Migration Studies, 1975), 111; O'Brien, David Faith and Friendship: Catholicism in the Diocese of Syracuse, 1886–1986 (Chelsea, MI: Bookcrafters, 1987), 13.Google Scholar

24 Jaglewski, Jean (ed.), “A People 100 Years” (Cambridge, MD: Western Publishing Company, 1973), 195; “Pamętnik Św. Trójcy 1896–1946” (n.p., n.d.), no pagination. Lay pedagog efforts to form organizations failed repeatedly. Przegląd Emigracyjny, February 1, 1893; Kuryer Polski, February 25, 1899.Google Scholar

25 Miąso, Education of Polish Immigrants, 115; Ziolkowski, Felician Sisters of Livonia, 50–51; 59–66; Peplinski, A Fitting Response, 1: 80.Google Scholar

26 Peplinski, A Fitting Response 2: 42; Ziolkowski, Felician Sisters of Livonia, 160–161; Klewicki, Ventures for the Lord, 6.Google Scholar

27 Słowo Polskie, October 5, 1911.Google Scholar

38 Vinyard, JoEllen McNergney For Faith and Fortune: The Education of Catholic Immigrants in Detroit, 1805–1925 (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1998), 112–116; Ziolkowski, Felician Sisters of Livonia, 52–58.Google Scholar

29 The Livonian Felicians were among the last to eliminate choirs in 1953; Father Dąbrowski and Mother Monica had criticized it earlier. Ziolkowski, Felician Sisters of Livonia, 34–35, 166–167; Kuznicki, Journey in Faith, 86–87. The Franciscans begun by Theresa Dudzik in Chicago never had them. Knawa, As God Shall Ordain, 259–260. The same process occurred in non-Polish communities. Margaret Susan Thompson, “Cultural Conundrum: Sisters, Ethnicity, and the Adaptation of American Catholicism,” Mid-America 74 (October 1992): 213–215.Google Scholar

30 Quoted in Ziolkowski, Felician Sisters of Livonia, 51–52.Google Scholar

31 The quotation is from ibid., 51–52. The use of American textbooks appeared in the Kurs nauk (Course of Instruction) issued by the Felicians in 1894 and revised in 1913. The Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth likewise utilized many American publications. Kościelska and Taras, “Szkoła polonijna,” 109; Kuznicki, Journey in Faith, 24–25; Kurs nauk w szkolach parafialnych polskich (Detroit, 1913); “Prospectus of Holy Family Academy” (Chicago, 1903).Google Scholar

32 Polish and Polish-American schoolbooks are in held in the archives of Polonian sisterhoods and the Polish Museum of America in Chicago.Google Scholar

33 Nauka czytania i pisania (Manitowoc, WI: Dzwon Press, 1892), 33. A story praising an obedient, courteous boy (“Grzechny Franuś”) had similar generic ethical overtones. Ibid., 55.Google Scholar

34 Dąbrowski, Ks. Józef Geografia dla szkół polskich (Polonia, WI: n. p., 1879).Google Scholar

35 Ibid., 68.Google Scholar

36 Ibid., 149.Google Scholar

37 Ibid., 152–165. The 1887 edition essentially repeated the 1879 work. In the answer on culture, commerce and industry “In the United States culture stands very high; in inventions, commerce and industry it has grown to the highest level.” Ibid., 40.Google Scholar

38 Czytanka pierwsza dla szkół polskich w Stanach Zjednoczonych w Północnej Ameryki (Chicago: Polish American Publishing Company, 1899), story 2.Google Scholar

39 By 1914 of the 2,347 teachers only 167 (7 percent) were laypersons. Miąso, Education of Polish Immigrants, 117.Google Scholar

40 Elementarz obrazkowy czyli pierwsze zasady pisania i czytania zastósowany do szkółpolskich w Stanach Zjednoczonych (Chicago: W. Dyniewicz, 1907), 49–50; Elson, Guardians of Tradition, 66–70.Google Scholar

41 Elementarz obrazkowy, 65–66.Google Scholar

42 Ibid., 67–68, 73–74.Google Scholar

43 Elson, Guardians of Tradition, 212–213; 262–265.Google Scholar

44 Przyjaciel dzieci czyli trzecia ksiażka do czytania dla młodzieży polskiej w Ameryce (Manitowoc, WI: Dzwon Press, 1892), 196–198, 204; Elson, Guardians of Tradition, 194–203.Google Scholar

45 Przyjaciel dzieci, 200; Elson, Guardians of Tradition, 167.Google Scholar

46 Kuznicki, Journey in Faith, 18–19; DeChantal, Out of Nazareth, 61–62.Google Scholar

47 Bonaventure Grabowski, M. Sr. CSSF, Felician Sisters: History of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Felix of Cantilice (Newark: Johnston Letter Co., 1993), 429. A similar process occurred in the Congregation of the Holy Family of Nazareth (CHFN). From 1903 to 1938 77 percent of new CHFN houses opened in the United States, even though this community was international and recruited in many countries. Calculated from DeChantal, Out of Nazareth, 142–144, 157–160, 170–173, 185–187,203–204.Google Scholar

48 Ziolkowski, Felician Sisters of Livonia, 100–103.Google Scholar

49 Ibid., 171; DeChantal, Out of Nazareth, 46.Google Scholar

50 Peplinski, A Fitting Response 1: 98–101.Google Scholar

51 Homan, “Years of Vision,“ 36; see also Kuznicki, Journey in Faith, 24 for Felicians.Google Scholar

52 Ameryka-Echo, October 10, 1903.Google Scholar

53 Wiarus, June 28, 1906. Likewise the organ of the Union of Polish Priests urged nuns to attend summer school. Przegląd Polsko-amerykański 2 (April-June 1912): 190.Google Scholar

54 Oates, Mary J. “Learning to Teach: The Professional Preparation of Massachusetts Parochial School Faculty, 1870–1940,“ Notre Dame Working Paper Series (Fall 1981).Google Scholar

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56 Ibid., 208, 278; Homan, “Years of Vision,” 38; Nowiny Minnesockie, July 5, 1917. By contrast, Felicians in the Buffalo-based Immaculate Heart of Mary Province, were barred from attending before 1923 non-Catholic institutions. Kuznicki, Journey in Faith, 271.Google Scholar

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58 DeChantal, Out of Nazareth, 168 180, 188–189; Peplinski, A Fitting Response, 2: 155; Ziolkowski, Felician Sisters of Livonia, 206–208.Google Scholar

59 Galush, William J. “American Poles and the New Poland: An Example of Change in Ethnic Orientation,“ Ethnicity 1 (December 1974): 209–221.Google Scholar

60 Kuznicki, Journey in Faith, 213.Google Scholar

61 Mother De Sales came to the U.S. as an infant, effectively making her native-born. Grabowski, Felician Sisters, 319; Peplinski, A Fitting Response, 2: 321.Google Scholar

62 Ameryka-Echo, July 15, 1923; also Wiadomości Codzienne, June 3, 1929.Google Scholar

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70 Agnes, Sr. M. to Superior, Mother April 4, 1928; Agnes, M. Sr. File, ACHFN; O'Brien, Faith and Friendship, 173–174. The request to close the beginning grades was a product of the supervisor's dissatisfaction with the excessively “Polish” atmosphere of a school in a majority Polish industrial town. McEvoy was also quite definite about their returning to the parochial school by grade three, with the intent of getting a solid religious (not ethnic) education. Rev. Charles McAvoy, Diocesan School Board File, December 8, 1930; January 16, 1931, Archives of the Diocese of Syracuse.Google Scholar

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