Buffalo, NY – The Polish Genealogical Society of New York State (PGSNYS) has been awarded a $10,000 grant from the Louis Skalny Foundation to digitize never-before-microfilmed editions of the Dziennik dla Wszystkich (Everybody’s Daily), the major Polish-language newspaper that was published in Buffalo from 1911 to 1957. Since 2017, the PGSNYS has engaged in a multi-year effort to digitize the Dziennik and make it accessible through the New York State Historic Newspapers website (https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/).
The Skalny Foundation grant provides crucial support toward the final phase of the project which involves scanning and digitizing about 57,000 original newsprint pages of the local Buffalo/Western New York issues of the Dziennik that were never microfilmed from the critical World War II period and early Cold War era, specifically the years 1941–48, 1950–52 and 1957.
Once completed, the digitized Dziennik will yield a wealth of information about Western New York’s Polish community including its businesses, churches, politics, social life and birth, marriage, and death notices, providing a rich resource for students, historians, genealogists, journalists and community members that is searchable through Optical Character Recognition. “We are thrilled and honored to receive the Skalny Foundation’s generous support for the project!” said Julie Szczepankiewicz, PGSNYS President. “It allows us to proceed quickly to make these little-known records, achievements and stories of Polish Americans more accessible, globally, for generations to come.”
The digitization is being conducted in collaboration with the Polish Museum of America (PMA) in Chicago where the only extant copies of the targeted Dziennik issues are housed, and The Digital Archive Group (TDAG), an experienced archival services company in Buffalo Grove, IL.
A fundraising campaign to raise the additional $13,206 required to complete the project is in progress. For more information or to make a contribution, please visit https://pgsnys.online/dziennik-digitization/. To download this press release, click here.
About the Louis Skalny Foundation
The Louis Skalny Foundation of Rochester, NY, was formed in 1971 to provide grants, scholarships, and other forms of financial assistance in the areas of education, religion, science, and medicine. The Foundation honors the memory of Louis Skalny who arrived in the United States from Bieliny, Poland in 1907, and founded a family business that expanded to an international corporation. A member of the Skalny family, Stanley Jezowski, served as the Dziennik’s Rochester Editor/Representative.