PGSNYS is proud to announce that we have completed the digitization of previously unavailable local editions of the Dziennik dla Wszystich newspaper! Thanks to crucial support provided by a grant of $2,500 from the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Arts & Culture Initiative, and the support of all our members, donors, and friends, we were recently able to fund the final round of Dziennik digitization at a cost of $14,800!
The next phase of our project involves file conversion and image processing to make the pages searchable with optical character recognition (OCR). Our files will be added to the queue for processing and upload at New York State Historic Newspapers, and when complete, these missing editions will supplement our existing PGSNYS digital newspaper collections, with free access to all. We will also continue our ongoing indexing of marriage, death, and other announcements within the newly-available Dziennik issues.
Once these issues are online, the digitized Dziennik will yield a wealth of information about Western New York’s Polish people, businesses, churches, schools, institutions, and events not covered by the mainstream press, including
- Local politics and business news
- Church, school, arts and social events
- Bios of leaders and community members
- Birth and marriage announcements and obituaries
- WWII news on servicemen, editorials, ads for war bonds and recruitment
- 1950s Cold War and Labor Movement
PGSNYS is deeply grateful for your support in partnering with us to preserve and make accessible this important record of Polish American life during the 1940s and 1950s for generations of students, historians, genealogists, journalists and community members! Bardzo, bardzo dziękuję! (Many, many thanks!)