An outline of the history of the Polish holdings of the Hoover Institution Library & Archives

Abstract

The Library & Archives of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University are home to the largest and most comprehensive collection on twentieth-century Poland in the United States. The holdings, both published and unpublished, are limited by the institution’s research scope, which is broadly focused on the political history of the world since World War I. The article includes an outline of the history of the institution and its Polish library and archival collections and mentions the principal contributions of several of its builders. Three special factors favoring the growth of Polish collections will receive attention: Herbert Hoover’s Polish sympathies and friendship with Ignacy Paderewski, the role of Jan Karski’s mission to Europe on behalf of the Hoover Institution in 1946, and the collecting opportunities created by the Solidarity revolution and the collapse of the Soviet bloc. The presentation will also note some of the most significant Polish archival holdings, both émigré and those created in the Polish People’s Republic by communist political functionaries and journalists, acquired by Hoover after 1989.