Post by Jaga on Jul 3, 2017 19:47:11 GMT -7
I never knew about it, but when I saw this info in Washington Post, I thought you would like it also:
Poland once sent the U.S. a birthday card. With 5 million signatures.
www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/07/03/americas-standing-may-be-tumbling-now-but-once-upon-a-time-poland-sent-the-u-s-a-birthday-card-with-5-million-signatures/?utm_term=.5c56000d5766
On Oct. 14, 1926, a distinguished citizen of Poland named Leopold Kotnowski came to the White House with a greeting card for the United States’ 150th birthday.
It was a little late — the Sesquicentennial’s Fourth of July was months in the past — but it had taken a while to gather the signatures: 5.5 million of them.
Plus, there was the elegant, gilded artwork, the photographs, the poems, the pressed flowers, the salutes from the cycling clubs, skating clubs, banks, schoolchildren, medical and rowing societies, lute singers, journalists and the army.
The good wishes came on 30,000 pages, in 111 bound volumes compiled by the people of Poland, newly independent following World War I, who wanted to express their affection for the United States.
The Library of Congress, which has had the volumes since 1926, announced Thursday that, in cooperation with the Polish Library of Washington and the Polish Embassy, all the books have now been digitized and are available online.
“It’s essentially a gigantic birthday card, signed by … almost a sixth of the population of Poland in 1926,” Sahr Conway-Lanz, a manuscript historian at the library, said there last week.
Poland once sent the U.S. a birthday card. With 5 million signatures.
www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/07/03/americas-standing-may-be-tumbling-now-but-once-upon-a-time-poland-sent-the-u-s-a-birthday-card-with-5-million-signatures/?utm_term=.5c56000d5766
On Oct. 14, 1926, a distinguished citizen of Poland named Leopold Kotnowski came to the White House with a greeting card for the United States’ 150th birthday.
It was a little late — the Sesquicentennial’s Fourth of July was months in the past — but it had taken a while to gather the signatures: 5.5 million of them.
Plus, there was the elegant, gilded artwork, the photographs, the poems, the pressed flowers, the salutes from the cycling clubs, skating clubs, banks, schoolchildren, medical and rowing societies, lute singers, journalists and the army.
The good wishes came on 30,000 pages, in 111 bound volumes compiled by the people of Poland, newly independent following World War I, who wanted to express their affection for the United States.
The Library of Congress, which has had the volumes since 1926, announced Thursday that, in cooperation with the Polish Library of Washington and the Polish Embassy, all the books have now been digitized and are available online.
“It’s essentially a gigantic birthday card, signed by … almost a sixth of the population of Poland in 1926,” Sahr Conway-Lanz, a manuscript historian at the library, said there last week.
