How Many Polish Inventors Worked in America?

Abstract

Polish historiography concerning Polish inventiveness in the United States most often quotes the accomplishments of eight Poles who worked there during the Civil War. They were as follows: Antoni Glomicki, Gustaw A. Blitkowski, Jan Kuliński, Kacper Zwicki, Józef Smoliński, Seidel de Mackiewicz, Bartłomiej Beniowski, and Ksawery Karczewski.

This paper seeks to verify the hitherto facts that were earlier accepted without any critical approach, all of them concern the aforementioned figures. It has been shown that in the sources commonly quoted what strikes one is an almost complete lack of those sources that in the studies on the history of technique can be defined as „primary sources.” It has been proved the historians of Polonia, in writing about particular inventors, did not enrich the description of events by information drawn from the newly found sources, but modified the earie findings only on the basis of the literary invention of successive authors.