BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Embassy of Poland -- Fence Exhibit: The Longest Birthday Card in the History of the World

DC -- Embassy of Poland -- Fence Exhibit: The Longest Birthday Card in the History of the World:

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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[1] EMBPBD_190906_01.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[2] EMBPBD_190906_08.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[3] EMBPBD_190906_14.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[4] EMBPBD_190906_16.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)
[5] EMBPBD_190906_19.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[6] EMBPBD_190906_22.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[7] EMBPBD_190906_24.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[8] EMBPBD_190906_31.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)
[9] EMBPBD_190906_33.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[10] EMBPBD_190906_36.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[11] EMBPBD_190906_41.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[12] EMBPBD_190906_46.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)
[13] EMBPBD_190906_49.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[14] EMBPBD_190906_53.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[15] EMBPBD_190906_58.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. EMBPBD_190906_01.JPG: The Longest Birthday Card in the History of the World The Polish Declarations of Admiration and Friendship for the United States is a collection of 111 volumes containing signatures of approximately five and a half million Polish citizens. In 1926, thanks to the unprecedented effort and enthusiasm of newly free Poles, one-sixth of the entire population of the Second Polish Republic signed the Declarations over the course of just eight months. The signatures came from all nooks and crannies of the newly reborn country. Its thirty thousand pages, many of them magnificently illustrated, were eventually bound into 111 volumes; the books were presented to President Calvin Coolidge on the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence as a gift of thanks for the United States' key role helping Poland regain independence in 1918. The Declarations are both an emblem of goodwill between two nations and a snapshot of life in 1926 Poland. On its pages one can find the most important people in Poland: President Ignacy Moscicki, Marshal Josef Pilsudski, members of parliament and other government officials, members of the military, prominent businessmen and academics. However, the vast majority of signatures came from over five million students and their teachers. Since class pictures often accompany the names, these pages offer unique insight into the linguistically and culturally diverse life of the Second Polish Republic -- from rural areas in the East to the vibrant city life of its capital, Warsaw. Since then, borders have shifted, particularly in the aftermath of the Second World War, and many of the towns and villages that feature in the Declarations are no longer part of Poland. Even when unaccompanied by photographs, the signatures themselves are powerful -- they often serve as the only mementos of people who perished during World War II, which broke out just thirteen years later and took over six million lives of Polish citizens. On the centennial of diplomatic relations between Poland and the US, take a look at a particular, joyous moment in time and join us in celebration our friendship today. Sto lat! [One hundred years!]
2. EMBPBD_190906_08.JPG: Signatures from students from a school in Wielki Klinez
3. EMBPBD_190906_14.JPG: Signatures of students from a school in Kowel
4. EMBPBD_190906_16.JPG: Signatures of students from a school in Jankowy
5. EMBPBD_190906_19.JPG: Signatures of students from a school in Sadzia
6. EMBPBD_190906_22.JPG: Signatures of students from a school in Przemysl
7. EMBPBD_190906_24.JPG: Signatures of students from a school in Nowawies Ksiazeca
8. EMBPBD_190906_31.JPG: Signatures of students from a school in Augustynow
9. EMBPBD_190906_33.JPG: Signatures of students from a school in Wawolnica
10. EMBPBD_190906_36.JPG: Class of 1926 The Polish Declarations of Admiration and Friendship for the United States, signed and gifted by Poles to the people of the United States on the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, continues to surprise and inspire us today thanks to the joint effort of Polish and US institutions. The entire collection of 111 volumes, containing over five million signatures, is now housed at the Library of Congress. Thirteen of the 111 volumes were digitized in the early 2000s. The Polish Library in Washington led the "Class of 1926" project to digitize the remaining ninety-eight volumes. Under the patronage of the Embassy of Poland and the United States Congressional Polish Caucus, as well as with the unfailing support of the Library of Congress, the Declarations in their entirety were made accessible online on July 4th, 2017. Funding for the project came from a grant given by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and generous contributions from private donors. Find Your Ancestors These documents may serve as an important resource for historical research and an invaluable source of information for members of the Polish-American community who want to find their Polish ancestors. If you want to browse the signatures of famous Poles or search for your Polish ancestors who were school age in 1926, you can view the Declarations online: www.loc.gov keyword: Polish Declarations On the "About the Collection" page, type the name of the city or town where the school was located in the search bar. Your search will return scans of pages signed by students in the area. Then it's your task to patiently decode signatures and hopefully find who you're looking for!
11. EMBPBD_190906_41.JPG: Signatures of students from a school in Plonsk
12. EMBPBD_190906_46.JPG: Signatures of students from a school in Chwarzenko
13. EMBPBD_190906_49.JPG: Signatures of students from a school in Ostrow
14. EMBPBD_190906_53.JPG: Signatures of students from a school in Wawolnica
15. EMBPBD_190906_58.JPG: Signatures of students from a school in Krolewska Huta
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Directly Related Pages: Other pages with content (DC -- Embassy of Poland -- Fence Exhibit: ) directly related to this one: [Display ALL photos on one page]:
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Same Subject: Click on this link to see coverage of items having the same subject: [Embassies]
2019 photos: Overnight trips this year: (May, August, October, December) Four trips to New York City (including the United Nations, Flushing, and the New York Comic-Con), (July) My 14th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con (including sites in Utah). (August) Massachusetts (Boston, Stockbridge, and Springfield) to experie/nce rain in another state, and (August) Asheville, NC to visit Dad and his wife Dixie. Equipment this year: I continued to use my Fuji XS-1 cameras but, depending on the event, I also used a Nikon D7000. Number of photos taken this year: about 582,000.
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