HP 108. Polonia in the Press: Articles from the Baltimore American & Commercial Daily Advertiser, 1870-1899. Baltimore History Class, 2004. 243 pages, indexed, illustrated, paper. $9.99 [ISBN 1-8871-2436-5]

The students in the "History of Baltimore" class at UMBC were each assigned one year of the Baltimore American & Commercial Daily Advertiser for the period 1870 to 1899. The assignment required them to find any article that mentioned the Polish Community, Polish people and/or Polish Organizations in Maryland. The students were given a lesson in how to identify Polish surnames and alerted to the fact that they may encounter variant spellings due to miscommunication on the part of the reporter and interviewee and/or witness.

The class found a remarkable number of articles that otherwise would have remained hidden because this newspaper is not indexed. The sheer number of items the students amassed and the coverage given to Maryland Polonia by this one local newspaper undercuts the statement by one of the editors of an early Polish language newspaper, Friends of the Hearth, who stated, "... these foreigners write only for themselves and about themselves and not a word about us...." Since none of Baltimore's early Polish language press for this time period is known to exsist these full text articles contained herein become all the more important to the history of Maryland's Polonia. Thus, this volume adds significantly to recovering this forgotten past.