The restored PFA National Banner was unveiled at the National Convention held on July 25-27, 2024 in New Britain, Conn. Documentation of the conservation works and restoration of the Banner has been provided by the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) in Poland. Below is an excerpt on the history of the Banner.
Click here for the full documentation.
“The banner of the Polish Falcons Association was founded by Polish women from Chicago. According to the available press materials from the collections of the IPN Archive (monthly Sokół. Organ of the Association of Polish Falcon Societies in the United States of America, year III, no. 4 of December 1898, p. 36), a committee of Polish women in order to supplement the fund amounting to December 1898, $144.56, organized on January 1, 1899, a show of living pictures and a grand ball at Pulaski Hall in Chicago. The income from the ball (in the amount of $46), the detailed accounting of which together with the list of donors is presented in the next issue of Sokół (year III, no. 5, January 1899, p. 48), was intended entirely for the production of the banner. The total amount collected for the banner in January 1899 was $211.81, which was the equivalent of 212 days’ wages for an unskilled worker. The banner took about 5 months to make; on the first page of No. 10 of Sokół from June 1899, the program of the 4th Sokół Rally in Buffalo was published, with information about the unfurling of the banner planned on the second day of the rally, on Monday, July 3, 1899, at 7 p.m. The banner was probably created in Józef Chmieliński’s workshop in Chicago…”