Polish Museum of America

The Polish Museum of America, on Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago's West Town neighborhood, was founded in nineteen thirty-five and is one of the oldest and largest ethnic museums in the United States. It sits in the heart of what was once called Polish Downtown, the dense corridor of Milwaukee Avenue between downtown and the northwest side where Polish immigrants settled in such numbers after eighteen eighty that Chicago eventually held the largest Polish population of any city outside Warsaw. The museum was founded by the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America, one of the oldest Polish fraternal organizations in the country, and its collection spans immigration documents, military artifacts, fine art, and cultural objects covering Polish and Polish American history from the earliest immigration waves through the twentieth century.

One of its most significant holdings is a large collection of material related to Ignacy Jan Paderewski, the pianist and composer who served as Poland's prime minister in nineteen nineteen. The building itself is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.