Antoni A. Paryski

This chapter traces Paryski's years in Poland and the influences which shaped him as a person, including the ideals of Polish Positivism, as well as motivations for his departure from Poland. It follows Paryski through his turbulent and surprising early years in America, during his search for employment and development of his views regarding labor unions, socialism, and politics in the United States. The chapter closes with Paryski establishing his publishing empire, complete with Ameryka-Echo. Paryski's years in Poland, and his first steps in the United States and in Polonia in the tumultuous decades of the 1880s and 1890s, revealed a personality that some might describe as thoroughly American: independent, driven by ambition, hard-working and risk-taking, dynamic, optimistic, resourceful, and confident.