Łódź: The Beginning

This chapter focuses on the town in which Samuel Hirszenberg was born: Łódź. It emphasizes that Łódź was undergoing major transformation in the nineteenth century from a poor agricultural settlement to a booming industrial city. The chapter then tracks how Łódź began to attract attention and move into a new era of its development. The old town of Łódź was transformed into a textile district specializing in cotton, a fabric minimally known in the area at the time. It quickly attracted immigrants from neighbouring German-speaking areas and Prussia—especially families of weavers and clothiers. The chapter examines how Łódź benefited considerably from the consequences of the Crimean War (1853–6) for Russia's economic and political policies. It also considers the rise to power of Alexander II, the Jewish integration into Polish society, and the transformation that Jewish society underwent during Alexander's reforms. Łódź, Białystok, and Warsaw thrived in the 1860s and 1870s with large numbers of Jewish factory workers, but also, as the chapter shows, prominent factory owners.