Introduction

Abstract

This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to examine the public role of the immigrant press through the example of Antoni A. Paryski, the “Polish Hearst,” a successful immigrant businessman and founder of a large publishing empire. It specifically explores his Polish-language newspaper Ameryka-Echo, a weekly with an international circulation that came out between 1889 and 1971. Paryski and his followers used Ameryka-Echo to spread among the immigrant masses the notion of self-education and improvement through reading and writing. The weekly featured several sections based on readers' correspondence. Among them, the most popular and long-lasting was the “Corner for Everybody,” which printed readers' letters with little editorial intervention. The “Corner”'s participants negotiated the boundaries of the section's ownership with the editors, and formed a close-knit community of readers-writers, fiercely loyal to their forum. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.