The Gebethner & Wolff company relations with Łódź at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries
The Gebethner & Wolff company relations with Łódź at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries

Summary/Abstract: The purpose of the study is to describe relations connecting the Gebethner & Wolff editing bookshop with Łódź at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The company established in 1857 in Warsaw opened in Łódź, in 1890, the warehouse of grand pianos, pianos and harmoniums, as well as a storehouse of notes. In further years, agencies selling periodicals –“Kurier Codzienny” (1893) and “Tygodnik Ilustrowany” (1896) published by Gebethner & Wolff also commenced their activities. Both the shop and the agencies played a significant role in the integration of the music and the journalistic environment in Łódź. In 1898 a bookshop was opened; however, it was sold to Rychliński & Wegner company in 1901. The next Gebethner & Wolff bookshop, established in 1912, conducted its activity until the beginning of the World War II. It offered mainly literature from a native publishing house, as well as quality foreign- language publications. During World War I, the bookshop organised special exhibits, the purpose of which was to promote Polish educational books.The Gebethner & Wolff company has also undertaken activities that contributed to the popularisation of Łódź. It was the special number of “Tygodnik Ilustrowany” devoted to Łódź (1911 no. 19), as well as the information diary for 1914 called “Rocznik Łódźki Gebethnera & Wolffa” [Łódź Yearbook of the Gebethner & Wolff]. However, it was W. Reymont’s “Ziemia Obiecana” [The Promised Land], which had the greatest impact on shaping the image of the city upon the Łódka river. The initiative of appearance and publishing of the book was the effect of activity of Gebethner & Wolff.The achievement of the above-mentioned, as well as other activities, became possible thanks to the participation of numerous persons connected with Łódź. They were, among others, booksellers: Robert Schwartzchultz, Juliusz Goźlinski, Stanislaw Miszewski, journalists: Wladyslaw Rowiński and Zenon Pietkiewicz, as well as the son of the company’s co-owner, Gustaw Wojciech Gebethner.

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