The tradition of industry-related museology in the Polish lands began with the creation of the museum back in the period of partitions, in 1875. Museum of Industry and Agriculture in Warsaw, with private funds from the aristocracy and landowners who co-founded it. The museum was established on the initiative of Prince Jan Tadeusz Lubomirski, and the co-founders were Feliks Sobanski, Jozef Zamoyski, Jakub Natanson and Karol Dietrich.
The museum officially began operations on June 5, 1875, which is after the approval of the The law, issued in the name of the same Rev. Lubomirski and Józef hr. Zamoyski, Feliks Sobanski, Jakub Natanson and the Hille and Dietrich trading house, as the first founders. As a result of this act, on November 5, 1876, a modest “Industrial and Agricultural Exhibition” was solemnly opened in a small rented premises on Krasinskich Square in Warsaw. In six small rooms, the organizers of the exhibition managed to fit expositions presenting items made in the Polish lands, and representing, such fields as weaving, carpentry, agriculture, goldsmithing, shoemaking, metal production and so on. As noted by Gazeta Rolnicza No. 46 of 1876, there were a total of some 90 exhibitors. The exhibition, announced a few months earlier, attracted great interest. This was the first public realization of the newly established Museum of Industry and Agriculture. The museum, which was intended to modernize Polish industry and agriculture. The exhibition featured more than 2,000 exhibits on technology, industry and agriculture, mainly from donations.
According to the statute, the purpose of the Museum was to spread knowledge and skills in the following fields: industry, agriculture and crafts, as well as to promote and facilitate the review science and scientific research in these fields. The main mission of the Museum of Industry and Agriculture was to educate Polish society and disseminate novelties in the field of industry and agriculture. The goals and objectives were to be realized by establishing and running: schools, courses, institutes, scientific studios, publishing and supporting scientific journals, collecting and making available collections, organizing temporary exhibitions, readings and lectures, and building a library, which enabled young people to be educated in Polish.
The Museum’s wide range of tasks necessitated a search for new, more spacious premises. Interest has been shown in the edifice at ul. Krakowskie Przedmieście 66, after the former monastery of the Fr. Bernardines. They established the monastery as early as 1454. inspired by the widow of Mazovian Prince Boleslaw III – Anna of Holshansky, a Kiev princess. During the Swedish “deluge” there was a strong point of resistance here. The monastery and church were burned down, and after the expulsion of the Swedes, the monastery complex was rebuilt and decorated in the Baroque style. After the partition of Poland, the Prussians used part of the monastery for a guardhouse. During the stay of Napoleonic troops, the monastery was used as a military hospital, and a baton factory was set up in the refectory. The building was close to ruin at the time. For the first 2 years, the post-convent premises housed a seminary, then leased to the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts.
The building of the Bernardine Order on St. Krakowskie Przedmieście 66 was the site of public events during the January Uprising. The active participation of the monks in the uprising became the cause of the monastery’s liquidation in 1865. After the dissolution of the Bernardine Order and after the reconstruction of this building in 1870-1884, it housed exhibitions and warehouses of the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts until it was moved to the Ungra pavilion (in the courtyard of the Potocki Palace). In 1886. The reconstruction of the post-Bernardine buildings purchased from the Magistrate of Warsaw through the efforts of the first president, Ludwik hr. Krasinski. In the same year, the Museum’s library was opened, at the time comprising 466 works in 749 volumes of content: industrial, technical, agricultural, natural science and artistic craft patterns. A weather station has also been established. The Museum of Industry and Agriculture, which had its headquarters here until the outbreak of World War II, had the largest museum collection in Warsaw. It collected exhibits related to industry and agriculture and popularized knowledge through temporary exhibitions, as well as the activities of the library and scientific laboratories. It served as a scientific institution and an agricultural and technical college.
Museum Report for 1888. includes a record of its charitable activities: In addition to people visiting the exhibition with paid tickets (exhibition of wood, metal, ceramic and metallurgical products and children’s toys) It was visited by charitable establishments, girls and boys, as well as educators and alumni of the Institute for the Deaf. (…) In addition, from the decision of the Museum Committee, the income from 5 days for entry tickets from January 4go. b. starting, was donated to charitable causes, namely the Poor Mothers’ Society, the Alms Institution for those ashamed to beg, and the Shelter.
In 1890-1891, in the physics laboratory organized in the museum, the later Nobel Prize winner Maria Sklodowska, who went to Paris in 1891, conducted her experiments. This is commemorated by a bronze plaque unveiled on the front wall of the building in June 1935: In this building, in the physics laboratory headed by J.J. Boguski in 1890-1891, MARIA CURIE-SKŁODOWSKA 1867-1934 began her work in the scientific field. Discovery of polonium and radium 1898. It was at this address that she performed the chemical analysis that enabled her to discover polonium and radium in later years. This plaque, unfortunately, is not accurate, because the future Nobel laureate was not married before going to Paris and could not use the name “Curie.”
In 1890-1902, the 11-volume Agricultural Encyclopedia was published under the aegis of the Museum. Exhibitions were the weakest point of this institution. Not until 1905. On the initiative of then director Jozef Leski, the first permanent exhibition was made available, presenting objects from the fields of archaeology, agriculture, mineralogy, ethnography. Due to the lack of financial resources, the collection was made possible mainly through the generosity of the public.
The “Permanent Ethnographic Exhibition” (this was the name of the Ethnographic Museum allowed by the Russian government) and the Seed Evaluation Station found a place in the Museum building – the first in Poland and one of the first in Europe. In 1901, a geological laboratory was established, and 5 years later an anthropological one. Thanks to the efforts of Mieczyslaw Pożaryski and the active Circle of Electrical Engineers at the Technicians’ Association, the following was opened in 1908. “Courses for Electrical Fitters,” which in 1925 was transformed into a 4-year school for electrical fitters. The museum also held “Practical Distilling Courses,” where students were introduced to modern distilling technology, accounting and current regulations. Tadeusz Miłobędzki proposed in 1909 to organize agricultural and technical courses on the model of distillery courses. After obtaining permission from the authorities, more than 180 students (men and women) attended the first year of the paid course. Each participant, after passing the exams provided for in the program and writing a thesis, received a certificate of completion of the course.
In 1911. The opening ceremony of the (Higher) Industrial and Agricultural Courses was held at the Museum. Under this modest name, a Polish agricultural university was actually established. At the end of World War I (1914), the industrial and agricultural courses were transformed into the Agricultural College, which in September 1918. was nationalized and named the Royal Polish Agricultural University. In 1924. At the First Congress of Agricultural Sciences in Warsaw, the establishment of a “Special Museum of Agriculture” was called for, the purpose of which was to “illustrate domestic agriculture.” The promoter of this idea was Prof. Stefan Biedrzycki, who since 1924. collected objects related to the subject of the history of the development of agricultural technology in the Polish lands.
(Great Reading Room of the Museum of Industry and Agriculture – photograph from “Fifty Years of the Museum of Industry and Agriculture in Warsaw 1875-1925”, Warsaw 1926). The museum conducted lively activities by collecting collections, setting up scientific laboratories, a library, organizing readings, lectures, as well as professional and correspondence courses, initiating the creation of educational films, and conducting exhibition and demonstration activities. It served an educational and cultural function. It also had no small influence on local economic life and the formation of scientific elites. This activity was abruptly interrupted by the outbreak of World War II.
The Museum of Industry and Agriculture and most of its collections were destroyed during the defense of Warsaw in September 1939. The building was burned down along with the Ethnographic Museum’s collections inside. The museum tried to carry out its mission despite the turmoil of war. It did not cease its activities during the German occupation, conducting secret courses and lectures on architecture, engineering and mechanics.
The last director (1924-1951) of the Museum was Stanislaw Lesniowski, who described it as follows: The Museum of Industry and Agriculture was established in Warsaw in r. 1875, That is, in the years when Polish society, apart from religious and charitable – charitable institutions, did not have any institutions of collective work, and the brightest minds of the time felt the urgent need to create in the capital of the country in Warsaw a center to raise education, Polish science, Polish industry, agriculture and crafts. (Summary of the history of the Museum of Industry and Agriculture from 1875 to 1951, i.e., until the liquidation of the Museum of P. and R., by Stanislaw Lesniowski, based on printed reports and proto-collections of the Museum of P. and R. Manuscript from the collection of the State Archive of the Capital City of Warsaw, sign 146/9, pp. 23-56).
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| Building of the Museum of Industry and Agriculture before it was destroyed in 1939 | Building of the Museum of Industry and Agriculture after its destruction in 1939 |
Directors of the Museum of Industry and Agriculture:
1875-1887 Stanislaw Przystanski
1887-1893 Jerzy Aleksandrowicz
1893-1895 Lucjan Wrotnowski
1895-1897 the duties of director were performed by a delegation of members of the Museum Committee (Karol Bennie, Wladyslaw Lepert, Stanislaw Natanson)
1897-1921 Joseph Leski
1921-1924 position vacant
1924-1951 Stanislaw Lesniowski
Elaborated. Bronislaw Hynowski
