Anna D. Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann, Ph.D.

Professor of History
Department of History

Anna D. Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann was born in Lublin, Poland. She attended Maria Curie-Skłodowska University (UMCS) in Lublin and in 1984 received an MA with Honors in history, with a minor in archival studies. She worked as an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at UMCS till 1988, when she immigrated to the U.S.  While in the doctoral program at the University of Minnesota, Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann worked as a research assistant at the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota, and published several archival inventories to the IHRC manuscript collections. In 1997, she earned her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, after studying American immigration and ethnic history with Professor Rudolph J. Vecoli. The same year Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann began working in the Department of History at Eastern Connecticut State University in Willimantic, CT, where she is now a Professor of History.

In 2004, Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann published a book The Exile Mission: The Polish Political Diaspora and Polish Americans, 1939-1956 (Ohio University Press, 2004), which was awarded the Polish American Historical Association’s (PAHA) Oskar Halecki Prize for the best book on Polish American topics. She also published on different aspects of the Polish postwar political Diaspora in the U.S.; two of her articles received the Polish American Historical Association’s (PAHA) Swastek awards in 2002 and 2003. 

Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann also published on immigrant letter writing and the press; issues of historical memory and commemoration; as well as ethnic archives, museums, libraries, and ethnic historical associations. Her articles appeared, among others, in The Polish Review; Polish American Studies; Przegląd Polonijny; Journal of American Ethnic History; The History of Education Quarterly; and PNCC Studies, as well as in several collected works.  

Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann served as Associate Editor of The Polish American Encyclopedia, ed. James S. Pula (McFarland, 2011). She is currently completing a book project on immigrant letters to the editor and the Polish American letter writing culture in the press. Her research in progress focuses on the history of Polish American community in Connecticut and issues of interethnic relations. 

 

Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann serves on the editorial board of Polish American Studies. She is a member of many professional organizations, including the American Historical Association, Social Science History Association, and Immigration and Ethnic History Society.  She is currently on the Board of Directors of the Piłsudski Institute for Research; on the Advisory Board of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences; and on the Board of Directors of Windham Textile and History Museum in Willimantic, CT.  In 2004-7, Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann was First Vice President of thePolish American Historical Association, and in 2007-09, the President of PAHA.  In 2006, she received the American Council of Polish Culture’s  award for The Exile Mission and other works on the Polish political Diaspora. In 2009, she was the recipient of the Wacław Jędrzejewicz History Award from the Piłsudski Institute.

At ECSU, Dr. Kirchmann teaches a variety of courses on American history, especially in the more recent periods.  Several of her courses focus on different aspects of immigration and ethnic history, immigrant women’s experience, immigrants in Connecticut and New England, and history of East Central Europe. She also directs student internships at the Windham Textile and History Museum in Willimantic, CT.

E-mail: kirchmanna@easternct.edu

332 Webb Hall
83 Windham Street
Willimantic, CT 06226
Phone: 860-465-4684
Fax: 860-465-0650

Last updated: September 2011
Photo by Alek Kirchmann