From the early 1800's to the beginning of World War II, five million Polish immigrants arrived in America. The single largest wave of Polish immigration occured in the late 1800's and early 1900's, when 2.5 million Poles passed through Ellis Island in New York.
Galicia accounted for 43% of the total Polish immigration figures between 1895 and 1911. The majority of these immigrants and families settled in the Northeast United States, including communities along the Connecticut River and Western Massachusetts.
In 1880 the first Polish immigrants began arriving in Chicopee, and by 1885 they were living in Sunderland. The settling of western Massachusetts by the Poles continued, with Northampton being settled in 1886, followed by Hatfield in 1890 and Ludlow in 1892. In the years that followed, Springfield, Holyoke, Palmer, Ware and Hardwick all became homes to significant Polish communities.
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