More than just a (former) day off school: Northern Illinoisans talk Casimir Pulaski Day and its Chicago-area significance

Zachary Weiss remembers writing an essay in seventh grade about Casimir Pulaski Day with the opening line, “The most important thing about Casimir Pulaski is not that we get a day off of school.”

Weiss, 29, who grew up in Northbrook and now lives in Massachusetts, said the classroom assignment didn’t go over too well with his peers.

“We had to read them out loud to the class, and I don’t think I’ve ever lost my audience faster,” Weiss said.

Though Weiss doesn’t recall in the slightest what the rest of the essay said, that memory of the holiday observed by the Chicago region every first Monday in March sticks with him.

“I think it was the only holiday that was new to me when we moved to Illinois in third grade,” Weiss said.

Turns out seventh-grader Weiss was right, at least according to one local history expert, Jan Lorys, historian for the Polish Museum of America based in Chicago.

Many schools enjoyed the specific-to-Illinois holiday as a potential day off from the classroom in the greater Chicago area, but a free day off school isn’t the most historically significant thing about Casimir Pulaski Day, said Lorys.

History of the Polish figure

Pulaski was born in March 1745 and was a member of the Polish nobility. In his teenage years, Pulaski formed a resistance group that fought against Russian oppression and influence in Poland with his father and, after he was implicated in a plot to kill the Russian-backed king of Poland, he was exiled from Poland and went to France, Lorys said.

Pulaski later was recruited by U.S. founding father Benjamin Franklin to bring his experience in the European style of warfare to aid the Americans in the Revolutionary War. He became the first commander of the American cavalry and was named brigadier general (later referred to as the ‘father of the American cavalry’ according to the Polish American Center) though he was wounded at the Battle of Savannah in 1779 and later died from his injuries at the age of 34.

Lorys said Chicago has one of the biggest Polish populations outside of Poland. Much like how those in the Black community may commemorate Crispus Attucks as the first casualty of the American Revolution when he was shot and killed in the Boston Massacre, Lorys said, Polish-American people commemorate Casimir Pulaski.

“Everybody wants to show they contributed to the American revolution,” Lorys said.

Lorys said the Illinois law designating the first Monday in March “Casimir Pulaski Day,” which was passed in 1977, started as a commemorative day, meaning Illinois schools, public offices and banks stayed open. He said Casimir Pulaski Day became a full public holiday in 1985, giving public schools and some government offices a day off. A decade later, state lawmakers let school districts observe the holiday with a day off from school at their own discretion.

Joe Speechley, a retired elementary school teacher from DeKalb School District 428, said Thursday the idea for students to have the day off didn’t last long in DeKalb. Teachers at the elementary school level were given a few materials to incorporate into their lessons, but it was “never really a big thing out here from what I observed,” he said.

Speechley added he personally didn’t feel the day off was necessary for schools.

“Some people questioned why the kids have a day off and the kids don’t even know why they’re getting the day off,” Speechley said. “So we tried to incorporate it into the curriculum, but not big time.”

Lorys said another way Revolutionary War heroes were commemorated was having towns, cities and counties named after them as American settlers colonized into the west. For example, there’s a couple of towns named after Pulaski in Illinois and there’s also a Pulaski County in the state, he said.

Even “Crawford Road” in Chicago became “Pulaski Road” in the 1930s, Lorys said. Several businessmen at the time complained about having to change letterheads and addresses, though, and that’s why the north stretch of that road is still Crawford Road, he said.

“But the important thing is to honor the person,” Lorys said.

Lorys said it’s true that Chicago has one of the largest Polish populations outside of Poland. Along with Poles fleeing to America after the Polish-Russian War, tens of thousands of Polish immigrants also came to the city in the 19th century for job opportunities brought on by the Industrial Revolution, and several more Polish immigration surges followed after both World Wars and the communist takeover of Poland.

“The Polish community was big enough to support a small army,” Lorys said.

Poles would not be able to freely celebrate their history around 1891 in Berlin, Vienna or St. Petersburg, so the celebrations took place in Chicago and continue to do so, Lorys said.

Peter Chlebanowski, 29, of DeKalb said he grew up in the Chicago suburbs and went through School District U-46 in Illinois as an elementary school student. Though he was familiar with the holiday, he said, he didn’t remember getting the day off.

“Actually, I didn’t know that kids had a day off until I was at Elgin Community College” before coming to study history at Northern Illinois University, Chlebanowski said.

Lorys said it doesn’t look like many districts celebrate the day off anymore. He said that doesn’t surprise him, given typical winter weather in Illinois messing with school calendars as it is – though he believes it would be more constructive to work lesson plans related to the holiday in school curriculum anyway.

“I think it’s important that the children know to honor their heroes,” Lorys said.

The Polish Museum of America is still closed to the general public due to the COVID-19 pandemic, though the institution will still observe Casimir Pulaski Day with a virtual celebration beginning 10 a.m. Monday. The live stream will include lectures and artifacts about Pulaski, including an original letter explaining why had to leave Poland.

To view the museum’s live stream lecture, visit polishmuseumofamerica.org.