Large, two sided, hand embroidered silk banner. Text in Yiddish and English surrounded by flowers. “Made by Garechtman’s.” Tears in two spots on the edge (unaffecting signage). 30 x 52 inches (76 x.133 cm).

AMERICAN LANDSMANSCHAFT BANNER.

(New York), 1907

“Progressive Pietrokover Young Men’s Aid Ass’n. Org. Dec. 22, ‘07.” One side with text in English, other side in Yiddish. This banner was for Jews who immigrated to America from the town of Pietrokover, also known as Piotrokow, and today, Piotrkow Trybunalski. It is a town in the Province of Lodz, central Poland. It is the birthplace of Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau of Israel. See: https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/valley/piotrkow/before_holocaust.asp. A landsmanshaft is a mutual aid society of Jewish immigrants stemming from the same European town or region. Landsmanshaft organizations aided immigrants' transition from Europe to America by providing social structure and support to those who arrived in the United States without the family networks and practical skills that had sustained them in Europe. Toward the end of the 19th- and beginning of the 20th-centuries, landsmanshafts provided immigrants help in learning English, finding a place to live and work, and assistance in locating family and friends in the New World.