O Mapie poglądowej Królestwa Polskiego Jadwigi Wójcickiej z 1885 roku

W artykule omówiono oryginalną mapę ścienną, genezę i okoliczności jej opracowania oraz wydania. Jest to zapewne pierwsza opublikowana polska ścienna mapa szkolna opracowana przez nauczycielkę.

The article deals with The Illustrative School Map of the Polish Kingdom published in 1885 in Warsaw. We know little about the author Jadwiga Wójcicka (1850-1933). She was most probably a self-taught woman. She taught at school, wrote for Warsaw dailies and wrote a popular book for youth. She had no training in cartography, and her foremost motive for elaborating the map was to help her sons in studying geography. J. Wójcicka finished her school map of Europe in 1880. After she sent it to Chicago to an exhibition of women's work, it got lost. In those times, the so called Polish Kingdom established at the Congress of Vienna (1815) was absolutely subordinated to Russia. After subsequent unsuccessful uprisings (1830, 1863), whose aim was to regain independence, the Russians drastically limited it for Poles. The official language was Russian, there existed Russian censorship and education was on a very low level. At the end of 19th century efforts were made to improve the level of economy and social life in Poland. The map was created with the financial help of Stanisław Szafrankiewicz, the publisher of 'Engineering and Construction' magazine, who employed an artist and paid for printing the map. The map was created in the times when economy school maps were only being devised. It is an illustrative map depicting river, settlement and communication network as well as soils (fig. 1) and forests. With realistic pictures the map shows agriculture, mining, manufacturing and various products. An originally elaborated box functions as the legend of economic symbols used on the map. The content was consulted with specialists and the known geographer and teacher W. Nałkowski (1851-1911). Economic issues are presented on the map through manufactured goods and images of specific industrial works. General notions such as cattle farming, food or textile industry were not used yet. Only several out of the published 1200 copies remained.