Jewish Capital as the Factor Shaping the City’sArchitecture. Selected Examples of Industrial Urban Development of Piotrków Trybunalski in the Second Half of the 19th Century (up to 1914)

Currently, Piotrków Trybunalski is one of many medium-sized towns on the map of Poland, yet at the end of the 19th century was the fifth largest in the Polish Kingdom, second only to Warsaw, Łódź, Lublin, and Częstochowa. The city was the seat of governorate authorities, the tax chamber, as well as the Warsaw-Vienna railway station. Until the outbreak of World War II, Poles, Germans, Russians, and Jews living next to each other gave the city its multicultural character. This paper attempts to characterize the economic activity of Jews and their role in trade and the process of industrialization of Piotrków. Selected examples of industrial buildings erected on the initiative of this mentioned group were also analysed.