Zwierzchowski (Zowski), Stanislaus J.
Professor of Engineering. Born April 27, 1880 in Srem, Poland. Elementary and secondary education in home-town. Studied at the Polytechnic in CharIottenburg, Germany, from 1900 to 1905, graduating as a mechanical engineer. Shortly after came to Dayton, Ohio, worked as a construction engineer of water turbines, and later came to the Allis-Chalmers Co., in Milwaukee in the same capacity. A transfer to Montreal, Canada, was followed in 1907 by an offer to teach mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Broadened the scope of the engineering at Michigan, and in 1911 was given the post of "Professor of Hydromechanical Engineering" the only professorship of its kind in the United States at that time. Perfected his departmental engineering to an extent that put him at the head of the Hydromechanical engineering field, and attracted to his classes at Ann Arbor engineers from all over the world. In 1913 constructed a fine turbine which is still (1943) used by the James Leffel firm in Springfield, Mass., and also in Poland. In 1922 resigned from his professorship to accept the directorship of a newly formed chair of hydromechanical engineering at the Polytechnic School in Warsaw, Poland. From 1922 lived in Poland, making visits to the U.S. only during the summer time to review the work of the daily "Kuryer Polski" of which he was president and editor-in-chief, since Dec. 2, 1918. In Poland member of the Polish Academy of Technological Learning, and the Warsaw Educational Society. In 1909 married Felicia Aurelia Kruszka. In 1918 elected director of Polish National Committee in Chicago, Ill. At the time of the drawing tip of President Wilson's famous Fourteen Points, Wilson named Zwierzchowski to Colonel House's committee, whose duty it was to gather historical and statistical material, and to draw up motions for the peace conference in Paris. Zwierzchowski worked with the committee in drawing up boundary lines, particularly those which settled Poland's western boundaries and access to the Baltic Sea. Worked unofficially with the American delegation to the peace conference as a representative of Poland. In 1939, after invasion of Poland by Germany, fled to United States, where he died on January 11, 1940.From: "Who's Who in Polish America" by Rev. Francis Bolek, Editor-in-Chief; Harbinger House, New York, 1943