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Preferred Citation
Laura Polanyi Striker Papers on Captain John Smith, Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, College of William
and Mary.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Source: Jean Richards
Donation on behalf of the Laura Polanyi Striker Family, August 2016.
Laura Polanyi Striker was an Austro-Hungarian historian, researcher and educator. She received a PhD in economic history from
Budapest University, developed progressive pedagogical models for young learners, and was active in feminist and freemason
societies. Striker came from a Jewish family of scholars, including economist and anthropologist Karl Polanyi and philosopher
Michael Polanyi. Striker and her family immigrated to the United States during World War II.
In the mid-1940s, Striker joined American historian Bradford Smith's research project to write a new biography of Captain
John Smith. Since Striker read Hungarian and Latin, she worked through non-English sources related to the many narratives
about John Smith's experiences in Transylvania and Hungary. Striker's work addressed earlier scholarship by Hungarian-American
historian Alfred Knopf, translated sources about John Smith, and in 1953 published her independent study, Captain John Smith's
Hungary and Translyvania.
She married Sandor Striker in 1904 and had three children, including the designer Eva Striker Zeisel. Laura Polanyi Striker
died in 1959.
For more on Striker's biography and career, see Lee Congdon's article, "The Hungarian Pocahontas: Laura Polayni Striker,"
The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, July 1978.
Research notes, drafts, and writings of Laura Polanyi Striker on Captain John Smith. Materials include correspondence, publications,
newspaper clippings, reviews, books jackets and photographs related to her extensive research.
Late in her career, Striker wrote about Captain John Smith's Hungarian travels, including the 1957 introduction and translation
of The Life of John Smith, English Soldier, a seventeenth-century text by Henry Wharton; 1953's Captain John Smith's Hungary
and Transylvania; and 1958's The Hungarian Historian: Lewis L. Kropf.
This collection contains materials pertaining to Striker's scholarship from the mid-1940s through her death in 1959. It is
arranged in the following series: Artifact, Correspondence, Photographs and Book Jackets, Research Notes, and Reviews.
Metal ornamental plaque of Captain John Smith for the 1957 Jamestown Festival. The commemorative plaque is light brown/cream
with Smith's likeness in relief. It is copywritten to 1956, Virginia Metalcrafters. A cream thread is tied to a hanging hook
on the back of the plaque.
Mixed Materials Box: 1 1951-1964, and undatedEnglish
Scope and Contents
Features letters to and from Striker and publishers, editors, and other personal and professional correspondents. Some letters
are written in Hungarian and remain untranslated.
Book jackets are in mylar folders to keep them from creasing and tearing.
English
Scope and Contents
Six photographs feature Polanyi, with a few images of her holding her published books on John Smith. There is also a signed
portrait of Bradford Smith, the English professor and biographer of Captain John Smith of the Virginia colony, William Bradford
of the Plymouth colony.
The two book jackets are from Bradford's 1953 book, Captain John Smith, published by J.B. Lippincott, and Polanyi's 1957 translation
of Henry Wharton's text, The Life of John Smith.
Clippings are enclosed in plastic sleeves, with some pages flaking at the edges. Handle with care.
English
Scope and Contents
Reviews for Striker's work alongside critical response to Bradford Smith's biograph of Captain John Smith. This series consists
of newspaper clippings from The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Chicago Tribune, among other national publications.
Mixed Materials Box: 2 Folder: 18
Reviews (1 of 4)
English
Mixed Materials Box: 2 Folder: 19
Reviews (2 of 4)
English
Mixed Materials Box: 2 Folder: 20
Reviews (3 of 4)
English
Mixed Materials Box: 2 Folder: 21
Reviews (4 of 4)
English
Mixed Materials Box: 2 Folder: 22
Hungarian Historical Society review, translated into English
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