Museum of Industrial History

Opatówek is a small town in central Poland where industrial development was fostered in the nineteenth century by government of the Congress Kingdom of Poland. The industrial museum was established in 1981 in a five-storey, wooden-framed textile mill built in 1824-26 by the brothers Fiedler. The main emphasis of the museum is on textiles and a range of machinery is displayed, including knitting frames, an unusual embroidery machine, and the equipment from the laboratory in a silk mill. Other displays relate to tanneries in the region, printing, papermaking and Polish ceramics. The long-lived ‘Calisia’ piano factory was situated in nearby Kalisz, and the museum includes a collection of more than 50 pianos and similar keyboard instruments, as well as displays illustrating the manufacture of pianos.