Originally a section of the larger Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America, PAHA soon became an independent organization.
On September 11, 1942, historian Oskar Halecki proposed an autonomous historical institution and chose Mieczyslaw Haiman of the Polish Museum of America in Chicago as its founding president.
[1] PAHA is governed by a board of directors, elected by the membership of the Association, consisting of eight officers and twelve council members.
The Association's The Polish American Encyclopedia, edited by Prof. James Pula, was published in 2011 by McFarland Books.
PAHA secured archival storage space at the Central Connecticut State Library with strong interest in acquiring firsthand memoirs and documents from the postwar Polish American diaspora and their current descendants.