The city was once one of the largest cloth, linen and cotton weaving centres in Poland and is the birthplace of Saint Maximilian Kolbe as well as Maksymilian Faktorowicz, the founder of Max Factor cosmetics company.

Zduńska Wola was then part of an important trade route which crossed through Poland and connected Eastern and Western Europe.

[3] Due to the lack of available space for incoming weavers, the town was expanded and new districts were established by incorporating nearby villages and settlements.

Under the patronage of the Złotnicki family and local business owners, Zduńska Wola was completely remodelled and urbanized; new housing estates were built for the workers and the first city park was opened during this period.

In 1902 Zenon Anstadt, a member of a wealthy family of brewers from Łódź, was responsible for the continuous development of the town's infrastructure.

Alongside the former textile industry, new metallurgical enterprises, power plants, public schools, gymnasiums, city hospital and a fire station were established.

In 1930 Zduńska Wola became an important transport hub, when it was connected by rail with the Polish port of Gdynia on the Baltic Sea.

[3] Germany operated a transit camp for German settlers, who were resettled in occupied Poland as part of the Lebensraum policy.

The German administrator who oversaw the final selection, Hans Biebow, was tried, convicted, and executed after the war for his crimes in Lodz and Zduńska Wola.

[11] The town was freed by the Soviets in January 1945, and then restored to Poland,[4] however with a Soviet-installed communist regime, which then stayed in power until the Fall of Communism in the 1980s.

Under socialism, between 1945 and 1989, Zduńska Wola and Łódź regained their pre-war importance as the textile industrial centres of central Poland.