Born in Poland, Bronisław Mirski (1887–1927) was trained as a violinist and conductor. Around 1915 he relocated to the United States, where he became known as Nek (or Nicholas or Nick) Mirskey and began working as a theater orchestra conductor. At first he worked in small towns including Punxsutawney and DuBois, Pennsylvania, where he met his future wife, pianist Genevieve Wilson. After their marriage in 1917, he sought work in larger cities and subsequently worked in Boston, Dallas, New York, and Kansas City. His greatest success, though, was in Washington DC, where he became music director at the Metropolitan Theatre. It was also in Washington where he met his greatest tragedy: Genevieve was among the ninety-eight people who died in the January 1922 disaster at the Knickerbocker Theater, where she was working, when the roof collapsed under a record snowfall. Mirskey developed lung disease which gradually worsened until his death in 1927.

The Mirskey Collection of Salon Orchestra and Silent Film Music contains printed music, manuscripts, publications catalogs, promotional flyers, and other ephemera documenting Mirskey’s dance band, Polonia, in the first half of the twentieth century. The bulk of the collection consists of printed dance band music used for performances by the Polonia Orchestra. The titles for the scores are in a variety of languages, though primarily English. The other printed music consists of conductor piano scores and parts for the accompaniment of silent films.