Official relations between Poland and the United States on a diplomatic level were initiated in 1919 after Poland had established itself as a republic after 123 years of being under foreign rule from the Partitions of Poland. However, ties with the United States date back to the 17th century, when the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was one of Europe's largest powers, and many Poles immigrated to the Thirteen Colonies. During the American Revolutionary War, the Polish military commanders Tadeusz Kościuszko and Casimir Pułaski contributed greatly to the Patriot cause, with Kościuszko becoming a national hero in America.

Since 1989, Polish–American relations have been strong and Poland is one of the chief European allies of the United States, being part of both NATO and the European Union. There is a strong cultural appreciation between the two nations (Polonophilia). According to the US Department of State, Poland remains a "stalwart ally" and "one of strongest Continental partners in fostering security and prosperity, throughout Europe and the world." Poland was also one of four participating countries in the American-led Iraq War coalition in 2003.

Before 20th century

The partitions of Poland erased Poland from the map in 1795 and long prevented the establishment of official diplomatic relations between Poland and the new United States. However, Poland, which enacted the world's second-oldest constitution in 1791, always considered the United States a positive influence. Even in the 18th century, important Polish figures such as Tadeusz Kościuszko and Casimir Pulaski became closely involved with shaping US history. Haym Salomon, a Polish Jew, was the prime financier of the American side during the American Revolutionary War against Great Britain. Many Poles also emigrated to the United States in the 19th century and formed a large Polish American community in urban centres such as Chicago.

American response to November Uprising

Poland's November Uprising in 1831 and the fight for regaining independence from the neighbouring empires were extensively documented and editorialized in American newspapers. As the historian Jerzy Jan Lerski described, "one could reproduce in detail virtually the whole story of the November Uprising from the 1831 files of American dailies published at that time, regardless of the fact that they were usually four-sheet affairs with little space left for foreign news."#Jerzy Jan Lerski p. 26 There were very few Poles in the United States at the time, but views of Poland were shaped positively by its support for the American Revolution. Several young men offered their military services to fight for Poland, the most well-known of which was Edgar Allan Poe, who wrote a letter to his commanding officer March 10, 1831 to join the Polish Army if it was created in France.

Support for Poland was highest in the South, as Casimir Pulaski's death in Savannah, Georgia, was well-remembered and memorialized. An American surgeon, Dr. Paul Fitzsimmons, from the Georgia, actually joined the Polish Army in 1831. He was then in France and, inspired by "how gallant Pulaski had fallen at the siege of Savannah during the Revolutionary struggle of 1776," traveled to Warsaw as a field surgeon for the Polish infantry.

The United States never initiated the creation of a military force for supporting Poland. Financial support and gifts were sent from the United States to the American-Polish Committee in France, which intended to purchase supplies and transport aid to Poland. The American writer James Fenimore Cooper wrote an appeal for the organization at the height of his popularity and motivated a nationwide collection for Poland in American cities. The Frenchman General Lafayette was an outspoken voice in France and urged for a French intervention to aid Poland in its independence from Russia. The French government sought to make peace with the Russian Empire and generally stayed out of the conflict.#Jerzy Jan Lerski p. 7.

Following the collapse of the insurrection, American newspapers continued to publish news from British and French sources documenting oppression of Poles by the Russian and German Empires. Newspaper editors made mention of the Russians as "brutal" and "evil," and the Poles were "gallant" and "heroic" in their efforts. The American public was apprised of the ongoing suppression of the Polish Catholic Church and the conscription of Poles into the Imperial Russian Army, which hurt Russian-American relations. An American writer in Boston, Robin Carver, wrote a children's book in 1831, Stories of Poland, which said that for Polish children, "Their houses are not peaceful and happy homes, but are open to the spies and soldiers of a cruel and revengeful government.... There is no confidence, no repose, no hope for them, and will not be, till, by some more fortunate struggle, they shall drive the Russians from their borders, and become an independent people."Stories of Poland. p. 141-142. Poetic tributes to Poland were written in America, and literature denouncing the Russian treatment towards Poland continued after the Uprising. Russian Emperor Nicholas I and his emissaries asked the US Secretary of State for a formal rebuke of American newspapers reporting the mistreatment of Poles. US Secretary of State Edward Livingston chose to wait two months before responding to Russia's demands, but the US ambassador to Russia, James Buchanan, made promises to the Russians that the American press would circulate evidence that Russian cruelty had been "much overplayed." The historian Jerzy Jan Lerski was critical of Buchanan's pro-Russian stance on the Polish issue and said that he made statements on Poland without visiting the country or "listening to Polish testimony."#Jerzy Jan Lerski p. 32.

Lincoln and Civil War Poland's independence lost favour among American intellectuals during the American Civil War. Historians have argued that US President Abraham Lincoln was sympathetic to the Poles but chose not to intervene in Europe's affairs out of fear that European powers would support the Confederate States. The historian Tom Delahaye pointed to 1863 as a critical breakdown in relations between the "Crimean Coalition" (Britain, France, and Austria) and Russia, with Poland's independence a key reason for conflict. Russian sympathies were solidly in favor of the North, and Lincoln expressed a non-interventionist policy towards Russia's "Polish problem." By doing so, Lincoln alienated himself from the British and the French politics and came closer to Russia, which contributed to a balance of power in favor of the tsar.

Second Polish Republic

On 8 January 1918, US President Woodrow Wilson issued his war aims, the Fourteen Points. Point 13 called for independent Poland with access to the sea: "An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant." On January 22, 1919, US Secretary of State Robert Lansing notified Polish Prime Minister and Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Ignacy Jan Paderewski that the US had recognized the Provisional Polish Government.

At the Paris peace conference between January–June 1919, point 13 with its reference to Poland having "free and secure access to the sea" was the source of much dispute. At the peace conference, Wilson stated what he meant by point 13 was the German city of Danzig (modern Gdańsk, Poland) should go to Poland. Danzig was a deep water port located where the Vistula river flows into the Baltic Sea, making the city the principle point where both imports and exports went into and out of Poland. The Polish delegation at the Paris peace conference led by Roman Dmowski argued that allowing Danzig to remain with Germany would give the Reich economic control of Poland and that for Poland to be truly independent required that Danzig go to Poland. Alongside Wilson, the French Premier Georges Clemenceau supported the Polish claim to Danzig, but the British prime minister David Lloyd George was opposed, arguing that because the population of Danzig was about 90% German that ceding the city to Poland would violate the right to national self-determination. In a compromise that pleased no-one, under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, Danzig was severed from Germany to become the Free City of Danzig, a city-state in which Poland had certain special rights. Wilson argued that he maintained his promise made in point 13 to give Poland "free and secure access to the sea" while respected the wishes of the German population of Danzig not to be forced into Poland by accepting the compromise of the Free City of Danzig.

The United States established diplomatic relations with the newly-formed Polish Republic in April 1919 but the relations between the two countries were distant though positive because of United States non-interventionism and Poland being seen as unimportant for US interests.

Eventually, both countries were part of the Allies during World War II, but there was relatively little need for detailed coordination between the US and the Polish government-in-exile, which was based in London. American prisoners of war were held alike Polish prisoners of war in several German prisoner-of-war camps in modern Poland, including Stalag II-B, Stalag II-D, Stalag III-C, Stalag VIII-A, Stalag XXI-C, Stalag 357, Stalag Luft III, Stalag Luft IV, Stalag Luft 7, Oflag XXI-B. Americans, alongside Poles and other nationals, were also among the prisoners of the particularly notorious Nazi German prison camp in Żabikowo.

Communist Poland

On July 5, 1945, the US government recognized the communist government installed in Warsaw, thus abandoning the Polish government-in-exile. After 1950, Poland, which became the Polish People's Republic since 1952, became a member of the Eastern Bloc and opposed America during the Cold War. The first US ambassador to postwar Poland, Arthur Bliss Lane, wrote a book I Saw Poland Betrayed about how the Western Allies had abandoned their former ally, Poland, to Soviet influence. However, the Polish people and government maintained very close and warm ties with the Western Bloc and the United States.

In September 1946, the American secretary of state James F. Byrnes gave a speech in Stuttgart where in an attempt to appeal to German opinion stated that the Oder–Neisse line was only temporary and that some of the areas recently annexed to Poland might be returned to Germany at a late date. Through Byrnes did not in fact call for Germany to regain its lost lands east of the Oder-Neisse line, the implication of the Stuttgart speech that it might caused much anger in Poland. Byrnes's speech was described as having a "devastating" impact on those Poles who looked towards the United States as an ally.