Located just southeast of Lodz In 1788 a notable commercial activist of the final period of the Republic, Tomasz Ostrowski, created a center of the smelting industry in the area that is now Tomaszów Mazowiecki that made use of local iron ore. In 1793 the settlement became a part of the Prussian partition of Poland.In around 1820 the town’s metallurgical plants began expanding. The wool industry gained a hold in the town in 1824 (among others, F. Stumpf's wool mill and the A. Oferman and M. A. Steinman spinning mill), which brought weavers, many of whom were German, to the town. Tomaszów received its town charter in 1830. Count Antony Ostrowksi made a gift to the Jewish community. like he gave to the Catholics and the Evangelists, pieces of land to build three cemeteries. The first headstone was placed in the Jewish cemetery in the year 1831, belonging to a non-local Jew who was buried there. At the time of the building of the cemetery, a "Hevra Kadisha" was established in Tomaszow, and the establisher was Rebbe Lievke Zilber. His father was killed in a village called Cista, neat Praga, during the 1831 rebellion. The economic decline of the 1830's and 1840's (exacerbated by high Russian import duties) was followed by another period of growth. One of the biggest carpet factories in Europe opened in the town in 1851. In 1885 the town was connected to a railway network, and in 1911 an artificial silk factory was opened.In the first decade of the 20th century, the town continued to be a significant industrial center. The period 1905 to 1907 saw an outbreak of strikes and workers' demonstrations. Workers clashed with the Russian army and police. The city had a large concentration of Jews. In 1939, they numbered around 13,000.