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Over time, Gymnastic Societies “Sokół” (“Falcon”) also become a mass movement. The first gymnastic circle (nest) of “Sokół” was founded in 1884 in Inowrocław. More nests were soon set up in other towns in the Poznań region and in West Prussia, although they had great difficulties with finding proper premises and exercise equipment. They mostly included young craftsmen, petty merchants, private officials and workers. In 1893, the nests were associated into the Association of Greater Poland “Sokół” Nests, which two years later transformed into the Union of Polish Falcons in the German state. The central role in it was played by the Main Division, which was patiently and vigorously building field structures and subjugated individual nests. The development of the association gained momentum after 1904, which was manifested by a fast increase in the number of nests (from 90 to 291, with nearly 12 thousand members in 1913).

The development of singing societies was just as dynamic. The societies originated from church choirs, home choirs, singing sections of industrial societies and other organisations. The first independent singing societies were founded in the late 1860s (“Cecylia” in 1867 in Toruń and “Harmonia” in 1869 in Poznań). In the 1880s, many new singing societies were established. In 1892, during a convention in Poznań, leading activists created the Union of Polish Singing Circles in the Grand Duchy of Poznań, which comprised 13 choirs. In 1913, Poznań was home to 123 choirs, which frequently undertook other forms of cultural and educational actions. Their members usually came from petty bourgeoisie families, and, to a lesser extent, from the intelligentsia and peasant families.

The educational impact of the unions and associations was complemented by the so-called “people’s libraries”, established, with great financial and organisational effort, all around the Prussian Partition. The first libraries were set up in Poznań as early as the 1840s, but it was only the People’s Education Society, founded in 1872 in Poznań, that contributed to the larger expansion of their network. Owing to the dedicated work of a small group of activists, within several years the Society achieved considerable success, distributed a few thousand books and founded over 100 new parish libraries. In 1878, the Society was dissolved by the Prussian authorities. There were, however, other libraries and experienced activists, who two years later (on 4 October 1880), at a meeting in the Bazar, founded a new organisation called the People's Libraries Society. Its activity was extensive, covering the establishment of dozens of new libraries, providing them with numerous books and involving craftsmen, peasants and workers as librarians. At the end of 1906, there were 693 active libraries in the Poznań region. The books they offered were mostly publications concerning religious and moralistic issues, popular stories, songbooks etc.

Over time, women were becoming more and more involved in Polish national life in the territories of the Prussian Partition, although the first modern Polish women’s associations were established only at the end of the 19th century. In late May 1894, nearly 50 women representing intelligentsia and bourgeoisie founded an association “Warta”, which, while committed to ensuring that the Polish spirit was maintained among children and adolescents, were mostly preoccupied with organising private tuition. From 1900, a rapid increase in the number of women’s associations in the Poznań region was observed. The organisational movement among the women of Greater Poland ran in two directions. The first one included associations that performed educational and cultural functions (“Warta”, Libraries for Women, the Association of Female Landowners), while the second one covered self-help organisations, the main purpose of which was to handle professional and economic affairs in compliance with the current social order. Patrons of these organisations were priests, and their members were mostly female workers, peasants, shopkeepers etc. In 1906, the Association of Polish Societies of Working Women, with its seat in Poznań, was established. It expanded fast and in 1913 it was composed of 29 women’s societies.

When the number of Polish women’s societies operating in the territories of the Prussian Partition had increased considerably, the idea appeared to bring them together in a federation, similar to that of the unions of men’s societies. Having overcome a number of obstacles, the female delegates of Greater Polish, Pomeranian and Silesian societies founded the Union of Polish Women’s Educational Societies in the German Reich on 7 February 1909 in Poznań. It was initially composed of merely 7 societies, but more of them joined over time. In 1913, it comprised 30 women’s organisations (including, in total, 3092 members) active in the Poznań region, West Prussia and among exiles in Germany. At the founding convention, the issues which the greatest attention was paid to were the immediate goals and aspirations of the delegates of associations from Greater Poland representing the bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia. 

As the years passed, the network of economic, educational and vocational organisations was becoming more dense, more extensive and multi-layered (representing many classes). It covered all of the classes of the Polish population: landowners and intelligentsia, petty bourgeoisie, peasants, agricultural holders and the urban proletariat. In many cities and villages, several or even a dozen Polish associations were operating at the same time. Most of the residents of these cities or towns were members of a few associations simultaneously and participated in their meetings, lectures, skill improvement courses, celebrations of national anniversaries, etc. The impact of these organisations was systematically expanding, and at the beginning of the 20th century, the Polish movement became a mass movement, one of the largest ones among national minorities in Europe at that time. It is, however, difficult to provide an exact number of the people taking part in national life, because currently the available data on the number of members of individual organisations do not concern one year, but various different years, frequently distant from each other. Marian Seyda – editor of the popular “Kurier Poznański” – estimated the number of people involved in the movement defending Polish nationality before World War I at approximately 140000.