Saliamonas Banaitis was a Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

n printer, educator, and banker. He was one of the twenty signatories

Signatories of the Act of Independence of Lithuania

The signatories of the Act of Independence of Lithuania were the twenty Lithuanian men who signed the Act of Independence of Lithuania on February 16, 1918. The signatories were elected to the Council of Lithuania by the Vilnius Conference in September 1917 and entrusted with the mission of...

 of the Act of Independence of Lithuania

Act of Independence of Lithuania

The Act of Independence of Lithuania or Act of February 16 was signed by the Council of Lithuania on February 16, 1918, proclaiming the restoration of an independent State of Lithuania, governed by democratic principles, with Vilnius as its capital. The Act was signed by all twenty...

 in 1918.

Banaitis founded the first Lithuanian print shop in Kaunas in 1905 and operated it until 1918. The printing house responded to the pent-up demand for material written in Lithuanian, built up during the years of the ban on the Lithuanian language

Knygnešiai

Book smugglers were people who transported Lithuanian language books printed in the Latin alphabet into Lithuanian-speaking areas of the Russian Empire, defying a ban on such materials in force from 1866 to 1904...

, by printing some 1.5 million copies of books and 2 million copies of periodicals. From 1915 - 1917 his press published the newspaper "Kaunas News", issued in German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 and Polish

Polish language

Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

 as well as in Lithuanian.

From 1915 to 1918, he founded a Lithuanian-language secondary school in Kaunas as well as 12 elementary schools. In 1917 he was elected to the Council of Lithuania

Council of Lithuania

The Council of Lithuania , after July 11, 1918 The State Council of Lithuania , was convened at the Vilnius Conference that took place between September 18 and 23, 1917. The council was granted the executive authority of the Lithuanian people and was entrusted to establish an independent...

. He went on to found the Lithuanian Farmers' Association, the Commercial and Industrial Bank, and the Lithuanian Steamship Corporation.

S. Banaitis died in Kaunas, and was buried in Petrašiūnai Cemetery

Petrašiunai Cemetery

Petrašiūnai Cemetery is Lithuania's premiere last resting place formally designated for graves of people influential in national history, politics, arts, and science.- Location :...

.