About this Resource

Holden, 1838. 
Catalog record

Early Printing in Hawaiian | People in the Collection

History of the Hawaiian Collection at AAS  

Worcester, Massachusetts, may not be the most obvious site for a hotbed of Hawaiiana, but that is where the American Antiquarian Society has one of the strongest collections of early Hawaiian printing outside of the islands. This is in part because of strong New England connections with many of early U.S. missionaries, sailors, and merchants who went to Hawaiʻi. In fact, one of the first engravings done by a native Hawaiian in the Hawaiian islands is of a town in Worcester County. Missionary Edward Bailey sketched from memory the main street of his hometown of Holden, Massachusetts, which was then engraved in copper by Kapeau.

Primers like this one were used to teach early literacy. Kumumua, 1843.
Catalog record

The collection of Hawaiian materials accessible to all at AAS was primarily built in the first half of the twentieth century with significant additions in the early twenty-first century. Gifts from descendants of Massachusetts residents who maintained connection with the islands and exchanges historical societies on the islands have largely built the collections. A substantial addition was the purchase of the library of Hiram Bingham, one of the first missionaries on the islands. Donations from the James Hunnewell family, descendants of a sailor on the first missionary vessel that arrived in Hawaiʻi in 1820, continue to enrich AAS's collections.

* In this resource, the ʻokina and accented vowels are not used when quoting historical spelling.

This project has been made possible by a grant from the Pine Tree Foundation.

Additional Resources

Bread Fruit Tree, The Banana, The Bamboo, 1838.
Catalog record

In the last decade, AAS’s Hawaiian collections have been featured in multiple press stories on Boston-area television and radio, in newspapers like Honolulu Civil Beat, and in AAS-produced YouTube videos. In 2019 AAS hosted a performance and discussion of “My Name is ʻŌpūkahaʻia,” about the first missionaries to Hawai’i. 

The AAS digital collection is only a small part of a wider web of Hawaiian collections available online. 

  • The Office of Hawaiian Affairs’ (OHA’s) Papakilo Database is a comprehensive database of databases consisting of varied collections of data pertaining to historically and culturally significant places, events, and documents in Hawai'i’s history.
  • See David W. Forbes, Hawaiian National Bibliography, 1780-1900 (Honolulu, 2000) for bibliographical information on Hawaiian books.
    The work is full-text searchable online in the Papakilo Database.
  • For more on Lahaina or Lahainaluna Seminary and engraving, see David W. Forbes, Engraved at Lahainaluna (Honolulu, 2012) or the Lahaina Restoration Foundation.
  • For a detailed history of Hawaiian journalism, see a brief chronicle of the newspapers and newspeople by the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
  • For over 200 letters written by 33 ali'i digitized, transcribed, translated, and annotated, see Ali'i Letters by the Hawaiian Mission Houses and the Awaiaulu Foundations.
  • Hawaiian Newspapers Collection on Papakilo
    This is a digital collection of historic Hawaiian Newspapers, ranging from 1834 to 1980.
  • Ulukau 
    Ulukau, the Hawaiian Electronic Library, makes resources available for the use, teaching, and revitalization of the Hawaiian language and for a broader and deeper understanding of Hawaiʻi.

Vocabulary

Deeper understanding of both current meaning and historical usage of Hawaiian words can be developed using the Ulukau dictionaries (https://wehewehe.org/gsdl2.85/cgi-bin/hdict?l=en).

Some Hawaiian words featured in this resource are:

  • Aliʻi (upper class leaders)
  • Hale pili (grass house)
  • Moʻolelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian history or genealogy)
  • Nupepa (newspapers)
  • ʻOkina (ʻ) (consonant representing a glottal stop)
  • ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian language)
  • Papapala (learning, reading, writing, printing, engraving)

Sources Consulted for this Resource