Hawaiian Language Printing

Support for this project has been provided by a grant from the Pine Tree Foundation.

Printing technology came to the Hawaiian Islands in 1820 when Protestant missionaries sailed there from Massachusetts with a Ramage printing press, cases of type, and a young printer’s apprentice. Hawaiians and missionaries collaborated and within a few decades printed an estimated thirty million pages in the Hawaiian language―making the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi one of the mid-nineteenth century’s most highly literate societies. 

Many of these original printed materials, which were written in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi (the Hawaiian language) or created by Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) before 1900, are now in the American Antiquarian Society collections. The AAS General Catalog contains detailed records for nearly 300 titles published in the Hawaiian language between 1822 and 1900, in addition to many other English-language Hawaiiian materials.

The digital library below provides direct access to approximately one third of AAS's Hawaiian language collection. This includes all the Hawaiian language newspapers and visual materials (engravings, views, maps, etc.), as well as a selection of the books.

About this Resource Early Printing in HawaiianPeople in the Collection

Digital Library