Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Police

King Kamehameha III established the office of the Marshal of the Hawaiian Islands on April 27, 1846. By 1859, the Marshal was designated the Chief of Police of the Kingdom, and he remained as such through the Republic and Territorial periods. During the last period he was known as the High Sheriff.

The island sheriffs, whose offices also originated in 1846, were his subordinates until 1905, when their offices were incorporated into the newly-established county governments. The Marshal was responsible for nominating to the island governors persons to be appointed by the governors as island sheriffs. (HSA)

Among other things, the Marshal was responsible for instructing the island sheriffs in their duties, as executive officers of the courts of record, as conservators of the peace, as trustees of jails, prisons and places of public correction, as safekeepers of prisoners, as executors or criminal sentences …

…  as the executors of executive mandates issued by the King, island governors or executive department heads, as commanders of the civil posse, as the apprehenders of fugitives from justice, including deserters from ships, as the detectors of crimes and misdemeanors, and as coroners.

The sheriffs were subordinate to the island governors, were permitted to appoint deputies and were accountable for all escapes and unnecessarily harsh treatment of prisoners. (HSA)

With the Organic Act of 1900, Congress transferred Hawaii’s sovereignty to the United States, making it a US territory, and defined its territorial government. Hawaii would have an appointed governor, a judiciary, and a bicameral legislature with popularly elected senators and representatives. (US Capitol Visitor Center)

The Organic Act also renamed the Marshal as the High Sheriff and sustained the existing organization and functions of the police.

Act 39 of 1905 (the ‘County Act,’ effective July 1, 1905) established counties within the Territory of Hawaii. One result of this act was to place the island sheriffs within the county governments and subordinate to the respective boards of supervisors, rather than to the High Sheriff. (HSA)

The law was not without its critics, “To multiply offices and opportunities for politicians, and increase taxation in a diminutive territory that long ago was ridiculed by Mark Twain who likened the official machinery of Hawaii to that of the Great Eastern in a sardine box.” (Thrum, 1906)

At the same time, Act 41 of 1905 established boards of prison inspectors for each judicial circuit, and made the boards responsible for jails and prisons within their circuits.

The High Sheriff was made responsible to the Board of Prison Inspectors of the First Judicial Circuit for Oahu Prison, and he was potentially responsible to other boards for territorial-level prison facilities in other circuits.

The High Sheriff was de facto Warden of Oahu Prison, and he was indexed as such in the Revised Laws of Hawaii, 1925, although he was never designated as such by statute.

That situation was changed by Act 17, 1st Special Session, 1932, which created a separate office of Warden of Oahu Prison and removed from the High Sheriff the responsibility for territorial prisons and prisoners. (HSA)

Then, the legislature started authorizing county Police Commissions.  A police commission was set up in Honolulu in 1932; Maui was given a police commission in 1939.

Kauai was technically authorized next, before Hawaii County; on April 19, 1943 the legislature approved a Kauai police commission and on April 21, 1943 they  approved a Hawaii County Police Commission. (HTH, April 21, 1943)

C&C Honolulu

In the late 1920s and early 1930s crime was on the rise in Honolulu.  Due to increased pressure from a group of prominent women in the community Governor Lawrence M. Judd appointed a Governor’s Advisory Committee on Crime.

This committee recommended that “there should be a police commission appointed by the Mayor of the City and County of Honolulu, with the approval of the Board of Supervisors …”

“… whose duty it would be to appoint a Chief of Police and to supervise the operating of the police department” and that “the office of the Sheriff be retained and that the Sheriff be charged with the duty of serving civil process, maintaining the Honolulu Jail, and to act as Coroner.”

Governor Judd convened a Special Session of the Legislature and on January 22, 1932, it passed Act 1, carrying out the recommendations by the Governor’s Advisory Committee on Crime.

Act 1 established the Honolulu Police Commission and provided for an appointed Chief of Police. The Commission immediately appointed businessman Charles F Weeber to be the first Chief of Police. (Hnl PD)

Maui County

In 1939, several actions happened legislatively for Maui, “The laws making the island of Lanai a new district in Maui County and authorizing creation of new jobs for that district, as well as the act setting up a Maui police commission were … milestones in county legislation.” (SB, May 27, 1939)

In addition, legislation created a “Maui police commission of five members appointed by the governor; alteration of the whole Maui police system to conform with the new police commission law; creation of the office of police chief and abolition of the sheriff’s office.” (SB, May 27, 1939)

Then, “George F Larsen Jr, captain of detectives, Honolulu police department, was appointed as the new Maui chief of police by the Maui police commission”. (SB, June 27, 1939)

Kauai County

Following the authorization of a police commission on Kauai (and the Big Island), “Sheriffs and deputy sheriffs now serving in Hawaii and Kauai counties will be eliminated as soon as the new commission is appointed.” (SB, May 25, 1943)

“Members of the [Kauai] commission, appointed by the governor are: Caleb Burns Jr, for a term to expire June 30, 1947; former senator Charles A Rice, for a term to expire on June 30, 1948; Sinclair Robinson, for a term to expire June 30, 1949 and John F Ramsey, for a term to expire June 30, 1946.” (HTH, June 26, 1943)

Governor Stainback also appointed Joseph S Jerves for a term that ran to June 30, 1945.   Charles A Rice was elected chairman of the board.

“Edwin K Crowell, Kauai sheriff, was appointed the Garden Island’s first chief of police by the unanimous vote of the new Kauai police commission at its organization meeting in the county building.” (SB July 1, 1943)

Hawaii County

On June 11, 1943, Governor Ingram M Stainback announced the appointment of the Hawaii County Police Commission; this included Willis C Jenning, manager of Hakalau Plantation, who had been designated as chairman.

Other initial commissioners were Carl E Hanson, manager of the Hilo branch of Bishop National Bank; Nicholas Lycurgus, manager of the Volcano House; Thomas Strathairn, manager of the Hilo office of the Inter-Island Steam Navigation Co and the Hilo office of Hawaiian Airlines; and Robert L Hind, head of Puuwaawaa Ranch. (HnlAdv, June 11, 1943)

On June 24, 1943, it was reported that George F Larsen Jr, chief of police of Maui county (who had been Maui Chief since 1939, and prior to that was captain of detectives in Honolulu), had been appointed chief of police of Hawaii county by the recently appointed Big Island police commission. (SB, June 24, 1943)

The High Sheriff continued as the Chief of Police of the Territory, responsible for the public peace, the arrest of fugitives, etc., until 1959, when his office was abolished by Act 1, 2nd Special Session, 1959 (the “Reorganization Act”). (HSA)

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Social History of Kona

In 1980, the University of Hawaii conducted an Ethnic Studies Oral History Project that documents a number of individual oral history interviews with people from Kona.  It is a virtual Who’s Who speaking about the old days in Kona.

It was funded, in part, by the Hawaii Committee for the Humanities (HCH) – I served on the Board of the HCH when this project was proposed and approved.  A two-volume set of books titled “A Social History of Kona” was a result of this project.

“In the late 19th century, Kona gained a reputation as a ‘haven’ for immigrants who broke their labor contracts with the islands’ sugar plantations. Many came to grow, pick, or mill coffee in the area’s rocky farmlands.”

“These early immigrants and others who later joined them helped Kona acquire distinction as the only area in the United States to grow coffee commercially for over 100 years.”

Based on selected oral history transcripts, community meeting discussions, and informal conversations with Kona residents, humanities Scholar, Stephen Boggs, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Hawaii-Manoa, prepared a preliminary discussion on values relating to common themes that were identified in the interviews of the Japanese immigrants.

These give you a sense of who these people are. These themes included independence and advancement, tenure and obligation, landownership, economic insecurity, hard work, family responsibility, cooperation between households, isolation and entertainment, and the preservation of ethnic customs.

Independence and Advancement

“The value accorded to independence is clearly indicated in discussions of reasons for migrating to Kona and in comparisons of the meaning of work on coffee farms and plantations.”

“‘Coffee meant freedom’  compared with work on the plantations. Compulsion and demeaning treatment were frequently mentioned as aspects of plantation work.”

“Such are the memories that the first generation frequently passed on to the second.  Compared to this, Kona had the reputation among the first generation as a ‘place, independent, peaceful’ where ‘everyone looked forward to coming.’”

“Work for one’s own benefit made it possible to advance. … Thus, children were encouraged to study as well as work after school, it was said, ‘so they would amount to something.’ The eldest often stayed home to work on the farm so that a younger sibling (usually a brother) could go further in school.”

“Parents encouraged their children to leave farming for higher education, even though they might need them on their farms.  All of this testifies to the importance attached to education, which was assumed to lead to advancement.”

“There is no doubt that advancement was a key value, and even a conscious one, for those who came to Kona.”

Tenure and Obligation

“Advancement was not easy. All that the first generation had when they arrived in Kona was their labor and ingenuity. They had no knowledge of the crops that they would grow, or the growing conditions of Kona.”

“In order to gain access to the necessary land and credit for crop and living expenses, they had to become indebted to merchants, brokers, or other businessmen who bought their crop of coffee.”

“The feeling of obligation to creditors did not depend upon any external sanctions. Instead it was a matter of loyalty: a borrower would be loyal to a creditor above and beyond any contractual obligation.”

There was “the ‘debt adjustment’ of the 1930s. This was a significant historical event in Kona. According to some estimates, hundreds of thousands of dollars which were owed by farmers and could not be repaid because of a long period of low coffee prices worldwide, were forgiven.”

“People in 1980-81 recalled that Amfac was the major benefactor, releasing a million dollars of indebtedness. One can well imagine the relief which this would give to people … In fact people said that the debt reduction probably saved the coffee industry. That was almost the same as saying that it saved the people of Kona, given their strong identification with coffee.”

“The credit system had a beneficial aspect in normal times, as well as creating a burden of obligation. Thus, a farmer could rely upon a creditor when money was needed, unlike those who paid cash only. The credit system thus provided some reassurance.”

Landownership

“Leasing of land was a source of insecurity, although not the most important one. To overcome it people strove to buy land wherever possible. Landownership was thus a value. Even though leases were typically renewed, lease rents could go up, or ownership of the land could change, making continued leasing impossible.”

“Discussing landownership, people added that leasing did not allow you to realize the value of improvements if the lease were terminated. For such reasons, then, people sought to own land.”

Insecurity a Basic Condition

“Plantation workers in Hawaii were largely shielded by their employers from the consequences of fluctuations in prices for sugar and pineapple. They were rarely laid off even during long periods of low prices.”

“But Kona coffee farmers were not protected in this way. World coffee prices often fluctuated severely, with low prices prevailing for a long time. There was no way to avoid the resulting insecurity on the farms.”

“Insecurity was therefore a fundamental condition affecting the development of values in Kona. On the one hand, insecurity heightened the burden of obligation incurred by debt, since even in a good harvest a price drop could make it impossible to repay debts.

“On the other hand, anxiety bred of insecurity caused people to rely even more strongly upon such values as hard work, family responsibility, and cooperation between households, which enabled them to survive. Conversely, however, as security was achieved, support for these values was undercut.”

“When coffee price dropped people took other jobs and planted other crops for income, as well as growing their own food. But income from other crops could not be realized when the entire Kona economy was depressed”.

“Others left Kona to enter other kinds of work. During a three-four year period, when coffee prices were consistently depressed, approximately 80 percent of Kona’s young people and some 54 families abandoned coffee farms in Kona.”

“One can well imagine the insecurity involved in such an exodus, which was faced by those who remained as well as those who left.”

Hard Work

“The first generation and their children worked hard in order to allay the insecurity just described. If their labor and ingenuity were all that they possessed, they made the most of both. Because of reliance upon hard work, it became a value for both generations.”

“We were consistently told in conversations about the old days how hard and long everyone worked. Especially by children describing their parents’ lives. Stories were told: of clearing land and bringing down soil from the forest by hand for planting; of days that began before dawn and lasted until the wee hours of the following day.”

“In those days plantation workers put in ten hours in the fields and twelve in the mills. … During harvests, everyone worked, even the children, partly because their labor was needed, partly in order to teach them to work.”

“People recalled picking as children both before and after school, sometimes as much as two bags. After harvest there was more pruning, cleaning the ground of weeds, and planting subsistence gardens.”

“We were surprised that there were relatively few memories of relaxation during the long season between harvests. The impression given was that people worked all the time, except for holidays and weddings, when there was also work of a different kind, as well as relaxation.”

Family Responsibility

“Working for the family was one of the most cherished values that we encountered. As one person volunteered in one of our earliest meetings, “despite the hardship, coffee was good because the family had to work together, it kept unity in the family, instead of each going their separate ways.’”

“The sense of responsibility was another value that was strengthened by insecurity. Like hard work it provided reassurance, but in a more direct, psychological way.”

“Mention has already been made of children staying back from further schooling in order to send a younger one to school. One result of hard work and family responsibility was that workers from Kona gained a reputation elsewhere for loyalty and good work.”

“Girls especially felt the burden of family responsibility. They more than boys were held back from school to learn to sew and help on the farm. Consequently, fewer girls than boys in the second generation went to high school, some being educated at the Buddhist missions instead.”

Cooperation Between Households

“People knew that they could expect help from one another when problems or difficulties occurred, which was also a strong psychological reassurance.”

“Reliance upon the kumiai [Japanese community groups] when demands exceeded what one family could do led naturally into reliance upon the kumiai for go-betweens to settle disputes.  Members of the kumiai provided other services as well, including repairing machinery, helping to start a balky engine, etc.”

“Mention was made earlier of ingenuity. Many examples of this were shown us and described in conversations. Machinery of all kinds was invented and manufactured on the spot from local materials, a treasure of ‘appropriate technology’ exists in Kona. Such improvements were shared.”

“This was the “Spirit of Kona” fostered by the kumiai. … Given the experience described it was natural for Kona’s Japanese to band together to meet other needs as well.”

“Because of the frequent recourse to kumiai (the term is applied to members as well as the organization) and the principle of mutual help on which it was based, there is little wonder that kumiai was identified with ‘the spirit of Kona’s past.’”

“People also referred to it as ‘the center of the neighborhood’ and used it ‘to get messages through’ when households were widely dispersed and means of transportation and communication difficult or nonexistent.”

“These were not the only organizations promoting the value of cooperation among Kona’s first two generations. Informants and group discussions alike insisted upon the importance of tanomoshi, a form of rotating credit association.”

“Funds of the tanomoshi were crucial before credit unions developed to provide money for emergencies, purchase of land or leases, housing, and other large expenditures.”

Isolation and Entertainment

“Some values had their principal basis in circumstances other than insecurity. One such value was coming together for social celebrations and entertainment.”

“The relative isolation no doubt contributed to the emphasis placed by our informants upon the importance of the rare occasions on which people congregated. Every Community Meeting insisted on including this in their history.”

“People also recalled benches in front of stores, on which people could rest to visit on infrequent visits to the store, now sadly out of style. They also remembered the popularity of Japanese movies and the fact that singing was part of almost every get-together.”

Japanese Customs

“Many practices were brought by the first generation from Japan that undoubtedly functioned to provide continuity and identity. …  These practices represented values in themselves.”

“Ties with the Government of Japan were systematically maintained until World War II broke them. Overseas Japanese were registered by a census – the Jinko-chosa. Children and marriages were also registered in simplified form in the koseki (family household register) so as to maintain Japanese citizenship.”

“There was a celebration for the Emperor’s birthday – Tenchosetsu, when a considerable collection was taken up, as on other occasions, such as military victories. When merchant marine ships from Japan paid courtesy calls at Kailua, young people in a group would go down and perform on the porch of the old Amfac Building”.

“The Nisei did not carry on these practices as the first generation did. Indeed, the transition to American ceremonies started with the latter. … With the outbreak of war all external symbols of Japanese tradition had to be disposed of Kona was occupied by American troops, and relations with them were tense.”

Conclusions: The Significance of Kona

“To Japanese Kona meant coffee farming.  It was obvious from the first that people spoke of coffee when they thought of the first generation. The term ‘coffee pioneers’ describes them.”

“This focus upon coffee almost excludes reference to Kona as a land, a place, in the interviews and discussions. It is not that Kona Japanese do not appreciate the beauty of Kona or feel a bond with the place. At least one informant spoke of Kona as ‘an ideal place to retire’ and predicted that many who left would return.”

“But they speak of Kona as a place rarely, while they speak of coffee in every other utterance. Why is this? The answer tells

us much about the meaning of coffee, and hence of Kona, to the Japanese.”

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Ginseng

Herbs have played a key role in human health with their beneficial effects and their use to treat various types of ailments or diseases has been around since ancient times. In most cultures they were often used in rituals due to their healing properties.

Ginseng is a deciduous (seasonally sheds leaves) perennial herbaceous plant that grows about 18 inches high and grows pretty prolifically in the mountains.

In traditional Chinese medicine, gensing has been used for more than 2000 years and many peoples, considered it a cure for all ailments.

In the 18th century it was also popular in America, especially when the native ginseng was discovered to be used by various Native American tribes. It is estimated that American colonists discovered it in the mid-1700s in New England.

“The history of human interaction with ginseng lurks in the language of the land. Look at a detailed map of almost any portion of the region and ginseng is registered somewhere, often in association with the deeper, moister places …”

“Seng Branch (Fayette County), Sang Camp Creek (Logan County), Ginseng (Wyoming County), Seng Creek (Boone County), Three-Prong Holler (Raleigh).”

“The hollows, deep dendritic fissures created over eons by water cutting through the ancient table land to form tributaries of the Coal River, receive water from lesser depressions that ripple the slopes.”

“These depressions are distinguished in local parlance as “coves” (shallower, amphitheater-shaped depressions), ‘swags’ (steeper depressions, ‘swagged’ on both sides), and ‘drains’ (natural channels through which water flows out of the swag or cove).”

“The prime locations for ginseng are found on the north-facing, ‘wet’ sides of these depressions. ‘Once in a while you’ll find some on the ridges, but not like in the swags there.’” (LOC)

Long before the 1700s, Native American groups such as the Iroquois had consumed American ginseng (garent-oguen) for indications ranging from fatigue and headache to infertility.

After French Jesuit Pierre Jartoux wrote in 1711 about environmental conditions under which ginseng flourished in temperate northeastern China, fellow Jesuit naturalist Joseph-Francois Lafitau, who was based in Canada, became inspired to search for ginseng in climatically similar New France.

After several months’ search in 1716, Lafitau successfully identified ginseng in the wilderness of North America, aided by the expertise of Mohawk women.

The findings he published inspired enterprising French merchants – and eventually their British counterparts in the Thirteen Colonies – to buy American ginseng from Native American harvesters and lucratively export it to Qing China, where it was immensely popular for its therapeutic properties but was overharvested and dwindling in supply. (Journal of Medical Humanities)

“The harvesting of ginseng (as well as other wild plants) flourished within a system of corn-woodland-pastureland farming.  Crucial to this system was recourse to a vast, forested commons rising away from the settled hollows.”

“Because of the abundant supply of tree fodder (wild nuts and fruit), the central Appalachian plateau in the nineteenth century furnished some of the best pastureland in the country.”

“A seasonal round of plying the commons is registered in many of the names for swags and coves: Walnut Hollow, Paw-Paw Hollow, Beech Hollow, Red Root Hollow, Sugar Camp Hollow, and so forth.”  (LOC)

Ginseng was the most important medicinal herb in their pharmacopeia Chinese cosmology framed medicinals from the vantage point of qi: the vital force that comprised and linked all entities, had complementary yin and yang elements, and whose elements’ disruption in humans could manifest as illnesses. (Journal of Medical Humanities)

American and East Asian ginseng are different.

Globalization accelerated the development and dissemination of medicines. The Empress of China’s journey occurred squarely between the late 1700s and early 1800s, when international trade facilitated much knowledge production worldwide.

The Empress of China set sail on February 22, 1784, less than a year after the Treaty of Paris was signed on September 3, 1783 (ending the American Revolutionary War), and several years before George Washington took office as America’s first president on April 30, 1789.

The Empress of China carried thirty tons of ginseng.  It was Panax quinquefolius, the American ginseng native to specific temperate regions of North America and known to Chinese as xiyangshen, “west ocean ginseng”. (Journal of Medical Humanities)

Because xiyangshen was imported into China via the hot southern port of Guangzhou, it was assumed by Chinese to thrive in hot climates despite actually originating from temperate eastern North America.

The intimate integration of American ginseng into Chinese pharmacopoeia as xiyangshen supports two major points. First, that a millennia-old Chinese medical tradition assimilated a North American herbal as late as the 1700s testifies to Chinese medicine being dynamic, flexible, and continuously evolving, as opposed to static and rigid.

The herb was not quite as valued in America for its effects on the human body as it was in Qing China.  The American ginseng root, known for its stimulant, therapeutic, and aphrodisiac properties was extremely popular in China.

After trading, the Empress of China arrived in New York Harbor on May 11, 1785 (22 months after her departure.) She carried 800 chests of tea, 20,000 pairs of nankeen trousers and a huge quantity of porcelain.

Newspapers announced her return, and stores up and down the East Coast sold her cargo. That’s where the Americans learned how to make real money in the China trade: the sale of Chinese export goods to Americans.

All told, the voyage earned a 25 percent return on investment. Investors had hoped for more, but they made enough to spawn a new era of commerce with China.

The Empress of China’s organizer gave a complete report of the voyage to John Jay, the U.S. foreign minister. Jay shared his findings with Congress. Members of Congress responded with ‘a peculiar satisfaction in the successful issue of this first effort of the citizens of America to establish a direct trade with China.’

For the next 60 years, the China trade would make New England merchants very, very wealthy.  (New England Historical Society)

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Ellery Chun’s Gift to Hawaiʻi

Ellery J Chun was born in Honolulu in 1909. He graduated from Punahou School in 1927, then went on to Yale University where he graduated in 1931 with a degree in Economics.

Returning to Honolulu, he was the owner of a Chinatown dry goods shop at 36 North King Street, that he renamed King-Smith Clothiers (the store was named after its location, near the intersection King and Smith Streets.)

With the great depression underway, he looked for ways to increase business; he got the idea to promote a local-style shirt.  Using leftover kimono material, he patterned a shirt after the plantation workers’ palaka shirt (short sleeved, un-tucked square bottom.)  They had a few dozen made and hung them in the window.

He called them “Aloha Shirts.”

“Since there was no pre-printed Hawaiian fabric around, I took patterned Japanese yukata cloth and had a few dozen short-sleeve, square-bottomed shirts made up for me. I put the shirts in the front window of the store with a sign that said Aloha Shirts.’ They were a novelty item at first, but I could see that they had great potential.”  (Chun, 1987 Interview, Star-Bulletin)

They started small, having a few dozen bright printed Hawaiian patterns with hula dancers, palm trees and pineapples.  His store became a mecca for a wide range of customers.

In 1936, Chun registered the “Aloha Shirt” trademark.
“It turned out well.”

That year, two firms, Branfleet (the original company was founded in 1936 as a partnership between the Frenchman George Brangier and a Californian, Nat Norfleet; later known as Kahala Sportswear) and the Kamehameha Garment Company, began to shift the focus of the garment industry to a larger and more export-oriented market.

Their products, factory-made sportswear, provided the direction and product line that continues to dominate large segments of the industry today.  (Chinen)

A shipping strike in 1936 forced the companies to explore the local island market which brought them renewed success. The years 1936-1939 were big growth years for the garment industry in general and each company typically came out with 15 or more new shirt designs each year.

Paradise of the Pacific published its first photograph of a man wearing an aloha shirt in 1938. Soon thereafter, movie stars took up the fad. By 1940, officials of the Territorial and City and County governments were allowing their employees to wear aloha shirts, at least in warm weather.  (Schmitt)

After World War II, a gradual change in aloha wear took place with the breakdown of rigid dress requirements for business attire. The business tie and jacket certainly were not comfortable in Hawaiʻi’s summer climate. In 1946, the Honolulu Chamber of commerce appropriated $1,000 to study aloha shirts and prepare suitable designs for clothing businessmen could wear. (Art of the Aloha Shirt)

In 1947, the Hawaiʻi Chamber of Commerce organized an annual event called Aloha Week, during which office workers were encouraged to shed their suits and wear Alohas to work. In the 1960s, the chamber invented Aloha Fridays, which led to casual Fridays.  (Washington Post)

By 1950, however, “screen printing” had emerged, led by companies like Alfred Shaheen and Von Hamm Textiles. This procedure permitted the printing of smaller yardages, expressly for local designers. More important, it permitted brighter and more shaded prints which, from 1947 on, received greater national and international exposure through yearly Aloha Week publicity events.  (Chinen)

Up to the middle to late-1950s was considered the Golden Age of aloha shirts.  Rayon with smooth finish and Hawaiian prints became the pinnacle of aloha shirts. Complicated eye popping patterns containing all aspects of Hawaiian culture and artifacts were included on the aloha shirts, often referred to as “chop suey” prints because of the mixture of content in the design.  (Art of the Aloha Shirt)

The modern era of aloha shirts is considered the 1960s and beyond. In 1962 the Hawaiian Fashion guild staged “Operation Liberation”, giving two aloha shirts to each man in the State House and Senate. The Senate passed a resolution urging the regular wearing of aloha attire from Lei Day, May 1st, and throughout the summer months.

Aloha Friday officially began in 1966, and by the end of the 1960s, the wearing of aloha shirts for business dress any day of the week was accepted.   (Art of the Aloha Shirt)

According to Alfred Shaheen, “It (Aloha dress) was really provincial in Hawaiʻi then; the old timers were into formality.  They weren’t far from missionaries; in fact, many were descendants of the missionaries so they were still pretty strict and puritanical about things. …  So it was a new breed, the younger guys who were ready for a new style.”  (Art of the Aloha Shirt)

With aloha dress accepted as every-day wear, Reyn Spooner shirts came on the scene in the early-1960s.  Reyn McCullough liked Pat Dorian’s original “reverse” print shirt and started to market it in his Ala Moana Center store.  It was a more conservative, “traditional” pullover reverse shirt with a button-down-collar and tails to tuck into slacks.  (Tim McCullough)

“Aloha attire is a pan-ethnic expression.  What it does is show varied influences coming to Hawai’i. Clothing shows us that all the ethnicities have an impact on what we wear.”  (Arthur, UH)

Ellery Chun eventually closed his store and became a bank vice president.  He died in 2000; that year, Governor Ben Cayetano proclaimed “The Year of the Aloha Shirt.”  (Lots of information here from Aloha Shirts of Hawaiʻi, The Art of the Aloha Shirt and Chinen.)

Chun’s legacy lives on.

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Sisal

“Many species of Agave, to which sisal belongs, are natives of Mexico; some furnish fiber; some yield soap; some pulque, and from others mescal is distilled. The common name of all is ‘maguey.’”

“So seldom are the flowers of the agaves seen in the temperate zone, that they have long been called ‘century plants.’” (CTAHR)

“Sisal hemp, or henequen, is the name given to the cleaned and dried fiber of the cultivated varieties of Agave rigida. This product doubtless owes its name (sisal) to its having been first exported through the port of Sisal, in Yucatan.”

“In 1893, the Hawaiian Commissioner of Agriculture and Forestry ordered 20,000 sisal plants from Reasoner Bros., of Oneca, Florida, which were carefully set out on a number of experimental plots.”

“A trial of sisal was made about that time on the worst soils of the Ewa Sugar Plantation. The indications of favorable results led to the formation of the Hawaiian Fiber Co., Ltd.” (For a while, portions of Ewa were known as ‘Sisal, Oahu.’)

“In consequence of the success of this enterprise, and the promising outlook, a large number of plantations have been started in various districts of the Islands.”

“Notable among these are the Knudsen plantation on Kauai, started in 1902 with 300,000 plants. Other smaller plantings have been made on Molokai, in Kona and Olaa on Hawaii, and on the Island of Maui.”

“The growing demand for sisal fiber is the result of the more general use of corn binders in the United States, and the steadily increasing use of grain binders throughout the world, resulting in greater demand for (sisal hemp) binder twine. In 1902 many twine mills were taxed to the utmost to supply the demand.”  (CTAHR)

In Kona there were, apparently two sisal companies. A sisal plantation was planted in Keahuolu in the late-1890s, a mill was constructed nearby; sisal was used to make rope and other fibers.

Operating until 1924, the McWayne sisal tract included about 1,000-acres of sisal fields in Keahuolu and adjoining Kealakehe.  (You can still see sisal plants, remnants of the sisal plantation, as you drive up Palani Road.)

“The McWayne sisal plantation has been developing very quietly for the last four years, and has just begun harvesting its first crop of fiber with a well-constructed plant similar to the one at Ewa, Oahu.”

“The first shipment of fiber has gone forward to the Coast, with every appearance of being as fine an article as that produced at Ewa, which means that it is equal to any thing in the world.”

“The company expects to transport the leaves to the mill by overhead trolley, the posts and cable being on the ground, but it Is not yet in working order. The transportation is now being done by wagons.”

“The company has approximately 1000 acres of growing sisal in an extremely healthy and flourishing condition and has good reason to expect a prosperous future.” (PCA, May 10, 1908)

“(A)s a general rule, [the yield] is 50 pounds from every 1,000 leaves.  From the fifth to the seventh year, the average yield of good plants is 75 pounds per1,000 leaves.”

“With 650 plants to the acre, each yielding 33 leaves containing at the rate of 60 pounds of fiber to the thousand leaves, we would have a total yearly yield of 1,200 pounds, or a little over half a ton per acre.” (CTAHR)

Young Minoru Inaba (later, Kona Representative in the State legislature) notes, “I got the job at the sisal mill after I graduated from the eighth grade.”

“My father used to be the foreman at the sisal mill. So, I got a job there. I used to get up, 3 o’clock in the morning, get on a donkey from Holualoa, go all the way to Keopu, and go down the trail. You see, the sisal mill used to be on Palani Road.”

“It’s little below where the Liliuokalani Housing is. Used to take me three hours to get to the sisal mill every morning. I used to get up 3 o’clock in the morning – well, before 3 o’clock, and leave home at 3 o’clock.  Get to the sisal mill at 6 o’clock, work there the whole day, then come back. So, I used to get home about 7 o’clock at night daily.”

“I had to haul in a wheelbarrow all the thrash that came out of the sisal. And haul it away from the mill, dump it on the ma kai side of the road. You couldn’t loaf on the job. Because if you’d loaf, it’d pile up, accumulates, and you’d have a hard time. So, it had to be continuously working. It was a pretty good-paying job … $2.50 … per day”.

“What they used to do was to thrash the sisal. You take the green leaves, and at the tip there’s always a spine, huh? So, they had to cut the tip off, and then, cut the leaf off – the sisal leaf. And then, they’d put it on a conveyor.”

“That leaf is really thick, you know, and much of it is moisture and thrash in there. So, this machine would thrash that leaf and leave only the fibers.”

“The thrash that used to come out of the leaves is what I used to haul away. After the liquid and thrash was cleaned out, it left only the fibers. This was what they made rope out of sisal.”

“They had to dry this out in the sun. After it was thoroughly dried – the fibers were dried – they’d bring it in, and they’d compress it into bales. They used to ship it to San Francisco. But the cost of bringing out the sisal from the field …. They used to pack it, and those things were heavy.”

“You know, to bring it out in a rocky terrain, they used to bring it out on the donkeys. Load ‘em up on the donkeys and bring ‘em out. This was the costly part of their operation, so finally, they had to give up.”  (Minoru Inaba)

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