Images of Old Hawaiʻi

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Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!

We can first thank our mothers on this Mother’s Day.

Then we can thank Julia Ward Howe and Anna Jarvis for their efforts in making it a holiday.

It dates back to 1870, when Howe wrote a Mother’s Day Proclamation of Peace.

After witnessing the carnage of the American Civil War and the start of the Franco-Prussian War, Julia Ward Howe, a prominent American abolitionist, feminist and poet wrote the original Mother’s Day Proclamation calling upon the women of the world to unite for peace.

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly: We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies.

Howe was influenced by another peace activist, Anna Reeves Jarvis, a West Virginia woman who organized Mother’s Day Work Clubs before the Civil War.

Women in the clubs raised money for medicine and inspected bottled milk and food. They also hired helpers for families in which the mothers had tuberculosis.

During the Civil War, the Mother’s Day Work Clubs declared their neutrality, cared for the wounded and fed and clothed soldiers on both sides of the conflict.

After the Civil War, Jarvis staged a Mother’s Friendship Day at the courthouse in Pruntytown, W.Va., to bring together people who supported the Confederacy and people who supported the Union. (New England Historical Society)

Anna Reeves Jarvis died at 72 in Pennsylvania on May 9, 1905. Julia Ward Howe died five years later, at age 91 in Portsmouth, R.I., Four years after her death, President Woodrow Wilson declared Mother’s Day a national holiday. But not for peace.

Anna Reeves Jarvis’ daughter, Anna Jarvis, finally succeeded in founding the Mothers’ Day holiday. She held a memorial for her mother on May 10, 1908, at Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, W.Va.

Anna Jarvis continued to campaign for a Mother’s Day holiday until President Woodrow Wilson issued the proclamation on May 8, 1914.

Although Jarvis had promoted the wearing of a white carnation as a tribute to one’s mother, the custom developed of wearing a red or pink carnation to represent a living mother or a white carnation for a mother who was deceased.

Over time the day was expanded to include others, such as grandmothers and aunts, who played mothering roles. What had originally been primarily a day of honor became associated with the sending of cards and the giving of gifts.

However, in protest against its commercialization, Jarvis spent the last years of her life trying to abolish the holiday she had brought into being. (Britannica)

We typically don’t recognize Howe for her Mother’s Day Peace Day; rather, we acknowledge other accomplishments of hers including writing a song during the Civil War.

By November 1861, the early enthusiasm of the Civil War had faded into a grim appreciation of the magnitude of the struggle.

Julia Ward Howe joined a party inspecting the condition of Union troops near Washington DC. To overcome the tedium of the carriage ride back to the city, Howe and her colleagues sang army songs, including “John Brown’s Body.”

One member of the party, Reverend James Clarke, liked the melody but found the lyrics to be distinctly un-elevated. The published version ran “We’ll hang old Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree,” but the marching men sometimes preferred, “We’ll feed Jeff Davis sour apples ‘til he gets the diarhee.”

The next day, Howe awoke to the gray light of early morning. As she lay in bed, lines of poetry formed themselves in her mind. When the last verse was arranged, she rose and scribbled down the words with an old stump of a pen while barely looking at the paper.

She fell back asleep, feeling that “something of importance had happened to me.” The editor of the Atlantic Monthly, James T. Fields, paid Howe five dollars to publish the poem.  (The Atlantic)

“It’s a good march,” says Sparky Rucker. A folk singer and historian who performs a show of Civil War music with his wife, Rucker says it rallies with its rhythm: “It’s just the right cadence to march along, if you’re marching at a picket line or marching down the street carrying signs. … It really gets your blood going [so] that you can slay dragons.” (NPR)

On April 3, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. rose to speak in support of striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee (his I’ve been to the Mountaintop speech). “I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land,” King announced.

“And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man.” And then he closed in his lyrical voice: “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir won the Award for Best Pop Performance by a Vocal Group or Chorus singing this song in 1959 (not this rendition).

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Dollar Princesses

“I thoroly dislike … these international marriages … which are not even matches of esteem and liking, but which are based upon the sale of the girl for her money and the purchase of the man for his title”. (Theodore Roosevelt to Ambassador Whitelaw Reid, 1906; English Heritage)

Whoa … let’s look back.

British estates “supported huge communities with labourers who worked the land. In the early and mid 19th century rural landowners were the wealthiest class in the wealthiest nation, growing nearly 10 million acres of cereals.”

“However, by the late 19th century the days of wealth and prosperity in farming had slipped away as we entered the Great Depression of British Agriculture. The social and physical landscape changed substantially.” (The Field)

“The British agricultural depression is usually dated from the early 1870s to the end of the century, and was largely caused by the fall in grain prices that followed the opening up of the American prairies to cultivation in the 1870s …”

“… the late 19th century expansion of the American railway transport system, the advent of inexpensive international transportation with the rise of steamships, and other advances in agricultural technology.” (Thomas Martin)

“In the late 19th century, in the years following the American Civil War (1861–5), America underwent rapid development. Often referred to as the Gilded Age (c.1865–1900), this period was characterised by rapid industrial expansion, unprecedented economic growth (largely in the north of the country), mass migration from Europe, and growing inequality caused by the concentration of wealth within an elite class of society.”

“America became a world leader in heavy industry, particularly steel production, coal mining and the building of new railroads. The booming economy fuelled New York’s stock market, which came to rival and eventually replace London as the financial capital of the world.”

“From this economic boom rose a new class of wealthy families. Described as ‘new money’, they were often associated with conspicuous consumption and a desire to gain entrance to social elites in Britain and Europe as well as in America.”  (English Heritage)

“Whilst the lower cost of grain had benefits for Britain’s growing urban population, British grain farmers suffered. Combined with the poor harvests and atrocious weather conditions of the 1870s, the resulting Great Agricultural Depression of 1873 to 1896 caused destitution for farm labourers.” (Museum of English Rural Life)

“Wary of the falling price of grain, many landowners sought to protect their financial interests by switching to sheep farming. However, this was often not done by negotiation with tenant farmers, but by force.”

“Before 1850, the Hampshire chalklands—for instance—had always focused on arable farming. Yet, as grain prices fluctuated, farmers found that their contracts suddenly insisted they rear a minimum number of sheep, and demanded that they apply for permission to plough any land.”  (Museum of English Rural Life)

“The British aristocracy has always been a very exclusive club. It’s this small group of men with titles – you know, your barons and your viscounts. And in the late 1800s, they were firmly established as the largest landowners in Britain.” (Wailin Wong, NPR)

“The decline in late 19th century agricultural prices, by reducing the incomes of aristocratic landed estates and of non-aristocratic landed families, led to richly dowried American heiress brides being substituted for brides from landed families in British aristocratic marriages.”  (Thomas Martin)

“So cash-strapped British aristocrats represented the demand side of the dollar-princess marriage equation. For the supply side, we have to cross the Atlantic to the U.S., where some families were emerging as the nouveau riche – new money.” (Darian Woods, NPR)

“These new-money American families coveted status, but they couldn’t get it. They were shunned by American high society, which was ruled by old-money families in New York.” (Darian Woods, NPR)

“In the latter part of 19th-century America,… young [American] women married into British and European noble families.  Some Gilded Age families wanted their daughters to gain titles to secure their social standing, and many willing aristocrats needed the significant marriage settlements to repair crumbling estates and fill up their bank accounts. ” (The Gilded Gettleman)

“The wave of trans-Atlantic marriages came to a halt with the outbreak of World War I, which upended life for people across socioeconomic classes. The resulting cultural and economic changes meant that women could have jobs other than getting married. They didn’t have to be mineral deposits anymore.”  (Darian Woods, NPR)

In addition, “American heiresses found husbands among European aristocratic families outside of Britain. All told, … some 500 American women married European aristocrats [up to] World War I. Their dowries were estimated at more than $4 billion in today’s money.”  (Darian Woods, NPR)

One such Dollar Princess, the daughter of a prosperous American financier and a socially ambitious mother, was “Jennie Jerome, born in Brooklyn of a mother who was one-quarter Iroquois Indian, was one of the few tattooed women in high society. The dark beauty’s tattooing was a snake coiled around her left wrist.”

“She married Lord Randolph Churchill and for many years was a glamorous figure in English society.”  She was the mother of … Winston Churchill. (International Churchill Society)

“Downton Abbey” is modeled on the Gilded Age ‘dollar princesses’.  The family’s fortune, the young unwed heiress ends up in London and marries into the British aristocracy. “The family in ‘Downton Abbey’ is fictional.”  (Wailin Wong, NPR)

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Kings and Queens

Hawaiian Dynasties

Using stratigraphic archaeology and refinements in radiocarbon dating, studies suggest it was about 1000-1200 AD that “Polynesian explorers first made their remarkable voyage from central Eastern Polynesia Islands, across the doldrums and into the North Pacific, to discover Hawai‘i.”  (Kirch)

“(I)n the earliest times all the people were alii … it was only after the lapse of several generations that a division was made into commoners and chiefs” (Malo)  Kamakau noted, in early Hawaiʻi “The parents were masters over their own family group … No man was made chief over another.”  Essentially, the extended family was the socio, biological, economic, and political unit.

The arrival of Pā‘ao from Tahiti in about the thirteenth century resulted in the establishment (or, at least expanded upon) a religious and political code in old Hawai`i, collectively called the kapu system.

Fornander writes that prior to the period of Pā‘ao “… the kapu (forbidden actions) were few and the ceremonials easy; that human sacrifices were not practiced, and cannibalism unknown; and that government was more of a patriarchal than of a regal nature.”

Until European contact, Hawai‘i was a highly stratified society with strictly maintained castes. The ali‘i (chiefs) headed the social pyramid and ruled over the land. Highly regarded and sometimes feared, the kahuna (professionals) were experts on religious ritual or specialists in canoe-building, herbal medicine, and healing.

The maka‘āinana (commoners) farmed and fished; built walls, houses, and fishponds; and paid taxes to the paramount chiefs and his chiefs. Kauwā, the lowest class, were outcasts or slaves. (NPS)

Each Hawaiian was born into a class of people, and at the top were the rulers, a small but powerful class of chiefs, known as the aliʻi and in those days, the aliʻi was the government.

Of all the people, it was the ali‘i who held the greatest respect and the one whom no one questioned.  But this class of royalty did not just consist of the chief and his family, the aliʻi or the government system was more complicated and consisted of more than what most people think of when they hear of the Aliʻi.  (Seleska)

When Kamehameha I unified the islands under a single rule, dynasties emerged and references of “King” and “Queen” were given to these new monarchies.

The Kamehameha Dynasty ruled for nearly a century from the late 1700s to the late 1800s, while the Kalākaua Dynasty ruled from 1874 to 1893.  These Ali‘i monarchs continued to rule Hawai‘i until Queen Lili‘uokalani was forced out of rule and the Hawaiian Monarchy was overthrown.

Kamehameha I, Kamehameha the Great (reign 1782-1819)

Born in North Kohala on the Big Island, Kamehameha united all the major islands under one rule in 1810.

Kamehameha II, Liholiho (reign 1819-1824)

The son of Kamehameha and his sacred wife Keopūolani, Liholiho overthrew the ancient kapu system by allowing men and women of the court to eat together.  At the same time, he announced that the heiau (temples) should be destroyed.

Kamehameha III, Kauikeaouli (reign 1825-1854)

Born in Keauhou, the younger brother of Liholiho had the longest reign.  He was not yet a teenager when he was proclaimed king in 1825 under a regency with Ka‘ahumanu, his father’s favorite queen.

Kamehameha IV, Alexander Liholiho (reign 1854-1863)

The nephew of Kauikeaouli, Alexander Liholiho was the grandson of Kamehameha I.  He ascended to the throne after the death of his uncle in December of 1854. 

Kamehameha V, Lot Kapuaiwa Kamehameha (reign 1863-1872)

Four years older than his brother Kamehameha IV, Lot would also rule for just nine years.  Lot Kamehameha did not name a successor, which led to the invoking of the constitutional provision for electing kings of Hawai‘i.

William Charles Lunalilo (reign 1873-1874)

The grandson of a half-brother of Kamehameha I, Lunalilo defeated David Kalākaua to become the first king to be elected.  He offered many amendments to the Constitution of 1864, such as abolishing the property qualifications for voting.

David Kalākaua (reign 1874-1891)

Kalākaua was the first king in history to visit the United States.  “The Merry Monarch” was fond of old Hawaiian customs, and he attempted to restore the people’s lost heritage.  King Kalākaua built ‘Iolani Palace.

Queen Lydia Kamakaeha Lili‘uokalani (reign 1891-1893)

In 1891, upon the death of her brother, King Kalākaua, Queen Lili‘uokalani succeeded to the throne.  Queen Lili‘uokalani was the last monarch of the Hawaiian Islands.

British Royalty

The origins of kingship in England can be traced to the second century BC when Celtic and Belgic tribesmen emigrated from continental Europe and settled in Britain, displacing or absorbing the aboriginal inhabitants. The settlers established a number of tribal kingdoms.

Celtic Britain moved through the Roman invasion to the Norman Conquest of 1066 and the establishment of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and the coming of Christianity and the unification of England.  (National Portrait Gallery)

Fast forward to 1701, the British Parliament passed a law called the Act of Settlement. The law stipulated that only a Protestant could be king or queen of Britain. Roman Catholics were removed from the line of succession.

Then came the house of Hanover, a British royal house of German origin. The dynasty descended from George Louis of Hanover (a region of Germany), who succeeded to the British crown as George I in 1714.

The dynasty also provided the monarchs George II, George III, George IV, William IV, and Victoria. The six Hanoverian monarchs ruled Great Britain between 1714 and 1901. The dynasty was succeeded by the house of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, which was renamed in 1917 the house of Windsor.

George II (reign 1727-1760)

George II was the son of George I. George II became known for his bravery during military conflicts, such as the War of the Spanish Succession. George II played a key role in military engagements, including the French and Indian War, where British successes shaped a pivotal era in British history. His reign also witnessed significant advancements in the economy, culture, and the establishment of cabinet government, balancing the powers of the Crown and Parliament.

George III (reign 1760-1820)

George III succeeded his grandfather, George II, in the midst of the Seven Years’ War/French and Indian War (1756–63).  Having ascended to the throne at just 22, George III’s dramatic reign included the American Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, and expansion of the British Empire.

However, his reign is often most remembered for the illness that plagued his later life. He was declared unfit to rule in 1810, when his son George IV – one of 15 children – became Regent. (Britannica)

George IV (reign 1820-1830)

Son of George III, George IV was known for his extravagant spending, gambling and womanizing. Once married in secret to a Roman Catholic, his only legitimate heir with his second wife Caroline, Princess Charlotte, died in 1817 while he was still on the throne.

William IV (reign 1830-1837)

The brother of George IV, William never expected to become king. As a young man he served in the Royal Navy during the American War of Independence, and as king he oversaw major parliamentary reform. He was determined to live long enough to see his niece, Victoria, reach her majority, ensuring she would accede the throne directly.

Victoria (reign 1837-1901)

Niece of William IV, Victoria inherited the throne through her father Edward, the fourth son of George III. Victoria’s was the second longest reign in British history. (Queen Elizabeth II was longest over 70 years, 214 days.) Remembered for her strict moral values, she oversaw further expansion of the British Empire and the Industrial Revolution, and with her beloved Prince Albert.

For an expanded discussion, including interactions between the Hawaiian and British monarchs, go here: https://imagesofoldhawaii.com/wp-content/uploads/Hawaiian_and_British_Royalty.pdf

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by Peter T Young 1 Comment

By Horse, Car & Plane

EH Lewis looked to a variety of ways for folks to see the Islands: horseback, automobile and airplane.

Lewis was a “dashing (polo) player, who was always on the ball.” (Evening Bulletin, August 5, 1909) Early newspaper ads, note Lewis as Proprietor of Stockyards Stables where you can “Get your friends together and enjoy a tally ho ride” in a 6-horse drawn wagon. (Evening Bulletin, August 3, 1904)

“EH Lewis, will open on April 1 a riding school at Athletic Park; 25 stylish saddle horses will be used. Hours from 9 to 11 and 3 to 5, dally. Prices will be $1 per lesson, or twelve lessons for $10. We guarantee to make a good rider of you for $10. Lewis Stables, Tel. 41” (Evening Bulletin, March 24, 1910)

Lewis introduced automobiles to Hawai‘i, “Probably the finest cars on the streets of Honolulu, are the two new Pierce-Arrows which have recently arrived. Both are now installed in the rent service.”

“One … is a beautiful gray, owned by EH Lewis (the other was owned by Henry Hughes.) These two cars show in their every line that they are the last word in automobile construction. (Star-Bulletin, December 6, 1913)

“Tally-ho driving parties, instituted by EH Lewis about a year ago for the special entertainment of tourists are growing in popularity. Within the past few weeks a number of excursions of this character, taking strangers to the many interesting points within a wide radius of the city, have been given.” (Paradise of the Pacific, February 1905)

He took his touring and promotion to the continent, “Mr and Mrs E Lewis of Honolulu recently toured the Yosemite in their big American limousine and on the way and back showed themselves good promotionists by flying a Honolulu pennant and booming the islands as an attractive resort for tourists.” (Star Bulletin, July 31, 1915)

Then, he got into airplanes. Even though Lewis didn’t learn to fly until he was 60, he became an enthusiastic promoter of the industry, owning and flying more than a dozen airplanes. (Star-Bulletin)

“When ‘Bud’ Mars, back in December of 1910, brought an unwieldly biplane called the “Skylark” to Honolulu and managed to get it into the air long enough to make several short exhibition flights from Moanalua Polo Field, the die was cast for Hawai‘i’s interest in and use of aircraft.” (Kennedy; Thrum, 1936)

One regular visitor to every early flight in the islands was businessman Edwin Lewis. He was the primary sponsor of Bud Mars’ first flight at Moanalua Polo Grounds, and he also established the first real airport in Hawaii, called Ala Moana Field.

“Spectacular as these flights were, at the same time island men were going ahead in a quiet manner, laying the foundation for commercial aviation here. Ed Lewis, operating automobile tours on Oahu, early saw the possibilities of airplanes for sightseeing.” (Star-Bulletin)

“Announcing his desire to have permanent airplanes in our islands within sixty days of him stepping once again on Hawaii nei, EH Lewis landed in Honolulu nei on the morning of Friday of this past week with two pilots who will fly the two planes he purchased in America.”

“These men brought by Lewis are experts. The planes did not arrive with Lewis, but according to him, should there be no complications, the planes will arrive in Honolulu within 60 days.”

“The crafts can carry ten passengers at a time, and these will be the planes that fly regularly between Honolulu and Hilo and from Hilo back to Honolulu nei.” (Alakai o Hawai‘i, November 5, 1928)

“Touring the islands by air dates back to 1927, when Edwin Lewis founded Lewis Air Tours. The company lasted only three years, but other tour services proved more successful. Interisland travel really picked up in the 1950s with the introduction of package tours, all-inclusive vacations that often included trips to Oahu’s neighbor islands.” (Smithsonian)

“Lewis’ greatest contribution, however, was the establishment of Lewis Air Tours in the late 1920s. Flying a Standard biplane named Malolo – ‘flying fish’ …”

“… that sported an enclosed cabin for passenger comfort, tourists and locals alike were treated to views of the islands unimaginable just a few years before. (Star-Bulletin)

“For several years he operated ‘Lewis Air Tours’ with a number of small open cockpit planes flying from Ward airport on Ala Moana.” (Kennedy; Thrum, 1936)

However, some were concerned with his flying – repeated entries in minutes of meetings of the Territorial Aeronautical Commission complain of Lewis and his flying. Such as:

“(L)ast Sunday Mr Lewis’s plane was flying over the Aloha tower and the city at a very low altitude. Other complaints have also come to us about Mr Lewis’s activities. It was decided that a letter be addressed to Mr Lewis prohibiting the use of Ward Airport for any but emergency landings.” (Territorial Aeronautical Commission, April 29, 1930)

“(T)he type of flying done by Lewis Tours (mostly sightseeing flights) is very risky not only because of the condition of the field but also because many more landings would be made daily than a transport plane operating for John Rogers Airport.” (Territorial Aeronautical Commission, February 18, 1929)

Reportedly, EH Lewis flew his first solo flight on his 60th birthday, and was said to be the oldest student pilot at the time. (Archives, mid-1930s)

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by Peter T Young 2 Comments

John Rollin Desha

John Rollin Desha (commonly known as ‘Jack’) was born on January 22, 1887 at Nāpoʻopoʻo, South Kona, Hawaiʻi to Senator and Reverend Stephen Langhern Desha Sr and Mary Kaʻalopua (Kekumano) – a descendant of the Desha family of Kentucky.

He was graduated from the Kamehameha Manual Training School in 1903 and from Oʻahu College (Punahou) in 1906. While at Oʻahu College, Jack was a favorite amongst the faculty and administration.

In a letter of recommendation to Secretary John G. Hart at Harvard University, President Arthur F. Griffiths of Oʻahu College wrote:

“The boy comes of the best Hawaiian stock. He is a graduate of the Kamehameha Schools and of Oʻahu College. In his senior year at Oʻahu College, by a vote of the Faculty and Trustees, he was awarded the Punahou Roll of Honor. This honor goes annually to the student in the school who, during that year, has done the best for the school.”

Griffiths continued: “For a boy with Hawaiian blood to win this in a ‘white’ school, was a single distinction. Moreover, the award was popular among all the students of the school.” (Aki; OHA)

Desha was president of his senior class and president of Hui Pauahi, “a newly organized society for social service among the students and teachers of Oahu College.” (Evening Bulletin, February 3, 1908)

He also captained the baseball team for three years and played football. He excelled in both academics and sports during his time at Oʻahu College.

Desha received his BA degree at Harvard University in 1912; at Harvard Desha was prominent in athletics, being a member of the baseball team from 1911 to 1912. He later attended the George Washington Law School.

He married Agnes Ready at Medford, Mass.; they had two children: Evelyn and Jacqueline.

Desha began his career as secretary to Prince Jonah Kūhio Kalanianaʻole, delegate to Congress, holding this office from 1912 to 1917.

Returning to Honolulu from Washington, he entered the law office of Thompson & Cathcart and was admitted to practice in all of the courts of the Territory in July, 1918.

The following year he became deputy city and county attorney, holding this position from January to June, when he started a law practice in Hilo with his brother, Stephen L Desha, Jr., under the firm name of Desha & Desha.

On April 28, 1920, Desha was appointed second district magistrate of South Hilo. In 1921, he was appointed judge of the Circuit Court by President Warren Harding, taking office in January of 1922 for the first of two four year terms; he would be reappointed to the second by Calvin Coolidge.

Upon completion of his final term in 1927, he returned to private practice. From 1927-1948, Jack held a number of positions in the public and private sectors, eventually returning to public office as second assistant to the public prosecutor in 1946, and acting public prosecutor in 1948.

Throughout his life, Jack “was devoted to Hawaiʻi and to various organizations which kept alive the ways of old Hawaiʻi.” He served as Aliʻi ʻAimoku (supreme head) of the Royal Order of Kamehameha and was also a past president of the Hawaiian Civic Club. (Aki; OHA)

John Rollin Desha died March 11, 1958.

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