Prominent People | Page 134 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

March 22, 2017 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Honolulu Harry’s Waikiki

Starting in 1934, Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt – aka Donn Beach – opened the first Polynesian motif bar in Los Angeles, just off Hollywood Boulevard.

Named “Don the Beachcomber,” his bar seated about two dozen customers and he scattered a few tables in the remaining space. The place was decorated with faux South Pacific décor, along with old nets and parts of wrecked boats he scavenged from the oceanfront.

Not to be out-done, Victor Jules Bergeron – aka Trader Vic – in 1936 converted his Oakland “Hinky Dink’s” pub into a South Seas tropical retreat with tiki carvings, bamboo and outrigger canoes and rechristened it “Trader Vic’s.”

The Polynesian Pop revival was underway.

The Polynesian restaurant is one of the first, and perhaps most successful, of the theme restaurants in the middle 20th-century.

Much of the success of Polynesian restaurants rests in the recreation of outdoor landscapes that are responsible for bringing the magic of the Polynesia to life in the restaurants. Inscape is prevalent and incredibly intricate, with a high level of detail and realism.

The most successful Polynesian restaurants make use of water features, live plants, rocks, and even special effects to recreate lush, paradisiac environments. The use of Inscape strongly suggests the fostering of a sense of place by anchoring the theme restaurant in a particular time and place. (Cornell)

Historically the thematic construct for Polynesian restaurants is intended as a total immersion in another cultural context, so much so that its effect is to disassociate people from their familiar surroundings.

Polynesian restaurants provide an escape from routine. “Women in particular like to ‘get away from it all’ by dining in a romantic, exotic room with a ‘faraway look in its eyes.'”

One trade source states that “the ways in which mats and thatch are used beneath the ceiling stimulated the shutting out of (the city’s) heat and glare.” (Cornell)

In the 1950s and 60s, an epidemic of island fever swept the US. Tiki-themed structures spread like jungle vines. (Flaherty) The Polynesian restaurant boom produced from 100 to 200 restaurants.

One consequence of the disjunction from reality means that Polynesian restaurants are adaptable for any American city. Consequently, they were built across the country in seemingly unlikely places.

Once such made its way to uptown in the Windy City.

From its opening in 1949, Honolulu Harry’s Waikiki on Wilson Avenue in Chicago, provides “entertainment direct from Hawaii” and “dancing under Hawaiian skies.”

By 1959, its owner escalated the restaurant to an “authentic Hawaiian theatre restaurant.”

It stood on the corner of Clarendon and Wilson in uptown Chicago. “There were fresh pineapples on the tables, paper leis and ti leaves hanging all around”. (Campbell, 1954)

“So many clubs have come and gone,” said veteran entertainer Gwen Kennedy, owner of The Barefoot Hawaiian, who performed in many of the vanished places, doing the hula on stage at Honolulu Harry’s beginning at age 3. (Daily Herald)

Although Polynesian restaurants remained fashionable in the 1960s, other theme dining establishments start to appear with different themes. (Cornell)

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Honolulu Harrys Waikiki

Chicago – Honolulu Harry’s Waikiki – 4541 Broadway – Interior – 1950

Chicago-honolulu-harrys-waikiki-theatre-restaurant-c1960

Chicago-Clarendon-and-Wilson-Honolulu-Harrys-Restaurant-1956

Chicago-honolulu-harrys-waikiki

Honolulu Harry’s audience participation

Honolulu Harry’s Waikiki Restaurant, Chicago, IL (restaurant) -Tiki Central Menu

Honolulu Harry’s Waikiki Dancers

Chicago – Honolulu Harry’s Waikiki – Photo Holder

Chicago – Honolulu Harry’s Waikiki – Children

Chicago – Honolulu Harry’s Waikiki – Business Card

Honolulu Harry’s Waikiki-mailer

March 21, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Timeline Tuesday … 1910s

Today’s ‘Timeline Tuesday’ takes us through the 1910s – Duke Kahanamoku is Hawai‘i’s first Olympic Champion, Outdoor Circle formed, Hawai‘i National Park is formed and Lili‘uokalani dies. We look at what was happening in Hawai‘i during this time period and what else was happening around the rest of the world.

A Comparative Timeline illustrates the events with images and short phrases. This helps us to get a better context on what was happening in Hawai‘i versus the rest of the world. I prepared these a few years ago for a planning project. (Ultimately, they never got used for the project, but I thought they might be on interest to others.)

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March 20, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Partners in Change

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) was organized under Calvinist ecumenical auspices at Bradford, Massachusetts by the General Association of Massachusetts, on the June 29, 1810.

ABCFM had its origin in the desire of several young men in the Andover Theological Seminary to preach the gospel in the heathen world. (The term ‘heathen’ (without the knowledge of Jesus Christ and God) was a term in use at the time (200-years ago.))

The Missionaries to Hawai‘i were sent out in ‘Companies,’ the first leaving Boston on the ‘Thaddeus’ on October 23, 1819. The Missionaries included ordained ministers of the Gospel, physicians, teachers, secular agents, printers, a bookbinder and a farmer.

Most of them were young people, still in their twenties, full of life and enthusiasm. All were pious and accustomed to ‘lead meetings.’ Some were scholars able, when the native language had been mastered, to put into Hawaiian the Scriptures from the original Hebrew and Greek.

All were pioneers and versatile as pioneers are forced to be. The ministers had to carpenter, the doctors had to plow, the printers had to preach.

The women of the mission taught school or rather classes of native adults and later of children, in all manner of subjects, besides managing their own households, entertaining guests, taking care of their children, and ministering to the sick.

First known as ‘Portraits of American Protestant Missionaries to Hawaii’ (1901), then, ‘Missionary Album Sesquicentennial Edition’ (1969), these earlier books were listings of the respective Companies of Missionaries that came to Hawai‘i, illustrations and images of each, and brief biographical information.

As part of the preparation for the bicentennial of the arrival of the Pioneer Company of American protestant missionaries, another update and re-visioning will be published (the present working title is ‘Partners in Change: A Biography of ABCFM Missionaries to Hawai‘i’).

‘Partners’ will contain an introduction that stresses the collaboration and positive working relationship between missionaries and ali‘i. The body will consist of approximately 190 individual biographies averaging about two pages each, which is much longer than the two to four paragraphs, or sometimes three sentences given for each in the prior volumes.

The biographies will include information about the individual missionary: some background history about the individual, their reasons for becoming a missionary, times of service, stations served, specific contributions, if they stayed or returned, if and when they became citizens of Hawai‘i, and what they did after they returned or stayed.

The present ‘Partners’ draft also consists of about 150 pages that focus on the Hawaiians and Tahitians significantly involved with the mission’s work (which are left out of the prior publications).

The book will be a scholarly book with complete citations, but written for a popular audience; it will help illustrate the collaboration between Hawaiians, Tahitians and New England missionaries.

Hawaiian Mission Houses recognizes the Hawaiians and Tahitians as major players in the achieving the goals of the mission.

Click HERE to view/download Background Information on Partners in Change

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Portraits-Album

March 16, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Pā‘ani Pepa

Kalākaua’s penchant for “dances, picnics, suppers and other types of amusement” is legendary.

“Above all, he liked to play poker, and he usually lost. Then one day having four kings in his hand he was certain of winning the game.”

“Unluckily enough, his opponent had four aces. Kalākaua, not to be outdone, quickly hit upon the idea of including himself in his hand and said, ‘I have five kings-four in my hand and myself.’” (Ka Leo O Hawaii)

Pā‘ani pepa (card games) seem to have been introduced in Hawai‘i by foreign seamen in the 1790s or early 1800s. Gavan Daws notes that Islanders were enthusiastic gamblers and took up card games with avidity, soon becoming quite skillful.

“(T)he only card game the people and chiefs had known before was ‘Nu‘uanu.’” (Kamakau) It seems the game had already filtered into the society, from ali‘i to makaʻāinana, by the early 19th century when ‘I‘i served Liholiho (Kamehameha II) and the high chiefs in the royal court.” (Chiba)

“Card playing was especially popular among members of royalty. Agents of the Hudson’s Bay Company, visiting Kamehameha and his son Liholiho in 1816, taught the future king how to play whist, then new to Hawai‘i.” (Schmitt) (Whist is a trick-taking card game involving trump cards.)

Missionaries note the regular card playing by ali‘i. “Part of the morning was spent in calling upon the queen (Ka‘ahumanu,) chiefesses, and I took with me one garment which we had completed for Kamamaloo.”

“I did not find her as when we called last Saturday. She was engaged, with a party, under a small booth, by the king’s door at a game of whist.” (Sybil Bingham, March 14, 1822)

(The game of whist is substantially the product of English soil, and its gradual development during more than two centuries, until it has all but arrived at maturity, is mainly due to British talent.”)

(“From England it was carried about a hundred and sixty years ago into the centres of Parisian life, and the diplomatists and financiers from other countries who resorted to that capital became subject to its influence, and introduced it into the cities of their own lands.”) (English Whist, 1894)

Back to Ka‘ahumanu … “Money was spread upon the mats upon which the company were seated. Cards engrossed their attention, while the nod of cold civility was all they could bestow upon us.”

“My long walk in the sun had caused some fatigue; but too many attendants surrounded to admit our having a seat under cover. Seeing that little prospect but that of standing as idle spectators of a vain amusement, we, without any formality, took our leave.”

“As I stood and looked upon the sable group of ignorant, unconcerned, yet precious immortals, thought of their indifference to the message of eternal mercy, and their entire devotions, not only to vain feat to sensual delights, my spirit seemed to faint within me.” (Sybil Bingham, March 14, 1822)

Sybil’s husband, Hiram Bingham, noted of Kaʻahumanu, “sometimes, a full length portrait of her dignity might have presented her stretched out prostrate on the same floor on which a large, black, pet hog was allowed, unmolested, to walk or lie and grunt, for the annoyance or amusement of the inmates.”

“She would amuse herself for hours at cards … Mrs B and myself called at her habitation, in the centre of Honolulu. She and several women of rank were stretched upon the mats, playing at cards, which were introduced before letters.”

“It was not uncommon for such groups to sit like tailors, or to lie full length with the face to the ground, the head a little elevated, the breast resting on a cylindrical pillow, the hands grasping and moving the cards, while their naked feet and toes extended in diverging lines towards the different sides or extremities of the room.”

“Being invited to enter the house, we took our seats without the accommodation of chairs, and waited till the game of cards was disposed of, when the wish was expressed to have us seated by her.”

“We gave her ladyship one of the little books, and drew her attention to the alphabet, neatly printed, in large and small Roman characters.” (Bingham)

Thus, Western card games such as whist, poker games, or so appear to have been already imported into Hawai‘i with other Western materials and goods probably by sailors by early 1800s just after the 1778 British landfall or Cook’s arrival, which was the Hawai’i’s first step into the evolving capitalistic economy. (Chiba)

“Pe-pa-ha-kau: Cards.—Foreign playing-cards are used. Poker is a favorite game. Five cards are dealt around and the highest hand wins. A player not getting a pair is out of the game. Pe-pa, ‘cards,’ is the English ‘paper.’ Ha-kau means ‘fighting.’” (Culin, 1899)

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Wall Nichols Card Set ca 1901

March 15, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Ward Homes

Curtis Perry Ward was born in Kentucky and arrived in Hawaiʻi in 1853, when whaling in the Pacific was at its peak. Curtis worked at the Royal Custom House, which monitored commercial activity at Honolulu Harbor for the kingdom.

Victoria Robinson was born in Nuʻuanu in 1846, the daughter of English shipbuilder, James Robinson and his wife Rebecca, a woman of Hawaiian ancestry whose chiefly lineage had roots in Kaʻū, Hilo and Honokōwai, Maui.

Curtis and Victoria married in 1865. They lived in several houses, each named with a southern reference, ‘Dixie,’ Sunny South’ and ‘Old Plantation.’

‘Dixie’

Ward started a livery with headquarters on Queen Street and expanded into the business of transporting cargo on horse-pulled wagons. The size of Ward’s work force became just as big as the harbor’s other major player, James Robinson & Co. (Victoria’s father.)

Curtis and Victoria married in 1865 and for many years they made their home near Honolulu Harbor on property presently occupied by the Davies Pacific Center.

When tensions began to rise between the American North and South in the late-1850s, Ward would defend his Southern heritage. As a result, Ward’s home, named “Dixie,” was often stoned by Northern sailors. (Hustace)

“Lili‘uokalani liked young Ward and felt sympathy for him as a passionate upholder of Confederate rights.” (Taylor) “(A)ccording to a family story, some members of the court privately expressed sympathy for Ward’s Southern allegiance during the War Between the States.”

“Lydia Lili‘u Pākī is said to have worked quietly at night, in the privacy of her chambers, sewing a Confederate flag for Ward.”

“He accepted her gift with pleasure and promptly attached it to the canopy of his four-poster bed, declaring it was his wish to die under the flag.” (Hustace)

‘Sunny South’

In 1869, he purchased a 7-acre parcel in Pawa‘a. (Hustace) Ward then moved to the country on Waikiki Road (Kalākaua Avenue,) and built a home designed in Southern Colonial style. (Krauss)

(It was between Washington Intermediate and Makiki Stream – across from what was later the Cinerama Theater.) (Hustace)

Ward “built a huge beach house on Waikiki” with a “great gate over which he carved the home’s name – ‘Sunny South.’” (Courier-Journal, August 6, 1963)

“‘Sunny South’ on the Waikiki road testified to his love of his former home in the States, was an unreconstructed Confederate.…”

“For political reasons mostly he used to have trouble with the boys of Punahou College. They went down Waikiki way now and then and pulled off his ‘Sunny South’ sign, leaving it in the road.”

“Finally they concluded to take it away bodily, carry it to their rooms in the college dormitory and whittle it into inch bits, making a street bonfire afterward of the shavings.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, May 3, 1903)

‘Old Plantation’

“In 1880 Ward built a mansion with stately verandas, chandeliers, high ceilings and a ball room. He fashioned it directly after his home in Lexington (Kentucky) and called it ‘Old Plantation.’”

“The site of ‘Old Plantation’ once was known as ‘Little Kentucky.’” (Courier-Journal, August 6, 1963) Old Plantation became one of the showplaces of Honolulu and remained substantially unchanged for nearly 80 years.

Members of the Ward Family worked hard to preserve Hawaiian cultural traditions and also supported many social service activities in the community. (Ward Centers)

The Wards were early supporters of child welfare and animal rights, and they devoted considerable energy toward the establishment of the Hawaiian Humane Society. They also contributed financial support to Kapiʻolani Maternity Hospital, St. Clement’s Church and to the Academy of the Sacred Hearts. (Ward Centers)

Victoria Ward established Victoria Ward Ltd. in 1930 to manage the family’s property, primarily the remaining 65-acres of Old Plantation, now part of the core of Kakaʻako real estate adjoining downtown Honolulu. Victoria Ward died April 11, 1935.

In 1958, the city bought the mauka portion of the Old Plantation Estate and tore it down to build the Honolulu International Center (later re-named Neal S. Blaisdell Center (after Honolulu’s former Mayor.))

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Ward Homes