At time of annexation, there were 140 public schools, including industrial schools at Lahaina and Hilo, and 55 private schools (including one Japanese school.)
`Through the 1920s, more than half of the high school students in the Territory attended McKinley High School. Among its 1929 student body of 2,339, nearly one of ten students was (Caucasian) … 43% were of Japanese ancestry and 20% of Chinese parentage. Eleven percent … were Hawaiian or part-Hawaiian and 4 percent were Portuguese’. (Javonovich)
In the entire territory, there were four high schools: McKinley (the former Honolulu High School;) Hilo, established in 1905; Maui (1913;) and Kauai (1914). The Territory had a proportionally smaller high-school enrollment than any of the forty-eight states, Puerto Rico or the Canal Zone.
Unhappy that so many students came from homes where English was not spoken, Caucasian parents forced the first English Standard grammar school, Lincoln. Admission required a passing grade in an English proficiency exam. (Javonovich)
When the upper grades of Lincoln school became the nucleus of Roosevelt Junior High School, the English standard plan was carried over to that institution. (LRB) Roosevelt was the only public, English-standard secondary school in the Territory of Hawai‘i.
It was initially composed of grades seven to eleven and housed in temporary quarters in an old, Normal School building that formerly trained teachers for Hawai‘i’s public schools. When Roosevelt became a senior high school (President Theodore Roosevelt High School) – Robert Louis Stevenson Intermediate School taking over the Roosevelt junior high school grades. (LRB)
In 1937, the seventh, eighth and ninth grades were permanently removed to the Normal School building, reorganized as an intermediate school, and Roosevelt High remained as a school for tenth and eleventh graders until 1939 when it became a three year high school. (NPS)
Honolulu students would typically go to Lincoln, then to Jefferson or Stevenson (both English Standard) and then to Roosevelt.
The school’s property encompasses a little over 20-acres in upper Makiki, in Honolulu. From 1883-1927, the site had been the home of Lunalilo Home, an institution for the aged and infirm Hawaiian , whose creation was willed by the estate of Hawaii’s sixth king , William Charles Lunalilo.
Crowning a wide, grassy knoll is the Main, or administration, building of President Theodore Roosevelt High School , named in honor of the twenty-sixth US President.
This predominantly three-storied building with its tower and auditorium are of the Spanish Revival style with plain, cream-colored stucco walls, a symmetrically placed window, decorative arches and vents and a red tile roof. It is the only Spanish Revival building in an eleven-building complex.
The building was designed by Guy Rothwell and Marcus Lester and built of reinforced concrete in 1932. Its plan is generally H-shaped with slight modifications. Attached to the front of the shorter east wing in 1935 are a square tower, approximately 75-feet high, and to that, an auditorium.
The campus classrooms are loosely arranged in a generally horizontal formation on three graded levels of sloping topography. All other buildings, added after 1932, are two stories high and of contemporary design. (NPS)
A heated football rivalry began in 1933 between Roosevelt and nearby Punahou. Roosevelt seniors Lex Brodie, Rufus Hagood and Gibby Rietow responded by painting the blue pie sections of Punahou’s Pauahi Hall dome green.
(At the time Roosevelt’s school colors were green and gold; out of deference for Leilehua High School, Roosevelt’s colors were changed to today’s red and gold in 1939.)
After several years of costly vandalism on the eve of their games, the ‘Paint Brush Trophy’ was jointly created in 1948 by the student bodies of both schools as a peacemaking gesture. Thereafter, the winner of the annual Punahou-Roosevelt football game took possession of and proudly displayed ‘The Paint Brush Trophy.’
The tradition continued until 1969, after which Roosevelt became a part of the O‘ahu Interscholastic Association and Punahou the Interscholastic League of Honolulu, and the two schools no longer played regular season games against each other. (Punahou)
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My mother, Eileen McMahon went from Lincoln school when it was by Thomas Square to Roosevelt and was in the class of ’33 with Lex Brodie and Ginny Rietow. I have the year books stored away with all the family photos.
Amazing times.
The 1932 football game was the first in the Punahou-Roosevelt rivalry. Brodie didn’t respond to the rivalry but instigated it when he and his friends painted the dome.
1932 was the depths of the depression and an English standard school was an attractive alternative for cash-strapped Punahou parents. While interviewing a ’33 Punahou grad I showed her a picture of her freshman class. She laughed upon seeing it noting that almost of half of those pictured ended up graduating from Roosevelt. Small wonder that the rivalry was so intense in those early years–they knew each other! That those who performed the initial dome painting were so quickly discovered was possible only because a Punahou student unwittingly gave up his Roosevelt sibling.
Roosevelt gave a top flight education that set up its graduates for success. The number of Roosevelt grads on the Hawaii Business Black Book of Hawaii’s top 250 showed many businesses run by grads of the English standard days.
Kapalama school in Kalihi was also an English standard school. This article was very interesting.
Thank you for sharing. Do you mind if we share this in our Alumni Association newsletter. I am the current President of the Roosevelt High School Alumni Association.
Yes you may share it; I ask that you keep it intact, with attribution and I’d like to have you link to the story at: http://wp.me/p5GnMi-4nl Thanks, Peter.
The de facto segregation policy ultimately failed when more Asian kids started qualifying for English Standard. By my year, 1959, Roosevelt had become predominately Asian with a generous mix of other ethnic groups. Mel Chiya
I am very grateful for the fine education I received at RHS (class of 1956). Looking back, I conclude that the public schools in Honolulu that I attended (Jefferson Elementary, Stevenson Intermediate and RHS) provided to their students ample opportunities to learn how to continue to learn and eventually become productive adults. I am sure that other schools in Honolulu, public and private, did then and certainly now do, the same.
I am glad that I was able to access the English standard system of public schools of my time. To prepare me for this my parents enrolled me at Island Paradise in Kaimuki for pre-school and grades 1 and 2. Still, I failed to make the cut at Aliolani Elementary mainly because I pronounced “catch” as ” ketch” during the oral entrance exam. I was subsequently admitted to Jefferson elementary and the rest is history.
Seeing our school still brings the warm fuzzies to me.
Kathy M. class of ’56.
I still vividly remember the oral exam I took to get into Aliiolani, 1st grade. I was able to correctly pronounce birthday, spool of thread, three. I guess not being able to correctly pronounce “th” was improper English. After a very, scary 1st grade teacher, I enjoyed the rest of my time at Aliiolani, even remembering the names of all my teachers. Spent 3 years at Stevenson, and the final 3 years at RHS, ’58, when we won the football championship those 3 years! Lots of great memories! Alma Lai Ro
My grandfather attending Roosevelt High school. I know for sure as a junior and senior. I assume freshman and sophomore as well. His senior year was 40-41. I’ve found a few pictures of him in the 40-41 yearbooks online. Hoping to find more, he grew up in Hawaii and enlisted shortly after he graduated. After Pearl Harbor.
”Class of 68” Yes,it was no longer a English standard school,but still a great public school that I can say that I graduated from.A Roosevelt ”Rough Rider” for ever.Glenn De Coito
I believe you have a typo. It’s Guy Rothwell, not “Guv”. He was my grandfather.
Thanks. I corrected the spelling.