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First of Portuguese-Language Newspapers Now On Line

On-line access is now available for the first of the Portuguese-language newspapers that are targets of the Hawaiian Historical Society’s current newspaper preservation project. The project goal is to create good microfilm copies of the newspapers for preservation; to make digitized copies freely accessible on line for research; and to undertake the best possible preservation for the original papers.

The first of the papers to become available on line is Aurora Hawaiiana (Hawaiian Dawn), a four-page weekly issued in Honolulu under the editorship of J.M. de Freitas. Aurora Hawaiiana was the second Portuguese-language newspaper published in the Islands. The on-line collection consists of eighty-five issues dated between August 3, 1889, and March 28, 1891. The papers can be read and downloaded through the University of Hawai‘i’s open-access digital repository at http://evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10524/31855.

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Religion, Royalty, Names, and More Fill 2012 Hawaiian Journal of History

The first Native Hawaiian to play college football in America adorns the cover of the 2012 edition (volume 46) of The Hawaiian Journal of History, being published in December. John Henry Wise of Kohala, a member of the undefeated 1892 Oberlin team, is the central figure in the lead-off article, “To Raise a Voice in Praise: The Revivalist Mission of John Henry Wise, 1889–1896.”

The article, by Ronald Williams, Jr., of the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, explores the late nineteenth-century religious revivalist efforts of officers of the Hawaiian Evangelical Association, including their recruitment of John Wise to lead this evangelical movement, his training in the United States, and the outcome that followed his return to to the Islands.

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HHS Annual Open House and Book Sale December 6

Time to stock up on books about Hawaiian history and culture for your own reading pleasure as well as for holiday gift-giving.

The Hawaiian Historical Society will present its annual open house and book sale Thursday, December 6, 2012, from 4:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Society members, friends, and the public are invited to attend the event in the Society’s Library Reading Room at 560 Kawaiahao Street, Honolulu, on the grounds of the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site.

Refreshments will he served on the library lanai, and the Mission Gift Shop will be open during the sale.

As always, the Society will be offering new books about Hawai’i's history from Hawai’i authors and publishers—-all at special discounts for this one-day sale. Selections will include biography, history, reference works, natural history, tales and traditions, Hawaiian language works, and reprints and translations. Titles from local publishers Bess Press, Bishop Museum Press, Kamehameha Publishing, Mutual Publishing, the University of Hawai’i Press, and Watermark Publishing will be available as will new titles from mainland publishers.

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Newspaper Preservation Project Begins With Portuguese-Language Papers

The George Mason Fund, through the Hawai‘i Community Foundation, has awarded the Hawaiian Historical Society a $25,000 challenge grant to be used to preserve the Society’s valuable library collections. The grant will be used to focus on preservation of the sixty-four different newspapers in the Society’s collection. These papers, which date from 1834 to around 1930, include the only known copies of Portuguese-language and some Hawaiian-English–language newspapers.

No major conservation efforts have been undertaken with these newspapers for at least twenty-five years, and many of them are starting to crumble due to acidification. The first focus will be the Portuguese-language newspapers. The goal of the project is to have a good microfilm copy for preservation; a good, searchable digital copy that is freely accessible; and the best possible preservation for the original papers.

The nine target newspapers were published in Hawai‘i from 1885 to 1927 and include one English and Portuguese newspaper and one English and Hawaiian newspaper. The surviving newspapers comprise 1,463 issues containing 5,852 pages.

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Hawai‘i and the Transit of Venus

Newspaper illustration of transit of Venus observation post

On June 5, 2012, observers in Hawai‘i will be positioned to view that rare event called the transit of Venus, which occurs when the planet Venus passes before the sun as it is viewed from Earth. Throughout the United States, only Hawai‘i and Alaska will offer vantage points to observe the entire transit from beginning to end.

A transit of Venus will not occur again for more than one hundred years, and several local organizations, including the University of Hawai‘i Institute for Astronomy and the Bishop Museum, have planned activities around the event.

Photo: British astronomers in transit of Venus expedition in 1874

British astronomers in Hawai'i to observe the transit of Venus in 1874

For the historically minded in Hawai‘i, the 2012 transit calls to mind the 1874 transit of Venus, when an expedition of seven British astronomers set up camp in the Islands for six months to observe the celestial phenomenon. The story of that expedition was told in detail by Michael Chauvin in the 1993 issue (vol. 27) of The Hawaiian Journal of History. Chauvin’s article can be read on line at http://bit.ly/JxC94J. Chauvin’s illustrated lecture on the same subject at the Smithsonian Institution in 2004 can also be found on line (http://bit.ly/KBGrGa).

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