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An Apollonaut travel guide
The place behind the detail.
A princess’s heirlooms, halls of stone and collections from across the Pacific offer several ways into the story of Bishop Museum.
On this page
Founded in memory of Pauahi
Charles Reed Bishop founded the museum in 1889 in memory of his wife, Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the last descendant of the royal Kamehameha dynasty.
It was built to house the royal family heirlooms that had come to him through her, and opened to the public in June 1891.
Halls of stone
Hawaiian Hall and Polynesian Hall, in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. The campus was once the boys’ school of Kamehameha Schools, which moved to Kapālama in 1940.
Their galleries tell the story of Hawaiʻi and the wider Pacific.
Collections of Hawaiʻi and the Pacific
Designated the Hawaiʻi State Museum of Natural and Cultural History, the museum cares for more than 24 million natural history specimens as well as cultural collections from across the Pacific.
This history belongs to the place and the people who shaped it. The History page offers a longer introduction, and the timeline gives a short route through selected milestones.
Read at the source
Sources & further reading
Links lead to the original publishers.
