Description of Collections
Hawai‘i State Archives collects, processes, describes, preserves, and makes available for public research records of the governments of Hawai‘i, including the Kingdom, Provisional, Republic, Territory, and State. The Archives has over 12,000 cubic feet of material within its collections. The Largest groups of government records include:
- Executive agencies records – minutes, correspondence, reports, plans, registers, certificates and ledgers documenting their activities from 1840 to the present.
- Legislative records – bills, committee reports, journals, testimonies, petitions, messages, communications and resolutions from 1840 to the present.
- Judiciary records – 19th and early 20th century probate, wills, divorce, criminal, civil, equity, law and admiralty case files and minute books from 1847 to ca. 1916.
- PastGovernor’s records – correspondence, speeches, press releases, reports and proclamations of the chief executive of the territory and the state from 1900.
Other Collections
- Over 500 collections of private papers and records documenting the social, economic, civic or political history of Hawai`i
- 38,000-volume library which includes government publications, pamphlets, and two rare book collections: the Captain Cook Memorial Collection and the Paul Markham Kahn Collection
- Video of Paul Markham Kahn commenting about his collection on the Paul and Linda Kahn Foundation Website
- 120,000 photographs of Hawai`i people and places
- 1,800 maps
- 387 artifacts