The Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, designated the Hawaii State Museum of Natural and Cultural History, is a museum of history and science in the historic Kalihi district of Honolulu on the Hawaiian island of Oʻahu. Founded in 1889, it is the largest museum in Hawaiʻi and has the world's largest collection of Polynesian cultural artifacts and natural history specimens. Besides the comprehensive exhibits of Hawaiian cultural material, the museum's total holding of natural history specimens exceeds 24 million, of which the entomological collection alone represents more than 13.5 million specimens (making it the third-largest insect collection in the United States). The Index Herbariorum code assigned to Herbarium Pacificum of this museum is BISH and this abbreviation is used when citing housed herbarium specimens.
The museum complex is home to the Richard T. Mamiya Science Adventure Center.
History
Establishment
Charles Reed Bishop (1822–1915), a businessman and philanthropist, co-founder of the First Hawaiian Bank and Kamehameha Schools, built the museum in memory of his late wife, Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop (1831–1884). Born into the royal family, she was the last legal heir of the Kamehameha Dynasty, which had ruled the Kingdom of Hawaii between 1810 and 1872. Bishop had originally intended the museum to house family heirlooms passed down to him through the royal lineage of his wife.
Bishop hired William Tufts Brigham as the first curator of the museum; Brigham later served as director from 1898 until his retirement in 1918.
The museum was built on the original boys' campus of Kamehameha Schools, an institution created at the bequest of the Princess, to benefit native Hawaiian children; she gave details in her last will and testament. In 1898, Bishop had Hawaiian Hall and Polynesian Hall built on the campus, in the popular Richardsonian Romanesque architectural style. The Pacific Commercial Advertiser newspaper dubbed these two structures as "the noblest buildings of Honolulu".
Today both halls are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Hawaiian Hall is home to a complete sperm-whale skeleton, accompanied by a papier-mâché body suspended above the central gallery. Along the walls are prized koa wood display cases; today this wood in total is worth more than the original Bishop Museum buildings.
The museum is accessible on public transit: TheBus Routes A, 1, 2, 7, 10.
Kaimiloa Expedition
In 1924, American millionaire, Medford Ross Kellum, outfitted a four masted barquentine for a scientific expedition which, even the naming of the ship Kaimiloa, was left entirely to the scientific circles of Honolulu.
The goal of the expedition was a five-year exploration of many of the then inaccessible spots of the Pacific. Under the auspices of the Bishop Museum, a group of Hawaii scientists joined the ship: Gerrit P. Wilder, botanist; Mrs. Wilder, historian; Kenneth Emory, ethnologist; Dr. Armstrong Sperry, writer and illustrator; and Dr. Stanley Ball.
The vessel was a complete floating laboratory, possibly the most complete of any craft that has undertaken a similar trip. Bottles, crates, and boxes were stowed below, along with gallons of preservatives for insects and plant specimens for the Bishop Museum. The goals of the expedition were exhaustive: complete collections of islands subjects ranging from insects, plants, minerals, and archaeological and ethnological specimens, study of the fish and sea life, chart as accurately as possible the ocean currents, for the United States government, conform and correct to the findings of the expedition the charts of the island groups, attempt to trace the origin of the Polynesians, their language and their migrations, photograph the natives and measure accurately portions of their bodies, record phonographically records of the speech, the songs, their chants, sound the ocean floor and study the formation of the islands in an effort to prove the unfounded but at the time prevalent theory that some Pacific islands were once a part of the mainland and that they formed a "lost continent".
Later development
In 1940, Kamehameha Schools moved to its new campus in Kapālama, allowing the museum to expand at the original campus site. Bishop Hall, first built for use by the school, was adapted for museum use. Most other school structures were razed, and new museum facilities were constructed. By the late 1980s, the Bishop Museum had become the largest natural and cultural history institution in Polynesia.