What's New

June 2009

Hawaiian Journal of History 2008
(the latest)

Photo cover: residents of Kapiolani Home for Girls pose on the steps of what would be the fourth and final location of this government-sponsored home for the female children of those diagnosed with Hansen’s Disease.  The photograph was taken sometime after 1912. From the Archives of the Shrine and Museum of Blessed Marianne Cope. Sisters of Saint Francis, Syracuse, New York.

The Hawaiian Journal of History, first published in 1967, is an annual scholarly journal devoted to original articles on the history of Hawai‘i, Polynesia, and the Pacific area. 

The latest issue has a 26 page excellent well-researched article “None of Them Came for Me”  The Kapi`olani Home for Girls 1885-1938 written by Janine M. Richardson, a teacher and writer who holds a Ph.D. in History and  a M.A. in English, both from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

The first Kapiolani Home was begun in 1885 when Mother Marianne Cope had charge of the Branch Hospital for leprosy patients at Kakaako, Hawaii. She heard the concerns from a visiting physician to the Molokai settlement about its female healthy children who were at risk to contract the disease and more subject to sexual exploitation as many of them had parents too ill to watch over them.  Because no matron could be found to care for these children at the home she advocated, the Franciscan sisters took charge. The writer gives a detailed account of the entire history of the home as it has four different locations through circumstances and finally ends up in a more ideal place

June 2009 updating:  We now have heard from Janine Richardson that she is writing about Kapiolani Home after the boys joined up with the girls in the 1930s.  We did not have as much written primary source information to share with her as for the Girls’ Home but we have on hand a few photos of the boys at the Home taken during this timespan and we will be sharing copies with her for possible inclusion.