The 1899 labor contract of Asakichi Inouye, grandfather
of Sen. Daniel Inouye.
Photo by Craig T. Kojima, Star-Bulletin
Although McBryde is now closed - the latest victim of Hawaii's dying sugar industry - that contract as well as the photo of the Inouye family still exist in a priceless collection of local plantation history spanning from 1850 to 1991.
Tomorrow, these stacks of aging records, ledgers, contracts, files and other volumes - known collectively as the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association plantation archives - will officially be given to the University of Hawaii by the association, now the Hawaii Agriculture Research Center.
It's a gift many say is significant not just for researchers and students, but for everyone here with plantation roots.
John Haak, university librarian, said several students have expressed excitement at the 948 cubic feet of original business records from 19 sugar mills and companies. The archives, secured in what was the Hamilton snack bar, is the largest collection of sugar industry records held in Hawaii.
"They want to look up family records, or they want to investigate the conditions on the plantations for the time when their parents or grandparents came here ...," he said.
"It's these kinds of collections that over the years will make this library such a distinctive resource. The interest will extend well beyond the borders of our state," Haak said.
Bill Puette, director of the Center of Labor Education and Research, said the archives will attract scholars from political science, ethnic studies, history, Hawaiian studies and sociology - as well as labor history - because of the sugar industry's expansive and long-standing role in the islands.
"In virtually every one of those areas the records are going to be helpful because you get some idea, a glimpse through the records and data, of what it was like during that time period for the average sugar worker," he said.
"You're not just dealing with anecdotal history; you're dealing with real facts and figures," Puette said. "You talk about national treasures, this is a state treasure for Hawaii. It would be criminal if, in any way, shape or form, it were lost or anything happened to it."
The archives will join Hamilton Library's special-collections department, where other treasured material from the Hawaiian and Pacific area are stored. Already it has been used to study women and health care on plantations, survey the wages of laborers and review blueprints of plantation housing.
The film industry also has found interest in it: Walt Disney studios wanted pictures of old sugar mills, while a documentary about baseball needed pictures of plantation games.
Bron Solyom, library development officer, said the records represent a 20-year effort by the sugar planters association and the Hawaiian Historical Society to establish an archive for business records from sugar companies that elected to donate them.
During the mid-1970s, Solyom said the society received grants from the Hawaii Bicentennial Commission and the National Endowment for the Humanities to survey and plan for the archives.
The association created a repository for the collection in 1981. Three years later, an archivist began processing the records and creating a computerized data base for it, starting with records from Oahu Sugar Co. and ending with Apokaa Sugar Co. and Ewa Plantation Co. in 1994.
To allow full use of the material, the center last year decided to donate it to any institution that could store the material in a secure, air-conditioned room while still providing access to users. The center's board in October 1995 chose UH over a few mainland universities.
Plantation cash books offer a detailed look at transactions of the day.
Photo by Craig T. Kojima, Star-Bulletin
"Sometimes they (plantations) were only able to keep examples of certain kinds of things," Solyom said. "Some things didn't survive at all." Still, the archives are "a very important resource for primary research," she said.
Access to the archives begins Oct. 15 and will be by appointment only.
Nancy Morris, head of Hamilton special collections, said those interested need to discuss their research with a special-collections librarian to see if it contains the information requested.
The material cannot be checked out, she said.
Haak said: "This archive is a way for people to get in touch with this period of history. I don't know of any other collection that we received recently that has created more interest.
"The documents in here so directly relate to the lives of people who are still living, through their ancestors or through the experiences of the members of their family," Haak said.