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THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF RAY JEROME BAKER

Ray Jerome Baker came to the Islands of Hawai'i in 1908 to photograph Hawai'i and it's People. In the early 1900's the Tourist business was rapidly expanding. Local magazines, and the formation of the Hawaiian Bureau of Information in 1892,were an excellent market for Baker's photographs, including Motion pictures.

Hawaiian lifestyle was changing, and Baker realised his photographs held much more than aesthetic interest. He published several books containing not only his pictures, but many of those of his predecessors. Before his death Mr. Baker gave the BISHOP MUSEUM the greater portion of his negatives and prints to "perpetually establish & maintain" the Ray Jerome Baker Room "in order that the people may forever remember the beauty of Old Hawai'i and as an inspiration to the people to help perpetuate the beauty of Hawai'i."

 

BISHOP MUSEUM

 

A young man named Charles R. Bishop from Glens Fall, NY, came to Hawai'i with a boyhood friend in 1846 seeking his fortune, became a "Man of Hawai'i" and Hawai'i's most liberal philanthropist." Not to mention the husband of a Hawaiian Princess Bernice Pauahi and last of the Kamehamehas. In 1849, Lee and Bishop started a Sugar Plantation on Kaui. In 1850, Bishop married Hawaiian Princess Bernice Pauahi, a union that would last until her death in 1884. In the interim he became involved in Government as a Minister of Foreign Affairs; Banking when he opened Bishop & Co,Hawai'i's first permanent Bank; Land and Education. To say he and his wife were involved in land is a major understatement. Bernice Pauahi, as the last of the great Kamehameha family, was left all of their land holdings.

Her estate is today the largest private estate in Hawai'i, 378,000 or about one tenth of the entire state. She willed that the entire income from that estate should be used to create and support the Kamehameha School, a private institution only for those children of Hawaiian or part Hawaiian descent. Today it stands as a unique school in the whole world.

Bishop also left many monuments to his love of both his wife and Hawai'i and her children. He contributed funds for additional buildings at both Kam & Punahou schools. His greatest gift may have been the Bishop Museum. It is ranked by experts as one of the top four multi-disciplinarian museums in the USA. It houses the single, largest collection of Hawaiian and Polynesian artifacts in the world. It also contains countless insights into Royalty from Kamehameha the Great to David Kalakua and Queen Lil'uokalani. And it offers a unique insight into the sociological experiences of Hawai'i's many ethnic groups.

CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE BISHOP MUSEUM

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