Hawaiian Mission Houses
Historic Site and Archives

Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives (HMH) has been an active site for Hawai‘i’s history since 1820, is a National Historic Landmark listed in 1965, and was re-accredited by the American Alliance of Museums in 2024. HMH preserves two of Hawai‘i’s oldest remaining Western-style houses, a bedroom annex interpreted as a print shop that produced the very first printed materials in the Hawaiian language, and a reconstructed hale pili, built in partnership with cultural practitioners. The HMH library and historical archive holds over 80,000 digital pieces and is home to one of the largest collections of Hawaiian language printed material in the world.

With a capital grant from the Cooke Foundation, HMH has improved the storage options for its vast permanent-object collection. New heavy-duty shelving units, lightweight units on casters, and multi-drawer, flat-file organizers now house items ranging from delicate kapa pieces to large furniture. Items showcasing 1800s daily life, such as chairs, books, and a bass viol, are more accessible to the curators and can be shared more easily with the public. HMH welcomes today’s community to come connect with the past by seeing and feeling history—a history that is now further protected and organized for years to come.

More About the Hawaiian Mission Houses