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Chronicling America
National Endowment for the Humanities

Newspaper Saturday Press (Honolulu, H.I.) 1880-1885

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About Saturday Press (Honolulu, H.I.) 1880-1885

Described as “the whitest of the white men’s newspapers,” the four-page Saturday Press was published every Saturday in Honolulu in English by Robert Grieve from September 4, 1880 to August 29, 1885. The paper was available for an annual subscription rate of $5 and featured advertisements; shipping schedules; passenger lists; import and export logs; local, national, and international news items; and politically-motivated supplements published primarily in the weeks leading up to elections. The Morning Guide appeared as the Saturday Press’s weekday counterpart from 1884 to 1885.

Introduced “as a medium of free interchange of ideas amongst all classes of residents in these Islands, native or foreign, subject or sojourner,” in practice the Saturday Press was decidedly anti-monarchy and favored a close relationship between Hawai‘i and the United States. Business Manager Thomas G. Thrum–who also managed the Friend –wrote the majority of the content, which was in large part directed against King Kalākauaand Walter Murray Gibson. Gibson–a former Mormon missionary and founder of a Mormon settlement on Lāna‘i–was widely popular among Native Hawaiians and had harnessed this popularity to win the 1880 race for House of Representatives with a large majority.

The Saturday Press’s early success was due in large part to a boycott of Walter Murray Gibson’s then newly-acquired Pacific Commercial Advertiser  by a group of prominent pro-American, pro-annexation merchants, including Sanford B. Dole and Claus Spreckles. Gibson used the Advertiser to promote his own politics, which included Native Hawaiian health and well-being and a vision of a Pan-Pacific confederation with Hawai‘i and its King at the center.

As Gibson’s prominence in the Kalākaua administration grew and as the 1882 election approached, Thrum attacked the King through a series of pamphlets issued as Saturday Press supplements. One of these pamphlets,“The Shepherd Saint of Lāna‘i,” aimed to defame Gibson and yet was largely unsuccessful because it was not reprinted in Hawaiian and was therefore not read by the majority of Native Hawaiians. Gibson was reelected with 80 percent of the vote and was soon after tapped by King Kalākaua to serve as Prime Minister. TheSaturday Press openly attacked Kalākaua’s government for what it regarded as wasteful spending on the King’s 1883 coronation ceremony and efforts to revive public performances of Hawaiian chanting and hula. “The coronation hulas, authorized, approved, applauded by Kalākaua, were crimes against the very life of the social fabric.” The paper also openly attacked other members of Kalākaua’s administration and in 1883 was the object of a libel suit by government physician Dr. George L. Fitch.

In September 1885, the Saturday Press merged with Thrum’s Morning Guide to form the Daily Honolulu Press,  which remained in publication until June 1886.

Provided By: University of Hawaii at Manoa; Honolulu, HI

About this Newspaper

Title

  • Saturday Press (Honolulu, H.I.) 1880-1885

Dates of Publication

  • 1880-1885

Created / Published

  • Honolulu, H.I. : Published for the Saturday Press by R. Grieve, 1880-1885.

Headings

  • -  Honolulu (Hawaii)--Newspapers
  • -  Hawaii--Honolulu
  • -  United States--Hawaii--Honolulu--Honolulu

Genre

  • Newspapers

Notes

  • -  Weekly
  • -  Vol. 1, no. 1 (Sept. 4, 1880)-v. 5, no. 52 (Aug. 29, 1885).
  • -  Supplements accompany many issues.
  • -  Archived issues are available in digital format as part of the Library of Congress Chronicling America online collection.
  • -  Daily Honolulu press 2157-3417 (DLC)sn 85047264 (OCoLC)12670551

Medium

  • 5 volumes ; 58-68 cm

Call Number/Physical Location

  • Newspaper 7541-X

Library of Congress Control Number

  • sn82014681

OCLC Number

  • 8807330

ISSN Number

  • 2157-2216

Succeeding Titles

Additional Metadata Formats

Availability

Rights & Access

The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety. Any newspapers in Chronicling America that were published less than 95 years ago are also believed to be in the public domain, but may contain some copyrighted third party materials. Researchers using newspapers published less than 95 years ago should be alert for modern content (for example, registered and renewed for copyright and published with notice) that may be copyrighted. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Saturday Press Honolulu, H.I. -1885. (Honolulu, HI), Jan. 1 1880. https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn82014681/.

APA citation style:

(1880, January 1) Saturday Press Honolulu, H.I. -1885. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn82014681/.

MLA citation style:

Saturday Press Honolulu, H.I. -1885. (Honolulu, HI) 1 Jan. 1880. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, aj.sunback.homes/item/sn82014681/.