Emma Ahuena Taylor

Emma (right) with her siblings: Rose and Harry, c. 1870s

Emma Ahuena Davison Taylor (November 13, 1867 – November 8, 1937)^[1] was a part Native Hawaiian high chiefess during the 20th-century. A cultural historian, genealogist, and repository of Hawaiian culture and history, she wrote many articles and recollections of the past and influenced her husband Albert Pierce Taylor, the author of the historical book Under Hawaiian Skies. She was involved in local philanthropic, historic and civic groups and participated in the women's suffrage movement in the Territory of Hawaii, campaigning for the rights of local women to vote prior to the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.

Early life and family

She was born on November 13, 1867 (although her gravestone indicate she was born in 1866^[2]), as the eldest daughter and second child of American pharmacist Benoni Richmond Davison, who became the superintendent of the United States Marine Hospital in Honolulu, and British-Hawaiian chiefess Mary Jane Kekulani Fayerweather.^[3] On her mother's side, she was a great-granddaughter of the British Captain George Charles Beckley and Ahia, a distant relation of the reigning House of Kamehameha. Her siblings included William Compton Malulani, Rose Compton, Henry Fayerweather, and Marie Hope Kekulani.^[4][5] Her father died in 1875 and her mother later remarried to photographer A. A. Montano in 1877.^[6]

She attended St. Andrew's Priory School in Honolulu under the tutelage of the sisterhoods of the Anglican Church of Hawaii established by King Kamehameha IV and Queen Emma. She later transferred to the Fort Street School and became a playmate of the Princess Kaʻiulani, the niece of King Kalākaua.^[3] Beginning in 1890, after finishing her education, she worked as a schoolteacher with her sister Rose at the government school in the Mānoa Valley.^[7]

She married Albert Pierce Taylor on November 5, 1902, at her mother's Mānoa residence, as his second wife.^[8] Originally from the United States, her husband settled in Hawaii, where he worked for The Pacific Commercial Advertiser and later became the librarian for the Archives of Hawaii. A writer of Hawaiian history, his most notable work was Under Hawaiian Skies.^[9] They had no children.^[10]

Literary career

Taylor was an authority on Hawaiian history, genealogy and language in her own right as well. With her mother, she planned and directed many historical pageants. Her husband's later works were greatly influenced by these two.^[11] In the 1920s, she received government appointment to the Hawaiian Historical and Hawaiian Folklore Commissions.^[9][12] The trustees of Bishop Museum and Kamehameha Schools consulted her and other Hawaiian scholars in the translation of Samuel Kamakau's seminal work Ruling Chiefs of Hawaii into English.^[3]

Taylor became an officer in the Hawaiian Historical Society along with her husband.^[3] In September 1930, she wrote a paper and gave it in an address to the society's annual meeting about the history and origin of the former Royal Tombs at Pohukaina. Located on the palace grounds of ʻIolani Palace, the site had been abandoned when the bodies of the Hawaiian royal family had been moved to the Royal Mausoleum at Mauna ʻAla during the reign of Kamehameha V. Many remains of the chiefs were left behind. Because of its importance she argued: "...the site of the old royal tomb should be held in veneration, and that the historic mound should be cleared and exposed to public view, surrounded by an imposing guard fence, and an appropriate tablet set up to tell passersby its profound royal history."^[13] Following this meeting, the society submitted a resolution asking Governor Walter F. Frear to put a protective fence and plaque around the sacred site which was done on October 17, 1930.^[14] Her other scholarly publications included: "Vengeance of Pele" (1930), the "Legend of Puahuula" (1930), and "Poki — Guardian Dog of Moanalua" (1935), written for the Paradise of the Pacific magazine.^[3]

The most notable characteristics of her writings was its personal touches and romantic depictions of the past, containing many vivid accounts drawn from her own life. In 1935, Taylor wrote a series of eight weekly published installments in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin titled "Personal Recollections". In these serials, she recounts life in old Hawaii from her childhood in the 1870s to the year 1934.^[3] Eleanor H. Williamson notes:

Her writing was personal, vivid, and poignant as she described the elegance of court life, with its picturesque and majestic emblems of royalty in the stately kahilis and feather capes, and the genteel and dignified manner of the men and women surrounding the monarch. She was a repository of information on old Hawaii and was liberal in sharing it. In her recollections she provided the color, drama, and personal stories so often absent from purely factual histories. One can almost taste the dust, smell the leis, and view old Honolulu in the mind's eye as she wrote...^[15]

Community involvement

During World War I, Taylor and her friend Emilie Widemann Macfarlane organized knitting units on behalf of Native Hawaiian soldiers fighting in World War I.^[3][16] Around this same period, she became a supporter of the women's suffrage movement in 1912.^[17] Native Hawaiian women of high societal rank like Taylor were the key contributor to this cause early on.^[18] In 1917, she attended a party hosted by Emma Nakuina to honor Almira Hollander Pitman, a visiting suffragist from the mainland United States, and wife of Benjamin F. Pitman, a cousin of Taylor's. The presence of Taylor and other upper class Honolulu suffragists including Wilhelmina Widemann Dowsett, president of the National Women's Equal Suffrage Association of Hawaii, and subsequent meetings with the club prompted Pitman to write to her political connections back home which helped push a bill through Congress authorizing the Territory of Hawaii with the power to legislate on the issue of women's suffrage. A local bill in 1919 was planned to enfranchise the women of Hawaii but it never passed since the following year Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment, granting all women in the United States the right to vote.^[17][19]

On September 23, 1921, she wrote an article in the Honolulu Advertiser arguing for Hawaii's recognition in a proposed Hall of Remembrance to be erected by the Woman's National Foundation in Washington, DC honoring women from each of the then forty-eight states. Speaking on behalf of the women of Hawaii, she advocated for Hawaii's spot in the proposed memorial suggesting "a pillar of laval stone chiselled from the laval flows of Kilauea, be placed within this Hall of Remembrance to symbolize Hawaii" and for the recognition of the early pioneering American missionary wives, Queen Kaʻahumanu or High Chiefess Kapiʻolani. The pillar representing Hawaii was never erected.^[3]

She also supported many local organizations and was the premier of Māmakakaua (i.e. the Daughters and Sons of Hawaiian Warriors), a group composed of the descendants of the high chiefs (aliʻi) from the deposed monarchy. The group hosted pageants celebrating the history and traditions of the Hawaiian past.^[11][3][20] Other organizations she became involved included: the League of Women Voters, the Outdoor Circle and the Native Daughters of Hawaii, which she helped organized. She was also elected the first female vice president of the Manoa Percent Republican Club.^[11][3]

In later life she befriended writer Beatrice Ayer Patton, the wife of General George S. Patton, who wrote The Blood of the Shark: A Romance of Early Hawaii, published in 1936 and loosely influenced by the exploits of Taylor's Hawaiian and British ancestors.^[21]

Death

Taylor died on November 7, 1937, and was buried next to her husband at the Oahu Cemetery.^[3][2] The private notes, diaries, letters and manuscript drafts of Taylor and her mother Mary Jane Montano are now in the Hawaii State Archives.^[22]

References

Bibliography

• Bouslog, Charles; Greig, Thelma (1994). Mānoa: the Story of a Valley. Honolulu: Mutual Publishing. ISBN 978-1-56647-067-4. OCLC 32599587. 
• Dye, Bob (1997). Merchant Prince of the Sandalwood Mountains: Afong and the Chinese in Hawaiʻi. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-1772-5. OCLC 247424976. 
• Damon, Ethel Moseley (1957). Sanford Ballard Dole and His Hawaii: With an Analysis of Justice Dole's Legal Opinions. Honolulu: Hawaiian Historical Society. OCLC 16335969 – via Questia.com. (Subscription required (help)). 
• Harper, Ida Husted, ed. (1922). History of Woman Suffrage: 1900–1920. VI. New York: National American Woman Suffrage Association. OCLC 10703030. 
• Lam, Margaret M. (1932). Six Generations of Race Mixture in Hawaii. Honolulu: University of Hawaii, Sociology MA Thesis. OCLC 16325277. 
• Peterson, Barbara Bennett (1984). Notable Women of Hawaii. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-0820-4. OCLC 11030010. 
• Taylor, Emma Ahuena Davison (September 1930). "The Burial Caves of Pahukaina". Papers of the Hawaiian Historical Society. Honolulu: The Bulletin Publishing Company (17): 34–38. OCLC 1773152. hdl:10524/967. 
• Totten, Ruth Ellen Patton (2005). Totten, James Patton, ed. The Button Box: A Daughter's Loving Memoir of Mrs. George S. Patton. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0-8262-6465-7. OCLC 191953251. 
• Yasutake, Rumi (2017). "Re-Franchising Women of Hawaiʻi, 1912–1920: Politics of Gender, Sovereignty, Race, and Rank at the Crossroads of the Pacific". In Choy, Catherine Ceniza; Wu, Judy Tzu-Chun. Gendering the Trans-Pacific World. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-33610-0. OCLC 976394366.