Emma Nakuina was the first woman curator of a museum in Hawai‘i. She became curatrix of the Hawaiian National Museum in the Judicial Building during Kalakaua’s reign and authored Hawaii: Its People and Their Legends and Ancient Hawaiian Water Rights and Some Customs Pertaining to Them, among many others.
Uluwehi Hopkins, Doctoral Candidate, History Department, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa presents an online talk about Emma Kaili Metcalf Beckley Nakuina: teacher, historian, museum curator, water commissioner and judge in an era when women were discouraged from holding positions of authority.
The first child of a high-born Hawaiian chiefess and an American sugar planter, Nakuina lived through six monarchs and five governments. Neither queen nor a commoner, but somewhere in the middle, she was a kaukau aliʻi.
