Honolulu Harbor Nautical Chart, 1888

The story of this map

In 1888 Honolulu was the capital of an independent kingdom, and its harbour — the only deep-water port in the islands, a pocket of anchorage behind the reef with one narrow channel cut through the coral — was where the sugar went out and the whole Pacific came in. The US Navy’s Hydrographic Office charted it that year at 1:8,200, a scale large enough to show the wharves, the town streets and the fish ponds along the shore as well as every sounding in the channel.

The chart still calls the islands the Sandwich Islands, as foreign charts did for a century after Cook, and it shows the harbour five years before the monarchy fell — the last Honolulu of the kingdom. The reef is drawn pictorially, the way the Hydrographic Office liked, so the sheet has a texture most charts lack.

The Leventhal Map Center’s scan is 4,500 pixels wide, so the chart is offered at the sizes it carries at 200 dpi: 12×18, 16×24 and 18×24 in. Restored with the paper tone kept. Pairs with the 1876 map of the Hawaiian Islands.

Before and after

Left: the archive scan exactly as published. Right: the file that goes to the printer.

Archive scanRestored

Restoration notes

Restoration: trimmed the scanner margins, balanced levels while keeping the paper tone (65% of the original colour retained), removed dust and specks, applied gentle sharpening. Stamps, tipped-on notices and the wear of a used chart are kept where they belong to the object; nothing is redrawn.

Every print carries its archive credit on the packing slip. Paper tone and small imperfections of the original are kept on purpose; nothing is redrawn.