Queen Lili'uokalani as Anti-Imperialist Curator: Mount Vernon and the Archive of Washington Place

Abstract: In 1887 and 1897, Queen Lili'uokalani of Hawai'i twice visited the first house museum in the United States—George Washington's Mount Vernon, opened in 1860 by the first US historic preservation organization, the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association (MVLA). During those visits, Lili'uokalani was subjected to vitriolic attacks by the American press, and from this context she appointed her mansion to promote Hawaiian royalty. I argue that Lili'uokalani positioned her final residence in Honolulu as a palace-in-exile, earlier named "Washington Place" for its architectural similarity to Mount Vernon, as a rebuttal to the illegitimate occupation of the United States. She curated artifacts to counter the increasing erasure of Hawaiian culture by the US government. By addressing a rich range of archival materials, this essay argues that Lili'uokalani was deeply influenced by the MVLA's domestic strategy for preserving and creating history, or histories, but from an anti-US vantage to celebrate Hawaiian sovereignty.