U.S. #4595

2012 32¢ Kilauea Volcano

Aloha Shirts

Issue Date: January 19, 2012

City: Honolulu, HI

Quantity: 60,000,000

Printed By: Avery Dennison

Printing Method: Photogravure

Perforations: Die Cut 11

Color: Multicolored

&...  more

U.S. #4595

2012 32¢ Kilauea Volcano

Aloha Shirts

Issue Date: January 19, 2012

City: Honolulu, HI

Quantity: 60,000,000

Printed By: Avery Dennison

Printing Method: Photogravure

Perforations: Die Cut 11

Color: Multicolored

Elvis Presley loved to wear them, and so did President Harry Truman.  John Wayne was often seen in one, as was Frank Sinatra.  Hollywood and mainland America have long embraced the fashion trend of Aloha shirts, which embody the culture and natural splendor of the Hawaiian Islands.

Aloha (or Hawaiian) shirts are loose-fitted and worn untucked, marked by dazzling colors and patterns.  Their origin is traced to retailer Ellery Chun and his sister Ethel Chun Lum, who coined the term “Aloha shirt” in a 1935 newspaper ad.  Islander lore identifies Japanese immigrant Musa-Shiya the Shirt Maker with creating exquisite designs out of kimono cloth.

Soldiers stationed in Hawaii during World War II brought the comfortable shirts home, helping spread their charm.  Entertainers popularized them on film.  The post-war boom saw an increase in travel, and tourists were greeted by the flamboyant shirts.

Aloha shirts are often viewed as leisure clothes.  The 1940s “Aloha Week” celebration inspired the concept of “Casual Friday.”  Soon, Aloha shirts were not just for comfort, but were acceptable business attire.  Contributing to Hawaii’s laid-back atmosphere and cultural heritage, Aloha shirts have become a symbol for comfortable fashion around the world.

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

On August 1, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson established Hawaii National Park – America’s 11th national park and the first established in a US territory.  The name was later changed to Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park.

The Hawaiian islands are constantly changing due to their location near the middle of the Pacific Plate, the world’s largest tectonic plate.  Over millions of years, this plate moved over a “hot spot” or plume that creates volcanic activity.  As the plate moved and volcanic eruptions occurred, each of the Hawaiian islands formed – a total of eight major islands and 124 islets spanning across 6,424 square miles.  The Big Island of Hawaii was the most recent to form.  Its evolution began more than one million years ago as five separate volcanoes at the bottom of the ocean.

Over the years, each of volcanoes erupted repeatedly, each time adding thin sheets of lava over top of the old layers.  Eventually, the mountains began to emerge from under the water.  The lava from each volcano’s eruption overlapped over time, joining the five mountains into one large island.  The first mountains to form were the Kohala, as they were the first to be located above the hot spot.  As the plate shifted, each volcano had its turn over the hot spot, with Mauna Kea coming next, then Hualalai, Mauna Loa, and lastly, Kilauea.  As Kilauea continues to erupt today, it spews out molten lava that flows to the ocean, creates rock, and increases the size of the island.

The first inhabitants of Hawaii were Polynesians from the Marquesas Islands who arrived more than 1,600 years ago.  These first people had a well-established society when Polynesians from the Society Islands arrived about 800 years later.  The new Polynesians claimed they were descended from great gods and took over the islands.  For centuries, the two groups developed a unique Hawaiian culture based on a system of laws known as kanawai.

Captain James Cook’s arrival on the islands in 1778 marked the beginning of the end for the traditional Hawaiian culture.  As word spread of the exotic island, more and more explorers and missionaries were drawn to Hawaii.  Among the first recorded European visitors to the area of the present-day park were English missionary William Ellis and American missionary Asa Thurston.  By the 1840s, the Kilauea volcano was a popular tourist attraction, and businessmen opened several hotels at the rim of the volcano.

In 1891, Lorrin A. Thurston, son of Asa Thurston, became an investor in one of the rim hotels.  However, he soon discovered the damage caused by all the visitors.  In 1903, William R. Castle first proposed that the area be made a national park.  Soon, Thurston began lobbying for the park and printing editorials in favor of this in his newspaper.  Due in part to these efforts, the Hawaii territory sponsored a trip inviting 50 members of Congress and their wives to visit the island and see the sights for themselves.

Within a couple of years, Hawaii’s governor created a draft bill, proposing the creation of the Kilauea National Park.  Thurston worked with local landowner William Herbert Shipman to map out proposed boundaries.  He also continued to print endorsements from such famous names as John Muir, Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt.  Hawaii delegate Kuhio Kalaniana’ole introduced legislation for the park several times before it was finally approved and signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on August 1, 1916.  Hawaii National Park was the 11th US National Park and first to be established in a territory.

Because of the island’s numerous active volcanoes, the landscape of the park has continued to change over the years.  One of the largest changes came in the fall of 1959 due to several earthquakes.  On November 14, there were 10 times as many earthquakes as there had been the previous day.  That night, a more than month-long eruption began, creating lava fountains of more than 300 feet high, a new cinder cone, a lava lake, and several forest fires.  By December 20, after 16 explosive episodes, the eruptions were done, and the landscape was dramatically changed.  What was once a dense rain forest was transformed into a field of hardened lava.  The Devastation Trail was later established there to give visitors an up-close view of the results of such an eruption.

In 1961, the park was renamed Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park to reflect the importance of the study of these volcanoes in the park’s history.  The park more than doubled in size in 2004 when the 115,788-acre Kahuku Ranch was added.