Close cover before striking: Advertising matchbooks in Hawai‘i
When cigarette smoking was ubiquitous so were matchbooks. These were handed out by the thousands by Hawai‘i businesses, each serving as a portable advertisement. Here's a tour of the businesses, and the printing art form, emblazoned on Hawai‘i matchbooks.
The speeding taxi depicted on this flattened matchbook for the City 25c Cab Co. is a very rare model of car: a 1938-1940 Graham “Sharknose." This vehicle was styled with a very distinctive forward-leaning front grille that the rapidly-failing Graham company hoped would keep it afloat. Unfortunately this didn’t work, with only about 5,000 of these sold the first year, and Graham was out of business in 1941. This rarity makes it very likely that the City 25c Cab Co. never actually used any of them in real life, despite this picture. (DeSoto Brown Collection)
Matchbooks — one folded piece of cardboard with a lineup of cardboard matches stapled inside. Probably everyone has at least seen one of these, if not actually lighted matches pulled out of one. Today they’re not very common, but decades ago there were huge numbers of them, nearly all bearing some kind of advertising. Here’s their story.
Matchbooks are made from one piece of cardboard that’s folded over. That means that when this cover is flattened, the front and back designs are oriented upside-down to each other, as seen here. For this article, most of what’s shown is just one side of each matchbook. (DeSoto Brown Collection)
Disposable matches packaged this way came into existence in the USA in the late 1880 and early 1890s, in various forms before the familiar one we still know became the standard. It’s not clear when the first advertising ones were printed but this first really large use happened in 1902, with Pabst Beer being the first major advertiser. After that there was no stopping the concept.
The Donald Duck Drive In opened on Kapi‘olani Boulevard opposite the intersection with Kaimukī Avenue on September 17, 1946 with a parking lot that could accommodate 50 cars, served by carhops. Despite its name, there was no connection to — or permission for its use from — Disney. (DeSoto Brown Collection)
Opening in October 1959, the Hawaiian King Hotel on Nohonani Street in Waikīkī had 69 four-room suites on its six floors. It was topped by a penthouse equipped with three bedrooms and even a bar. Shown here is the hotel’s courtyard with an oval swimming pool. (DeSoto Brown Collection)
Hawaiian Savings and Loan made use of a copy of the Hawai‘i Visitors Bureau warrior motif which still appears today on multiple metal signs marking scenic or historic sites. This particular matchbook dates from after the company moved to the 97 Merchant Street address shown here in February 1958, about a year after it opened. (DeSoto Brown Collection)
The United States had undergone the national outlawing of alcohol with what was called Prohibition starting in January 1920. This was a complete failure at stamping out liquor and made huge numbers of otherwise law-abiding citizens into supporters of an illegally manufactured, imported or sold substance. Prohibition ended in December 1933 and within a few months, Primo Beer was revived as a brand with the opening of a new brewery on the corner of Kapi‘olani Boulevard and Cooke Street in May 1934. The company bragged that this represented an $800,000 investment (nearly $20 million in today's dollars) which was providing work to 110 employees. Numerous Primo matchbooks bearing this design as well as the names of various local bars and restaurants that served it were soon being distributed. (DeSoto Brown Collection)
Businesses of all kinds ordered matches and gave them away for free, with the idea that anyone using them would see the message repeatedly, making the expense worthwhile for the company. The variety of businesses that used this method of publicity is somewhat amazing today - banks, bars, car dealers, restaurants, hotels, gas stations; you name it. And all this was based on the prevalence of smoking during the 20th century, when the segment of smokers at one point reached a high of 40% of the American population. With so many free matchbooks for the taking, it was common for many people to have a stash displayed someplace in their home, usually in an oversized brandy snifter.
Others collected more seriously, removing the matches themselves for reasons of safety and to prevent discoloration or damage from the matchheads over time. Flattening the cardboard cover was also the only way to easily keep the desirable printed part, particularly if glued in an album.
The layout of this matchbook for Lahaina’s Ishikawa Service Station is a standard one provided by the manufacturer that made it. The cars as well as the clothing of the people shown in the illustration can be dated to the late 1920s but it’s probable that this design was still available into the 1930s. (DeSoto Brown Collection)
Queens Surf restaurant and nightclub was opened in a former private mansion on the beach at Waikīkī in 1946. It was not financially successful till it was purchased by the Spencecliff restaurant chain which added a well-attended weekly lū‘au for tourists once or twice a week along with various nighttime shows and the very popular Barefoot Bar in 1958. But eventually the City & County of Honolulu condemned the property and closed the business — overcoming protests from the public — to clear the space for what is now open public parkland. (DeSoto Brown Collection)
Matchbook covers were not always just printed on the exterior because some bear more information and illustrations on the inside, like the map seen here. This shows the location of Waikīkī's Polynesian Hotel after its new five-story addition was constructed in 1954-1955, facing onto the intersection of Kalākaua Avenue and Beachwalk. (DeSoto Brown Collection)
The Singapore bar opened in 1947-1948 at the corner of ‘A‘ala Street and King Street, across from the O‘ahu Railway train depot, as this matchbook states. Although the train station building is still in place, neither the Singapore or any of its former neighbors exist today. This block of ‘A‘ala Street and all the buildings along it were entirely removed around 1970 for the enlargement of ‘A‘ala Park. (DeSoto Brown Collection)
Matches specifically for Hawai‘i businesses number in the thousands, and there is no way to know exactly how many different ones were printed. The more prolific local businesses issued many variations, particularly if more than one matchbook manufacturer was used over time. Historic matchbooks often reveal a remarkable level of design and printing, particularly considering how small the printed surfaces were. These can be best appreciated when scanned and enlarged, as seen here with this article.
Of course you can still find matchbooks today, but not given away in the huge numbers they formerly were, and anyone who wasn’t around in the 1980s or ‘90s — and before — won’t even know that all these once existed.
This matchbook for the Wonder Bar can be dated to the late 1930s by the illustration of the canoe surfing on a Waikīkī wave. The image is copied from a 1937 publicity photo issued by the Pan-Pacific Press Bureau to publicize Hawai‘i in American magazines and newspapers. (DeSoto Brown Collection)
Before electronic banking transactions became common, customers had to visit banks in person for everything they needed to do — depositing or cashing checks, withdrawing money from savings accounts, and numerous other activities. This forced banks to open branches abundantly in the boom years that followed the end of World War II, especially as new suburbs grew on O‘ahu. That’s why this 1950s Bank of Hawai‘i matchbook lists the more than 55 branches it had, and also promotes auto loans as car ownership grew and American automobile manufacturers enjoyed some massive sales years. (DeSoto Brown Collection)
The South Seas restaurant and nightclub was located at the intersection of McCully Street and Kalākaua Avenue in Waikīkī. It opened in 1939-1940 and endured through World War II from 1941 to 1945, when food supplies were limited and every restaurant had to cope with a reduced menu in the face of increased customer numbers of military personnel and workers on defense-related projects. (DeSoto Brown Collection)
Although barbequed meat is a dish tied strongly to the USA, and particularly the south, the Barbeque Inn in Waikīkī was owned and run by a local Japanese man in 1931-1932. The pig’s glowing red eye staring at us is intriguing and a bit scary-looking. (DeSoto Brown Collection)
Wo Fat restaurant had begun in downtown Honolulu in 1881. On March 10, 1938 it opened the new structure seen here in what’s now called the Chinese Modern architectural style. It’s standing today, still bearing a vertical sign in the same style as was present for its opening, although in 2026 it’s apparently in the midst of a stalled renovation into a boutique hotel. (DeSoto Brown Collection)
For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up here for our free Daily Edition newsletter.
DeSoto Brown is the historian and the curator for the Archives at Bishop Museum, where he's been employed for 40 years. In addition to working closely with the numerous treasures in Bishop Museum Archives, he's also accumulated a very large collection of Hawai‘i paper ephemera since the 1970s. DeSoto has authored a variety of books and articles for different publications; his titles include "Hawai‘i Recalls: Selling Romance to America," "Aloha Waikīkī," "Hawai‘i Goes To War: Life In Hawai‘i From Pearl Harbor to Peace," "Hawai‘i at Play: Images of a Bygone Era," "The Art of the Aloha Shirt," and "Surfing: Images From Bishop Museum Archives." He has also participated in exhibits for Bishop Museum and other institutions. He has been a regular commentator on ThinkTech Hawai‘i's online programs for 10 years, and even hosted his own radio show, "Melodies of Paradise", from 1975 to 1980.
