Whenever the SS Lurline or any of Matson’s other ocean liners sailed into port, it was "Boat Day," and it seemed like the whole town partied.
"It was a big celebration when it would come into Aloha Tower," said Lynn Krantz, manager of archives for Matson, whose ships plied the Pacific for much of the 20th century. "People would come to greet the ship; there’d be the Royal Hawaiian Band. You’d have kids coming back from college; you’d have honeymooners, family. People would take off from their job to go down to the Aloha Tower to greet them."
Those festivities are commemorated in an exhibit on public display at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel’s Coronet Lounge until early January. The 20 images were culled from Matson’s archives of photos and posters dating from about 1930 to 1960, which Krantz said was the heyday for the company’s mainland-to-Hawaii cruise business.
"We had an incredible advertising campaign back then," Krantz said. "It just cranked out a lot. It was to get people to come to Hawaii."
Some of the posters Krantz found feature work by famed photographer Edward Steichen, a pioneer in fashion photography who shot for tony magazines like Vogue and Vanity Fair. He took photos for Matson from the late 1930s until 1942. His images show a richness in color and composition, with attractive, rosy-cheeked women in full aloha smile, casting a lei overboard or framed in flowers.
"We really wanted a good fashion photographer, and advertising was critical to Matson in getting (visitors) to Hawaii," said Krantz, who only recently discovered one of Steichen’s negatives.
Other photos show the celebratory streamers that would accompany the arrival and departure of each ship, when the Royal Hawaiian Band would play "Hawaii Pono‘i" or "Aloha ‘Oe." "It was very heartfelt, and you can just imagine the emotion," she said.
Some show scenes of a family checking in at the Royal Hawaiian, which was then owned by Matson, and chatting with famed Waikiki beachboy Chick Daniels, one of many surfers who likely would have paddled out to greet the ships.
"The surfers would go and greet, and they would surf the wake," Krantz said. "Of course, the captain would hate that because it was very dangerous."
The Lurline, a 632-foot vessel with a capacity of 722 passengers and 425 crew members, was Matson’s flagship liner, crossing the Pacific with its sister vessels SS Malolo, SS Mariposa and SS Monterey. The voyage from the West Coast took about five days.
The Lurline had creature comforts such as a hair salon, entertainment, restaurants serving fine European and Pacific-Asian cuisine, and even its own print shop to create daily menus.
"Compared to cruise ships today … it’s really small," Krantz said. "But at that time it was considered a large city afloat."
