author
William Tufts Brigham
1841–1926
A scientist and museum leader, he helped shape how Hawaii’s natural history and cultural heritage were studied and preserved. His work ranged from botany and geology to ethnology, giving him an unusually wide view of the islands he came to know so well.
2 Audiobooks
Guatemala : the land of the quetzal; a sketch
by William Tufts Brigham
Baltimore Hats, Past and Present
by William Tufts Brigham
About the author
Born in Boston in 1841, William Tufts Brigham was an American geologist, botanist, and ethnologist whose career crossed several fields at once. He studied at Harvard and later traveled to the Hawaiian Islands, where his early botanical work helped introduce him to the region that would define much of his life’s work.
Brigham is best remembered as the first director of the Bernice P. Bishop Museum in Honolulu. In that role, he helped build the museum into an important center for research and collections, with a strong focus on Hawaii and the wider Pacific. His work connected the study of plants, landscapes, and material culture in a way that was distinctive for his time.
He died in 1926, but his legacy remains tied to the growth of museum study in Hawaii and to the record he helped preserve of the islands’ natural and cultural history.