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Chronicling America is a searchable digital collection of historic newspaper pages through 1963 sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.
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Also, see the Directory of U.S. Newspapers in American Libraries, a searchable index to newspapers published in the United States since 1690, which helps researchers identify what titles exist for a specific place and time, and how to access them.
Native Hawaiian Duke Kahanamoku (1890-1968) was Hawaii's first Olympian and first Olympic champion. He participated in the 1912, 1920, and 1924 Olympics and was a five-time Olympic medalist in swimming. With his accomplishments, Kahanamoku broke racial barriers in sports.
Afterwards, Kahanamoku became an actor and popularized the sport of surfing. He was a pioneer in surfing and often referred to as "the father of surfing." In 1935, Kahanamoku became Sheriff of Honolulu, a position where he was re-elected 13 times. Read more about it!
The information in this guide focuses on primary source materials found in the digitized historic newspapers from the digital collection Chronicling America.
The timeline below highlights important dates related to this topic and a section of this guide provides some suggested search strategies for further research in the collection.
| July 10, 1912 | At the Stockholm Olympics, Duke won a gold medal in the 100-meter freestyle. |
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| December 24, 1914 | He performed a surfing exhibition at Freshwater Beach in Australia, which is credited with introducing the sport to that nation. |
| August 29, 1920 | At the Antwerp Olympics, he won a second gold medal in the 100-meter freestyle and breaks his own world record. |
| July 20, 1924 | At the Paris Olympics, he placed second to Johnny Weissmuller in the 100-meter freestyle. |
| June 14, 1925 | While working as a lifeguard in Newport Beach CA, he saved 8 people from a capsized boat using a surf board. |
| January 3, 1935 | He was elected as the sheriff of Honolulu; he would be reelected 13 times. | February 24, 1944 | He arrested Lloyd C. Duncan for assaulting two Marine sentries. The case ended up in the U.S. Supreme Court in 1946 as Duncan v. Kahanamoku. |
