Firsts and Almost Firsts in Hawai'i, like the subject it celebrates, is itself a first - the first book-length look at how and when a wide range of items made their first appearance in the Islands: from credit cards, mongooses, cockroaches, dumb waiters, slot machines, and drive-ins to aloha shirts, computers, roller skates, parking meters, and shipwrecks. The most important and the most trivial are found in its pages - everyday household objects as well as major innovations in medicine, the arts, and government. Many entries will prove surprising to all but the most knowledgeable readers. To satisfy the curious and the skeptical, endnotes and a bibliography listing more than 200 publications are provided, making this work a valuable reference for scholars as well as an entertaining handbook for trivia buffs. The entries, organized by category, are complemented by numerous photographs and drawings, some never before published.