“The Sugar King of California:
The Life of Claus Spreckels”
Lecture By Sandra Bonura
Saturday, December 6, 2025
10:00am to 11:00am HST Online
The Hawaiian Historical Society (HHS) invites its members and friends to our second lecture of the year on Saturday, December 6, 2025 from 10:00am to 11:00 am HST online, via Zoom.
Sandra Bonura will present her newest publication, The Sugar King of California: The Life of Claus Spreckels. This indomitable immigrant was a colorful and complicated character who wielded a clenched fist over Hawai‘i’s economy for nearly two decades after occupying a position of unrivaled power and political influence with the Hawaiian monarchy, while also advancing major technology developments. The Sugar King’s legacy continued as the Spreckels family developed large portions of California, building and breaking monopolies in agriculture, shipping, railroading, finance, real estate, horse breeding, utilities, streetcars, water infrastructure, building entire towns and cities from infrastructure to superstructure. Bonura tells the rags-to-riches story of Spreckels’s role in the developments of the sugarcane industry in the American West and across the Pacific, triumphing in a milieu rife with cronyism and corruption and ultimately transforming California’s industry and labor. But there’s always a cost for single-minded determination; the legendary family quarrels even included a murder charge. Spreckels’s biography is one of business triumph & tragedy, a portrait of a family torn apart by money, jealousy, and ego.
This will be a virtual event, hosted online via zoom. Register for the event at https://bit.ly/SugarKingLecture , scan the QR Code.
About the Author
Historian Dr. Sandra Bonura is a retired professor who is busy on her 2nd career resurrecting the forgotten stories of overlooked historical figures. She is a frequent storyteller and lecturer on the importance of using a multitude of primary sources to gain perspective on historical events. To read more about Dr. Bonura and her work, visit https://www.sandrabonura.co
Purchase A Copy!
A great addition to your library or a gift for someone else. To purchase your copy of The Sugar King of California: The Life of Claus Spreckles visit
https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496235114/the-sugar-king-of-california/
It is also available as an audio book, narrated by Margaret Wakeley visit