Emperor Norton Through the Eyes of a Young San Francisco Artist in 1879
In a Travel Sketchbook Including a Take of the Emperor, Adjacent Sketches Reflecting an Anti-Chinese San Francisco Provide a Poignant Framing for the Emp’s Last Days
SET ASIDE the many cartoons and caricatures of Emperor Norton produced during the Emperor’s lifetime, and very few straightforward, relatively unironic renderings of him survive from this period.
The Emperor Norton Trust’s digital ARchive of Emperor Norton in the Arts (ARENA) has separate slide galleries for Engravings, Paintings and Drawings (“flat works”) and for Comics. The Trust doesn’t claim that either of these galleries is exhaustive. But, the galleries are fairly comprehensive. And, the “flat works” gallery includes only 10 engravings, paintings, or drawings of the Emperor created between his self-declaration in September 1859 and his death in January 1880.
So, we were delighted when our friend Mark Reed sent us a sketch of Emperor Norton from 1879 that we may have seen before — but that we never had gotten around to documenting.
The sketch is by Charles Andrew Gunnison (1861 –1897).
Gunnison — a native of San Francisco — was an inveterate traveler and wrote short stories and poems informed by his travels. During the last decade of his short life, the San Francisco-based Commercial Publishing Company — where Gunnison served as Secretary for many years — published several of these.
One of Gunnison’s earliest trips, in 1879, was a trek across the United States, west to east, visiting several cities on the Eastern seaboard — Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and Portland — and venturing up to Montreal and Quebec City, before returning to San Francisco via Panama and Central America.
Gunnison brought with him an autograph book that he converted into a sketchbook to help him record what he saw. He titled it “A Bit of American Travel.”
Title page of 1879 travel sketchbook by Charles Andrew Gunnison (1861–1897). Sketchbook, 8¼” x 6⅞”. Manuscripts Collection of the Huntington Digital Library. Complete sketchbook accessible via the link. Source: The Huntington
Following the title page, there are 61 pages of sketches. Some pages are taken up with a single scene. But, most pages have at least three — and as many as five — little sketches on the page, often apparently unrelated to one another except by the locale.
The third page from the end of the book — which Gunnison sketched on his return to San Francisco — includes a rendering of Emperor Norton. Although “The Emperor” and “Hoodlum” appear to be facing one another, this may not be a scene but rather two separate sketches.
Page of 1879 travel sketchbook by Charles Andrew Gunnison (1861–1897) including a pencil rendering of Emperor Norton. Sketchbook, 8¼” x 6⅞”. Manuscripts Collection of the Huntington Digital Library. Complete sketchbook accessible via the link. Source: The Huntington
In the sketch of “the ‘New City Hall’” that occupies the top half of the page, the sign “Rev. Mayor D.D.” is a reference to Isaac Smith Kalloch (1831/32 –1887), a relatively recent 1875 arrival who was elected Mayor of San Francisco on 1 December 1879. This may date Gunnison’s sketch of the Emperor more narrowly to December 1879, which would make this one of the last (and possibly the last) extant artistic rendering of Emperor Norton — painting, sketch, or otherwise — done during the Emperor’s lifetime.
Isaac Smith Kalloch, c.1875–78, by Bradley & Rulofson studio. Source: Wikipedia
Kalloch was a Baptist minister from Maine (and the son of a Baptist minister from Maine) who ascended to the office of Mayor on the strength of his support from — and alliance with — the California Workingmen’s Party, led by Emperor Norton’s nemesis, the anti-Chinese demagogue Denis Kearney (1847–1907).
The following cartoon, which appeared in the San Francisco Illustrated Wasp on 21 February 1880 — just 6 weeks after the Emperor’s death on January 8 — shows the newly elected Mayor Kalloch as a donkey being ridden by Kearney.
“Scrubbing the City of Scrubbs: Kallock Method,” cartoon (unsigned but possibly by George Frederick Keller (1846–c.1927), San Francisco Illustrated Wasp, V4 N186, 21 February 1880, pp. 488–489. See original, from the collection of the California State Library, via the Internet Archive here. This image from the collection of the Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley. Source: Calisphere
All of this speaks to San Francisco’s anti-Chinese mood at the end of 1879 and may also help to explain why — ironically — on the page just before the one that featured the Chinese-defending Emperor Norton, an 18-year-old Charles Gunnison sketched a Chinese laborer with an inscription that echoes Denis Kearny’s mantra “The Chinese must go!” (It’s unclear who it is, in the adjacent sketch, that Gunnison is saying “ought” to go. Is this another Chinese figure? Someone meant to represent a different category of unacceptable?)
Page of 1879 travel sketchbook by Charles Andrew Gunnison (1861–1897) including a pencil rendering of a Chinese laborer with the inscription “He must go.” Sketchbook, 8¼” x 6⅞”.Manuscripts Collection of the Huntington Digital Library. Complete sketchbook accessible via the link. Source: The Huntington
Did the young Charles Gunnison eventually grow out of his apparently anti-Chinese attitudes and come to see that “The Emperor” on the next page was the better one to emulate?
Let’s hope so.
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