"Be Nortonian" on Empire Day 2024
An invitation and a challenge for Empire Day 2024 — the 165th anniversary of Joshua Norton’s declaration of himself as Norton I, Emperor of the United States, on 17 September 1859.
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Scenes from the Emperor Norton Devotion of Melvin Belli
The legendary San Francisco attorney Melvin Mouron Belli (1907–1996) was — among many other things — an enthusiast of the Emperor Norton.
No doubt, this — and Melvin Belli’s way with a pen — is why William Drury enlisted Belli to write the Foreword for his 1986 biography of the Emperor.
Throughout his very public life, Belli repeatedly and habitually associated himself with Emperor Norton.
As shown in the scenes documented here...
an Emperor Norton cosplayer who "knighted" Belli at the 1960 Belli-staged dedication of two Gold Rush-era buildings that Belli had restored — one of which he would use for his law office
Belli's own cosplaying of the Emperor for a San Francisco Examiner magazine feature in 1987
Belli's interviews comparing public birthday parties he threw for himself in 1982 and 1987 to imagined birthday celebrations for Emperor Norton in the Emperor's day
...Belli invoked the Emperor in ways that suggested a link between his fight for justice and his flair for the eccentric.
Indeed, Belli's Norton-flavored theatrics helped his audiences to see that — as with Emperor Norton — his own eccentricity was a key to his influence.
Click below for stories, photographs, newspaper clippings, and video.
Read More"Be Nortonian" on Empire Day 2022
An invitation and a challenge for Empire Day 2022 — the 163rd anniversary of Joshua Norton’s declaration of himself as Norton I, Emperor of the United States, on 17 September 1859.
Read MoreBankrolling the Baker of the Emperor Norton Sourdough Snacks
Many crunchy-snack lovers who bought and enjoyed the Emperor Norton Original San Francisco Sourdough Snacks between 1982 and 2012 will have known little of the Emperor Norton story.
But, Norton initiates and non-initiates alike will know even less about who really made the Emperor Norton Sourdough Snacks possible — specifically: Who was the lead venture-capital investor in the product?
As it happens, the partners in the VC firm that led on the Emperor Norton snacks were fresh from having created and developed one of the best–known consumer products and brands in the United States.
Read on for a glimpse into the origin story of the Emperor Norton Sourdough Snacks.
Read MoreEmperor Norton, the Phoenix and the Branding of San Francisco
Photographs of Emperor Norton show that, just as the Emperor had a favorite walking stick, he also had a favorite hat pin — in the shape of a spread-winged bird.
Artists in the Emperor’s day painted and drew him wearing this pin.
It’s not surprising that contemporary San Francisco artists have rendered the bird as a phoenix.
Alas — spoiler alert! — it turns out that Emperor Norton did not wear a phoenix in his hat; the Emperor’s bird was a military American eagle.
But, this particular eagle does trace its heraldic roots to a phoenix — albeit it not a San Francisco one.
The fascinating story of how the phoenix of Scottish heraldry was transformed into the eagle of U.S. government iconography traces through the righteous Scottish cause of Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Continental Army coat buttons of George Washington and the design of the Great Seal of the United States.
One could say that Emperor Norton was wearing an eagle and a phoenix all at once: appropriate for an Emperor of the United States whose Seat was in the cool, grey city of love.
Pull up a chair!
Read MoreLife and Death of an Emperor Norton Mural (Bottle Caps Edition)
A fondly regarded public artwork — a mural-sized rendering of Emperor Norton in bottle caps — came on the scene in The Mission, San Francisco, in late 2011.
It left quietly a few months ago.
Photographs and Google street views from 2009 to the present document the rise, fade and fall.
Read MoreEmperor Norton in the Artistic Taxonomy of Antonio Sotomayor
The Emperor Norton mural in The Pied Piper, at the Palace Hotel, in San Francisco — painted by the city’s longtime “artist laureate,” Antonio Sotomayor (1904–1985) — is one of the best-known and -loved Emperor-themed works of art.
A newly discovered art-historical survey done for the San Francisco Arts Commission in 1953 offers an elusive date for the painting — and a new way of seeing it.
Includes rarely seen photographs.
Read MoreEven in Death and Wax, the Eyes of the Emperor Were on the Former HQ of Denis Kearney’s Anti-Chinese Crusade
In late 1882 — just shy of three years after Emperor Norton died in January 1880 — two brothers, Dick and Jack Kohler — arrived in San Francisco from Australia.
The Kohler brothers were known as musicians — quite famous ones — and had spent much of the 1870s in San Francisco cultivating that reputation.
But, on this return visit, the Kohlers brought something new: 150 wax figures, which they set up as a wax museum on Market Street.
A month after opening the museum, the Kohlers added a new figure to the exhibit: Emperor Norton.
The specific venue where this waxen Emperor stood watch is as significant as the tribute itself.
It’s a fascinating story. Dig in!
Read MoreCampaign Receives Major Pledge to Help Fund Limited-Edition Compilation Album of "Emperor Songs"
On the eve of a crowdfunding campaign in support of its project to produce a compilation album of “Emperor songs” — songs about, or in some way inspired by, Emperor Norton — the Campaign has received a pledge of $3,000 for the project — which represents one-half of the projected $6,000 needed to pay for all costs associated with producing and distributing the album, including engineering, design, vinyl pressing, shipping materials and postage.
Read MoreThe Emperor Norton Rooms of 1961
In spring 1961, two establishments opened in San Francisco.
One was a hotel bar on Geary Street. The other was a lunch spot and cocktail lounge on Maiden Lane.
Both were less than two blocks from Union Square.
One was created by a designer who went on to be celebrated in the pages of the Architectural Digest. It had an "Emperor Norton" doorman. And, per Herb Caen, it once was host to Jack Dempsey and Lefty O'Doul — sharing a bowl of peanuts on the same night.
The other was home to a new portrait of the Emperor commissioned by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Both were called the Emperor Norton Room.
Here’s the intriguing story of two Nortonian stars that briefly rose and just as quickly fell in the same San Francisco season.
Read MoreEmperor Norton Plaque Restored
A well-known and fondly regarded Emperor Norton plaque created in 1939 most recently was installed at San Francisco’s old Transbay Terminal for 34 years — from November 1986 until the terminal was prepared for demolition in late 2010.
The weathered bronze plaque has been out of the public view for the last 8 years. But, recently, the plaque was lovingly restored — and plans are moving forward to reinstall the plaque at the new Transbay Transit Center.
Read on for a photograph of the plaque as most have never seen it — and for details on the location now being eyed for this rare and wonderful tribute to the Emperor.
Emperor's Bridge Campaign Marks Bicentennial With "Emperor Norton at 200" Series
The bicentennial of Emperor Norton's birth is 4 February 2018.
To celebrate this momentous occasion, The Emperor's Bridge Campaign, in partnership with Bay Area institutions, is producing Emperor Norton at 200 — a series of exhibits, talks, toasts and other special events in February 2018 and throughout the bicentennial year.
Read MoreNew Life for an 1879 Drawing of Emperor Norton
On 9 November 1879 — just two months before Emperor Norton's death — the San Francisco Chronicle published a Sunday front-page profile of the Emperor that was based on rare interview with the Emperor himself.
The profile was accompanied by a lovely drawing of the Emperor that was reproduced 60 years later for Allen Stanley Lane's 1939 biography, Emperor Norton: The Mad Monarch of America — but that has languished since then.
The Emperor's Bridge Campaign has had a new photographic print made of the drawing and has added a hi-res scan of it to ARENA, our digital ARchive of Emperor Norton in Art.
Learn more and see the drawing, after the flip.
Read MoreLIGHTS! CAMERA! NORTON! A Campaign Fundraiser
On Thursday 23 March, The Emperor’s Bridge Campaign presents Lights! Camera! Norton! — an evening of three films about Emperor Norton at the legendary Roxie Theater in San Francisco.
The event includes a screening of our own 35mm print of a 1936 short that we believe features the earliest dramatic portrayal of the Emperor on film.
This special evening takes place in the 254-seat Big Roxie theater and is a fundraiser for the Campaign: After the first 50 tickets sold, 50 percent of all proceeds from this screening will benefit The Campaign.
Read MoreThe Diogenes of San Francisco
For Emperor Norton Day 2017, a look at how — in both art and prose — the San Francisco Illustrated Wasp paid tribute to the Emperor on 17 January 1880, nine days after his death.
Read MoreAn 80th Birthday Party & Naming Rally for the Emperor Norton Bridge
The Emperor Norton Bridge a.k.a. the Bay Bridge, in San Francisco, as seen from Rincon Park. In the foreground: Cupid's Span (2002), by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. Photograph © 2007 Σταύρος.
On Saturday 12 November 2016, the Emperor Norton Bridge a.k.a. the Bay Bridge turns 80.
Please join The Emperor's Bridge Campaign for a celebration to wish the Emperor's bridge a happy birthday and to show your support for naming the bridge for Emperor Norton in 2022 — the 150th anniversary of the Emperor's proclamations in 1872 setting out the original vision for the bridge.
Read MoreAdmiral Santa Norton Claus
In 1926, San Francisco-born artist Charles William Saalburg penned an article for The New York Times, in which he recalled many of the storied figures that peopled the San Francisco of his younger years. The piece featured Saalburg's own illustrations of these characters, including an undated rendering of Emperor Norton, which he depicted — perhaps from childhood memory — as a Santa Claus figure with an admiral's hat.
Saalburg's illustration of the Emperor is included in the Paintings gallery of ARENA, the Campaign's digital Archive of Emperor Norton in Art, Music & Film.
Read MoreAn Evening of Artists in Conversation About Emperor Norton
At a special event on Thursday 13 October, titled My Emperor, My Muse, The Emperor's Bridge Campaign will bring together an eclectic and interesting mix of people — artists who've created specific Emperor-themed works and others who have thought deeply about Emperor Norton — for a conversation about the Emperor's abiding cultural import as an avatar of whimsy, openness, tolerance and fair play.
We'll learn why Emperor Norton moves these people; how he has shaped their projects; why they think the Emperor remains a cultural touchstone; and the role that they think art can play in shaping and polishing the stone.
Read MoreIntroducing ARENA: Archive of Emperor Norton in Art, Music & Film
Comic, 1871, by John Steinberg. The comic appeared in a late 1871 issue of Frederick Marriott's California Mail Bag magazine, as part of a group of Steinberg's "Humorous Sketches of the War in Amador." Source: Internet Archive.
Today, The Emperor's Bridge Campaign launches ARENA: Archive of Emperor Norton in Art, Music & Film. ARENA seeks to be a comprehensive, authoritative, searchable digital archive of representations and interpretations of Emperor Norton in the visual arts, in music and in film — the mediums that are most readily presented online. The Archive includes "renderings" of Emperor Norton from the early 1860s to the present.
Read MoreThe Emperor Norton Sundae: Vintage Ghirardelli Menus Edition
For at least 40 years, it appears, the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company featured on the menu of its shops an Emperor Norton Sundae. Ghirardelli discontinued the Emperor Norton in 2004, possibly earlier — but, evidence of the Emperor remains in this little collection of Ghirardelli menus from the 1960s, '70s and '80s.
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