"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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The "Emperor Norton" Trees of Mariposa and Calaveras
Some years ago, I happened upon a lengthy newspaper article — from the 1890s, if memory serves — with a list of honorarily named California redwoods. One of the trees carried the name “Emperor Norton” — so, I made a mental note and resolved to return to this “detective ground” in the future.
Recently, I was delighted to find photographic evidence of an “Emperor Norton” tree: an apparently unpublished stereocard by Eadweard Muybridge, dated 1868, showing a man in a deep bow before a redwood with an "Emperor Norton" sign affixed to it.
The Bancroft Library, which has the card, identifies the site of Muybridge's scene as "Probably in the Mariposa Grove, near Yosemite Valley."
In my effort to confirm this detail, I found multiple references — from the period between 1867 and 1910 — to "Emperor Norton" trees in both of the noted redwood sections of Yosemite: the one in Mariposa County and another in Calaveras County.
The evidence strongly suggests that the tree in Muybridge's stereograph is in Calaveras.
High-resolution image included.
Read MoreEmpire Day Dedication & Celebration of Emperor Norton Place
Left to right: (1) Emperor Norton, between spring 1871 and spring 1872. From carte de visite by Tuttle & Johnson studio, 523 Kearny Street, "Heliographic Artists." Collection of the California Historical Society. (2) Emperor Norton Place street sign, at the northwest corner of Montgomery and Kearny Streets, San Francisco. (3) Eureka Lodgings building, 624/626/628 Commercial Street, San Francisco, early 1906. Detail of photograph credited to Treu Ergeben (T.E.) Hecht (1875–1937). Photo #AAB–3457, San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection, San Francisco Public Library. Source: SFPL
Announcement and details of the official dedication and celebration of “Emperor Norton Place” as the City and County of San Francisco’s commemorative name for the 600 block of Commercial Street, between Montgomery and Kearny Streets — where Emperor Norton is documented to have lived from sometime between summer 1864 and summer 1865 until his death in January 1880.
Read MoreThe Ferry Building Clock Tower from Emperor Norton's Street
The best-known vista of the 245-foot-tall clock tower of the San Francisco Ferry Building is from along Market Street, looking northeast.
The best-known street vista — but not the only one.
The clock tower also rises as the eastern visual terminus of Commercial Street.
On today’s Commercial Street, the tower is most readily seen from the 2-block stretch between Montgomery Street to the east and Grant Avenue to the west. This is the stretch adjacent to, and near, the former site of 624 Commercial between Montgomery and Kearny Streets — where Emperor Norton lived from 1864/65 until his death in 1880.
The view of the Ferry Building clock tower from here is one reason why The Emperor Norton Trust has proposal that the tower be named Emperor Norton Tower. You can read our proposal and commentaries by clicking the Learn More button at EmperorNortonTower.org.
Click through for a series of seven views of the clock tower photographed from the 7-block stretch of Commercial Street between Drumm Street and Grant Avenue during the first half of the tower’s 125-year life-so-far — the period between c.1900 and 1960.
Read MoreThe Pantheonic Statuette of Norton I
It’s well known that souvenir photographs and lithographs of Emperor Norton were sold in San Francisco shops during the Emperor’s lifetime.
Norton biographer William Drury takes it considerably further to claim that, by the early 1870s, there was a whole cottage industry of “Emperor Norton statuettes, Emperor Norton dolls, Emperor Norton mugs and jugs, Emperor Norton Imperial Cigars” — and even that there were peddlers hawking Emperor Norton merch at his funeral.
I find no evidence to support much of what Drury asserts — but…
In 1877 — a couple of years before Emperor Norton died in 1880 — a German immigrant jeweler and sculptor in San Francisco created a highly accomplished statuette of the Emperor that deserves a much closer look than it has received.
Although there is no ready evidence that this nearly-two-foot-tall statuette was sold in shops, there is evidence to suggest that it was a fixture in San Francisco saloons — and even that the Emperor himself had a copy in his apartment.
Among other things, I document here the three known copies of the statuette and offer a glimpse into the life and work of the sculptor.
There even are cameo appearances from historians of Ancient Rome and the Oxford English Dictionary.
It’s a fascinating story, previously untold.
Read MoreEmperor Norton as an Artist’s Model
Addie Ballou is best known now — where she is known at all — as a women’s suffrage crusader, a rather bad poet, and a (probably overconfident) lecturer on any of the subjects she was game to talk about for an hour to any group who asked, provided they had a room and a podium.
But, Ballou also had a brief career as a minimally trained portrait artist.
A certain conventional wisdom holds that, in 1877, Emperor Norton sat for a portrait painted by Ballou — and that this is the only such portrait the Emperor ever sat for during his lifetime.
As ever with Emperor Norton, though, a look under the hood reveals that things probably are not quite as we’ve been led to believe.
Read on for some newly uncovered details about old art associations.
Read MoreFirst a Street, Next a Tower
Does the honorary naming of a block of street put to bed the entire 90-year-long civic naming enterprise on behalf of Emperor Norton?
Absolutely not!
Read MoreThe Time Emperor Norton Was a "Pepper" Too
On Christmas Eve 1862, at the Royal Polytechnic Institute, in London, the Institute’s director, John Henry Pepper, debuted his theatrical refinement of a reflection illusion that came to be known as “Pepper’s ghost.”
The sensation had made it to the United States by the early 1870s — probably initially being performed as a sideshow attraction.
But, on the evening of 26 December 1879, the resident company of the Metropolitan Theater in Sacramento, Calif., used what they called “the Pepper Mystery” to dramatize the Emperor Norton.
It was a commonplace in the 1860s and ‘70s for theater troupes in San Francisco and elsewhere in California to burlesque the Emperor for laughs. But, it seems as though this performance might have been a little different.
Did members of the audience at the Metropolitan all slap their knees at the sight of an ethereal Emperor Norton on the stage? Or did some shed a quiet tear for the passing of an era that too quickly was slipping through their fingers?
Read MoreHow to Make the "Emperor Norton Place" Street-Naming Proposal Better
If one wished to honor Emperor Norton with a street name in San Francisco, the 600 block of Commercial Street would not necessarily be the most fruitful option — notwithstanding the fact that the 600 block of Commercial is where the Emperor laid his head for the last 14 or 15 years of his life.
But, the 600 block of Commercial is what the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has put on the table. Indeed, on Tuesday 11 April, the Supes are set to vote on a resolution to add “Emperor Norton Place” as a commemorative name for this block.
Comes a couple of questions:
At the level of both poetry and design, is “Emperor Norton Place” really the best name? What about “Emperor Norton Way”?
How about adding to the Commercial Street resolution a clause (not currently included) that explicitly requests signage — as the Supervisors’ resolution for “Tony Bennett Way” did in 2017?
Here are some suggestions for how to make a good proposal much better.
Details for submitting public comment in advance of the April 11th meeting are at the bottom of this commentary.
Read MoreWhy “Emperor Norton Bridge” Crusaders Have to Let It Go
A commentary advancing the case for naming the San Francisco Ferry Building clock tower the “Emperor Norton Tower” in 2023 — the 125th anniversary of the Ferry Building.
Read MoreThe Tenth Annual Tannenbaum Toast
The House of Shields, in San Francisco, is the traditional site of the Tannenbaum Toast. This is the bar c.1950s. We hope to return in 2023. Photograph courtesy of Heather David.
The annual holiday party of The Emperor Norton Trust celebrates the legend that it was Emperor Norton who originally called for the raising of a great tree in Union Square every Yuletide season. (Another apocryphal tale, alas!)
The celebration traditionally takes place on the second Sunday of December in the mezzanine of the historic House of Shields bar, in San Francisco.
This year, we gather via Zoom. The Tenth Annual Tannenbaum Toast takes place on Sunday 11 December at 4:45 p.m. Pacific — and at all related times around the world.
The traditional drink is the Boothby cocktail.
Zoom link on the flip!
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 MoreHistorians of San Francisco Urge Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown to Back "Emperor Norton Bridge"
At the end of May 2022, eight historians of San Francisco sent a letter to former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown urging the Mayor to publicly support The Emperor Norton Trust’s proposal that the California state legislature pass a joint resolution that simply would add “Emperor Norton Bridge” as an honorary name for the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge — leaving in place all existing names and signage for the bridge and its parts, including the “Willie L. Brown, Jr., Bridge” honorific for the West Crossing of the bridge.
The historians joined the Trust’s call that state lawmakers authorize the “Emperor Norton Bridge” naming in 2022 — the 150th anniversary of Emperor Norton’s three newspaper Proclamations setting out the vision for the Bay Bridge in 1872.
Read on for a link to the letter.
Read MoreEmperor Norton's 204th: A Birthday to Cheer, A Bridge Name This Year (Zoom)
Decorating cakes at Dressel’s, in Cicero, Ill. Source: Chicago Tribune
Join The Emperor Norton Trust on Zoom as we raise a glass to Emperor Norton on his 204th birthday.
Read MoreThe Ninth Annual Tannenbaum Toast
The House of Shields, in San Francisco, is the traditional site of the Tannenbaum Toast. This is the bar c.1950s. We hope to return in 2022. Photograph courtesy of Heather David.
The annual holiday party of The Emperor Norton Trust celebrates the legend that it was Emperor Norton who originally called for the raising of a great tree in Union Square every Yuletide season. (Another apocryphal tale, alas!)
The celebration traditionally takes place on the second Sunday of December in the mezzanine of the historic House of Shields bar, in San Francisco.
This year, we gather via Zoom. The Ninth Annual Tannenbaum Toast takes place on Sunday 12 December at 3:45 p.m. Pacific — and at all related times around the world.
The traditional drink is the Boothby cocktail.
Zoom link on the flip!
Read MoreWoodlawn's Gift
In 1934, Emperor Norton was reburied at Woodlawn cemetery, in Colma, Calif., with a new rose granite headstone featuring an inscription whose deeply engraved letters and numbers were hand-gilded with real gold leaf.
It appears that the gilding lasted for several decades. But, eventually, the “illumination” wore off and the inscription mostly was bare, except for the faintest traces of gold and noticeable spots of mossy green film borne of the stone’s years-long exposure to sea air.
The stone still looked this way until very recently. But, in May 2021, Woodlawn quietly brought the inscription back to life.
Includes photo-documentation of the Emperor’s headstone in 1934, 1989/90, 2016, 2019 and today.
Read MoreBill Drury's "Emperor Norton Bridge" Petition of 1986
The late Phil Frank is known and even beloved in Norton circles for a particular series of his Farley comics with which — between September and December 2004 — Frank sought to educate the San Francisco Chronicle’s readership about Emperor Norton while also taking up the cause of naming the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge after the Emp.
The series is credited with having built much of the momentum for the introduction and passage of a San Francisco Board of Supervisors resolution in December 2004 calling for the new Eastern section of the Bay Bridge to be named the Emperor Norton Bridge.
What appears to have escaped the notice of most Nortonians, even those who consider themselves “tuned in” on bridge matters, is that (a) Frank had weighed in on the “Emperor Norton Bridge” imperative 18 years earlier, with a shorter series of Farley comics published in October 1986 — and that (b) this earlier series was prompted by an “Emperor Norton Bridge” petition drive launched and advanced in 1986 by William Drury, whose new biography on the Emperor was being published, promoted and reviewed at the same time.
This “memory rescue” of a key moment in “Emperor Norton Bridge” advocacy includes archival audio of a 2004 NPR interview with Phil Frank, in which Frank references the earlier petition, as well as the complete — and rarely seen — series of Frank’s 1986 Farley comics that were inspired by the petition.
Read More
The "Emperor Norton" Disappeared from the Ghirardelli Menu a Decade Earlier Than Believed
In the 17 years since the San Francisco Chronicle noted in 2004 that the Emperor Norton Sundae no longer was on the menu at the Ghirardelli ice cream shop in San Francisco's Ghirardelli Square, the conventional wisdom has held that 2004 was when the “Emperor Norton” was removed.
But, I always have pointed out that 2004 is when the absence was noticed and reported as news — the removal itself could have happened earlier.
Turns out I was right. But, the cherry on top may be that the Emperor Norton Sundae has been hiding in plain sight at Ghirardelli — under a different name — for 20-plus years.
Read MoreThe Eighth Annual Tannenbaum Toast
The House of Shields, in San Francisco, is the traditional site of the Tannenbaum Toast. This is the bar c.1950s. We hope to return in 2021. Photograph courtesy of Heather David.
The annual holiday party of The Emperor Norton Trust celebrates the legend that it was Emperor Norton who originally called for the raising of a great tree in Union Square every Yuletide season. (Another apocryphal tale, alas!)
The celebration traditionally takes place on the second Sunday of December in the mezzanine of the historic House of Shields bar, in San Francisco.
This year, we gather via Zoom. The Eighth Annual Tannenbaum Toast takes place on Sunday 13 December at 2 p.m. Pacific — and at all related times around the world.
The drink is the Boothby cocktail.