When Emperor Norton Became Protector of Mexico

October 18, 2024 / John Lumea

A certain conventional wisdom holds that Emperor Norton adopted the title "Protector of Mexico" around the time French emperor Napoleon III invaded Mexico in 1862 and installed his puppet ruler Maximilian I in 1864 — and that the Emperor dropped his "Protector" title a few years later.

The documentary record says otherwise.

Evidence suggests that Emperor Norton did not start using "Protector of Mexico" until early 1866, more than halfway into Maximilian’s tenure, but makes clear that he kept using the title — both to advocate for Mexico and for general purposes — for the rest of his life.

A surprising find: Norton I expanded his title to "Emperor of the United States and Mexico" in 1861.

By the time the Emperor assumed his protectorship of Mexico, he had relinquished his emperorship of that country.

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categories / Research, Proclamations, Original sources
tags / Mexico, Emperor of the United States and Mexico, Protector of Mexico, Napoleon III, Maximilian I, Robert Ernest Cowan, Albert Dressler, Allen Stanley Lane, William Drury, Emperor Norton Memorial Association, Woodlawn Cemetery, headstone, 1860, 1861, 1862, 1864, 1865, 1866, 1871, 1874, 1875, 1876, 1879, 1923, 1927, 1934, 1938, 1939, 1986

Emperor Norton at Sorbier's

June 16, 2024 / John Lumea

The San Francisco Examiner's 9 January 1880 obituary of Emperor Norton noted that "[h]is living was very inexpensive. He occupied a cheap room and boarded at cheap restaurants."

We recently discovered two sources that point to what appears to be a generations-forgotten association of the Emperor with such a spot: his breakfast patronage of Sorbier's Restaurant, on Commercial Street, less than a block from his own residence on Commercial.

Both sources are written by people who were in San Francisco during Emperor Norton's lifetime: The first is the Japan Weekly Mail's February 1880 obituary of the Emperor — the second, an article of reminiscences published in a San Francisco-based scientific journal in May 1910.

Read on for the full story.

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categories / Research, Original sources, Places
tags / Sorbier's Restaurant, Jules E. Sorbier, Jules Sorbier, International Restaurant, Occidental Restaurant, Commercial Street, Sacramento Street, Washington Street, Merchant Street, breakfast, Louise Bacon Sorbier, menu, photograph, Japan Weekly Mail, Mining and Scientific Press, San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, Samuel Williams, 1862, 1863, 1867, 1868, 1869, 1870, 1871, 1872, 1874, 1875, 1877, 1880, 1910

Let the Emperor Wear What He Wants

May 26, 2024 / John Lumea

During Emperor Norton’s lifetime, his uniform was regular grist for the fourth estate.

Editorial commentary about the imperial regalia fell mainly into two categories:

Bemused — or outright amused — descriptive lists of the elements that made up the Emperor’s dress: The second-hand military coat with a second-hand blossom in the lapel. The oft-tarnished epaulettes. The feathered beaver hat. The hand-carved walking stick. The sword. The Chinese umbrella. The shoes into which the Emperor had cut holes to relieve his corns.
Laments about the “seedy,” dilapidated state of the uniform.

Rarely seen are opinions as to what might justify such an ensemble in the first place — other than the Emperor’s own notions of regality — or whether, indeed, the ensemble could be justified at all.

Read on for two examples, recently discovered.

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categories / Research, Original sources
tags / dress, uniform, eccentric, law, society, Eliza Hurd De Wolf, Amasa Lord, W.H.L. Barnes, Daily Dramatic Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, Oakland Tribune, 1866, 1867, 1874, 1875

Emperor Norton on the Crest of the Farmers Market Wave

February 24, 2024 / John Lumea

For many years, Italian produce farmers in San Francisco had set up a vegetable market on Sansome Street between Clay and Washington. But, in late 1873, things were coming to a head in a long-simmering public dispute about whether the market should be allowed to stay there — and, if not, where it should go.

In November 1873, Emperor Norton weighed in with a Proclamation calling for the market to be moved from Sansome, a public street, to a new purpose-created public square next door.

In effect, the Emperor was seeking to establish the farmers market as a public institution in San Francisco.

This is one of many reasons why the San Francisco Ferry Building clock tower — which rises above what today is the city’s flagship farmers market, at the Ferry Building — should be named EMPEROR NORTON TOWER.

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categories / Research, Original sources, Proclamations
tags / vegetable, produce, vegetable market, produce market, Italian, Sansome Street, Market Street, farmers market, public market, Daily Alta California, San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, 1871, 1873, 1874

1870s Forecasts of a Market for Emperor Norton Photographs & Signatures

February 18, 2024 / John Lumea

In 1872 — two years before the first commercially retailed photographic portrait of Emperor Norton — an editor in Oakland wondered whether there might be a market for photographs of the Emperor and how much collectors might be willing to pay.

Five years later, in 1877, a San Francisco paper carried an editorial on the prices paid at a recent New York sale of autographs of U.S. presidents, European monarchs, and other notables. The writer observed that Emperor Norton's signatures were "going at a low rate" and suggested that this would remain the case with the Emperor’s ongoing sales of signed promissory notes continuing to glut the market — but that, in the future, the Emperor’s signature could become a more precious commodity.

In light of the four- and five-figure sums now commanded by photographs and signed promissory notes of Emperor Norton, it’s worth noting these two early — and, we believe, previously unreported — indicators that, even during the Emperor’s lifetime, there were those who saw that the Emperor eventually could find his way to the collector’s market.

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categories / Research, Original sources
tags / photograph, signature, autograph, currency, promissory note, market, collector, San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, Oakland Daily Transcript, Heritage Auctions, Bonhams, 1872, 1874, 1875, 1877

From 60 Miles to the East, A Newspaper Foreshadows Emperor Norton's Role as Defender of the Chinese

February 14, 2024 / John Lumea

In February 1868, Emperor Norton issued his first extant Proclamation in defense of the Chinese.

A year before that, in February 1867, an anti-Chinese riot in San Francisco prompted a San Francisco correspondent to a paper in Stockton — 60 miles to the east of San Francisco — to suggest that Emperor Norton was better-positioned than the San Francisco Mayor to lead on the Chinese question.

Did the Emperor and the correspondent know one another from before?

Had they traded their views on the Chinese question?

Did they influence one another on this issue?

Very likely, both men were regular visitors to the same building on Post Street between 1862 and 1867. This would have created the opportunity for them to meet and befriend one another.

If so, the operative question is: What did they talk about?

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categories / Research, Original sources, Proclamations
tags / race, racism, Chinese, riot, San Francisco, correspondent, newspaper, Stockton Daily Evening Herald, Linn C. Doyle, C.E.B. Howe, Charles Edward Bishop Howe, Dashaway Association, Dashaway Hall, Lyceum for Self-Culture, 1859, 1862, 1865, 1867, 1868, 1869, 1874

Emperor Norton Does Art Criticism With a Borrowed Jackknife — And the Crowd Loves It

December 28, 2023 / John Lumea

By 1861 — and for the 18-plus-year remainder of his reign — Emperor Norton was a favorite and enduring subject for San Francisco cartoonists and theater troupes, who found that local audiences enjoyed the good-natured lampooning of their Emperor.

The Emperor himself was less amused — and, there are a couple of oft-cited examples of the Emperor’s expressing his royal displeasure over how he was portrayed in these contexts.

Recently, we uncovered an “episode of displeasure” that is even better documented than the familiar examples.

The occasion was the mounting of an advertisement using Emperor Norton’s image on a construction fence at Montgomery and California Streets. The Emperor borrowed a jackknife; cut out the image of himself; and sliced the image to shreds.

The crowd, as they say, “went wild.”

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categories / Research, Places, Original sources, ARENA
tags / Art, cartoon, comic, caricature, photograph, theater, depiction, portrayal, Safe Deposit Building, Montgomery Street, California Street, advertisement, ad, George Frederick Keller, Eadweard Muybridge, Edward Jump, San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, San Francisco Chronicle, Michael Reese, 1861, 1863, 1869, 1873, 1874, 1875

Emperor Norton vs. the Rev. Mr. Hammond

July 12, 2023 / John Lumea

Edward Payson Hammond was a celebrity preacher — a Billy Graham of his day.

Today, Hammond is much less well-known in the annals of American religion than his crusading contemporary, Dwight Lyman Moody.

But, in the 1860s and 1870s, E.P. Hammond was a phenomenon.

In February 1875, Hammond brought his traveling revival road show to San Francisco for what turned out to be a two-month stand.

To get preaching gigs like this, Hammond claimed to produce hundreds — even thousands — of “conversions” everywhere he went.

To gin up these numbers, Hammond’s stock-in-trade was badgering tiny children into believing that they were evil sinners in danger of hellfire.

Emperor Norton was not down with this — and, he found a way to say so in a Proclamation that was published on both sides of San Francisco Bay in March 1875.

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categories / Research, Proclamations, Original sources
tags / Edward Payson Hammond, preacher, revival, conversion, children, child, San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento, Oregon, Andrew L. Stone, Peter Anderson, Pacific Appeal, Oakland Tribune, 1858, 1859, 1860, 1861, 1862, 1863, 1867, 1868, 1874, 1875

Emperor Norton as an Artist’s Model

April 26, 2023 / John Lumea

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.

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categories / Research, Tributes, Original sources
tags / Art, portrait, painting, sitting, Addie Ballou, Oscar Kunath, Virgil Williams, Alice Brown Chittenden, San Francisco Call, Ward Ritchie Press, San Francisco Art Association, California School of Design, Mechanics' Fair, Mechanics' Pavilion, Bradley & Rulofson, Society of California Pioneers, 1873, 1874, 1877, 1878, 1879

The Sporting Emperor Norton

March 28, 2023 / John Lumea

Emperor Norton tried his hand at riding a bike — roller skating — even jumping rope.

Later, the Emperor was a regular attendee at everything from horse races to endurance walking marathons to wrestling tournaments.

Here’s a first effort at documenting an underappreciated “sporting” thread in the Emperor’s story.

This includes:

many new details about known episodes (velocipede; skating), 1869–72
several new episodes, 1873–79

Also includes documentation of what may be the last reported sighting of Emperor Norton.

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categories / Research, Places, Original sources
tags / sport, tournament, race, competition, feat, amusement, Mechanics' Pavilion, Union Hall, Woodward's Gardens, Badger's Grand Central Park, Bay District Fair Ground, Platt's Music Hall, Platt's Hall, velocipede, boneshaker, roller skating, skates, jump rope, horse race, walking, wrestling, rink, pavilion, Eadweard Muybridge, Carleton Watkins, John Armstrong, 1869, 1870, 1871, 1872, 1873, 1874, 1879

Did the Social Drinker Emperor Norton Close Out as a Teetotaler?

March 26, 2023 / John Lumea

By reputation, Emperor Norton did not drink much. But, he did enjoy the occasional tipple — especially if he was being treated, perhaps by a well-wisher at one of the free-lunch taverns that he often frequented.

Indeed, the Emperor issued at least one Proclamation, in 1874, that called for abstaining from "ardent spirits, as a beverage, except only for medical purposes," and that banned the manufacture, import and sale of these spirits” — but that drew a careful distinction between “ardent” liquor and “malt liquors for the working man, and ‘wine for the stomach’s sake.’”

But, in January 1879, with the temperance movement growing ever more insistent on complete abstinence, with no exceptions or carve-outs, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Emperor Norton signed an abstinence pledge.

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categories / Research, Places, Proclamations, Original sources
tags / drinking, temperance, abstinence, pledge, signature, reform, Platt's Music Hall, Lyceum for Self-Culture, Common Sense (journal), Dashaway Hall, Pacific Appeal, 1874, 1879

The Time Emperor Norton Lost His Platform But Kept His Dignity

April 12, 2022 / John Lumea

What arguably is one of the most pivotal episodes in Emperor Norton's career has received scant attention.

In December 1870, the Emperor named the Black-owned Pacific Appeal newspaper his "weekly Imperial organ." From then until spring 1875, the Appeal and its editor, Peter Anderson, published some 250 of the Emperor's Proclamations.

But, in May 1875, the Appeal published a Proclamation in which Emperor Norton called out real estate developer Charles Peters for making false promises that were likely to bring harm to the unwitting immigrants who bought his lots in a swampy area at the southern tip of San Francisco that was being billed as Newark.

Peters sued Anderson for libel. Anderson retracted the Proclamation, throwing Emperor Norton under the bus in the process — and forbidding the Emperor from bringing the Appeal any more Proclamations. This is why published Proclamations from the Emperor become much more scarce from mid 1875 until his death in January 1880.

It appears that William Drury, in his 1986 biography of Emperor Norton, was the first to publish anything about this. But, apart from reproducing the offending Proclamation and an excerpt from Anderson's retraction, Drury has only a half-page's worth of sentences to spend on the affair.

In giving the matter such short shrift, Drury side-steps the most important questions: What could have prompted Peter Anderson to break with the Emperor in such a way? And, was Emperor Norton actually right about Charles Peters and his real estate scheme?

In short: Bill Drury leaves a big gap at the very point when big questions need answering.

Drawing on newspaper accounts from 1874–76, the following deep-dive seeks to close the gap and finds that Emperor Norton looks the best of all who were involved — in part, because he was utterly true to himself.

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categories / Research, Proclamations, Original sources
tags / Newark, Newark Land Company, Newark Land Association, Charles R. Peters, Charles Peters, Pacific Appeal, lawsuit, libel, land, real estate, immigrants, Oakland Tribune, Oakland Daily Transcript, William Drury, 1874, 1875, 1876

Emperor Norton's Proclamations on the Chinese, 1868–1878

March 14, 2022 / John Lumea

One of Emperor Norton’s most abiding concerns during his reign, 1859–1880, was the unjust treatment of the Chinese. For a period of more than a decade during the second half of his reign, the Emperor flagged his opposition to discrimination against the Chinese in the courts, the workplace and society — and to the physical violence that self-empowered demagogues and thugs on the West Coast meted out on Chinese during the 1860s and ‘70s.

Here, as a resource, are the published Proclamations of Emperor Norton on the Chinese that we’ve discovered so far — as they originally appeared in the papers of the Emperor’s time. There are thirteen Proclamations — plus a reference to a fourteenth.

Almost certainly, this is not an exhaustive list. Many, many issues of newspapers from this period are lost. And, even for the many scanned issues that are included in the current digital databases, the limitations of optical character recognition (OCR) technology mean that even searches on obvious terms like “Norton,” “Emperor,” “Chinese” and “China” don’t produce every possible result.

We’ll continue to add to this list as new information comes to light.

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categories / Research, Original sources, Proclamations
tags / China, Chinese, immigration, courts, labor, society, Denis Kearney, 1868, 1870, 1871, 1872, 1873, 1874, 1875, 1876, 1878

Emperor Norton at a Pro-Civil Rights Lecture, March 1868

February 24, 2019 / John Lumea

Emperor Norton’s on-point attendance at an early event of the Order of Freedom’s Defenders — a Unionist-Republican political club dedicated to preserving Lincoln's legacy; advancing Reconstruction; electing Grant as President; and securing the Constitutional protections necessary to guarantee the civil rights of African-Americans — can be seen as “of a piece” with the Emperor’s broader commitment to African-American equality.

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categories / Original sources, Places, Research
tags / Order of Freedom's Defenders, General Oscar Hugh La Grange, Platt's Music Hall, Union, Republican, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Reconstruction, civil rights, San Francisco Examiner, Peter Anderson, Fifteenth Amendment, Pacific Appeal, Proclamations, 1868, 1869, 1871, 1874

THE LONGEST PROCLAMATION? Emperor Norton at the Lyceum for Self-Culture

September 04, 2018 / John Lumea

Virtually all of the published Proclamations of Emperor Norton were short — a couple of sentences; two or three very short paragraphs, tops — and virtually all originally appeared in newspapers.

Virtually all — but not all.

What appears to be the longest Proclamation by the Emperor — his verdict on the Beecher-Tilton affair, issued on 30 July 1874 and clocking in at 430 words — was published in Common Sense: A Journal of Live Ideas. This short-lived publication was a clearinghouse of information — reportage, commentary, lecture texts and letters — on "liberal" and "radical" writers, practitioners and societies of free thought and spiritualism, with a focus on the Pacific Coast.

One of the main societies covered in the pages of Common Sense was the Lyceum for Self-Culture, which met weekly at Dashaway Hall, on Post Street between Kearny and Dupont. Emperor Norton was a member and regular attendee of the Lyceum.

The full story — including the Proclamation and a rarely seen 1867 photograph of Dashaway Hall by Eadweard Muybridge — is on the flip.

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categories / Research, Original sources, Proclamations, Places
tags / Lyceum for Self-Culture, Dashaway Hall, Common Sense (journal), William N. Slocum, Amanda M. Slocum, Henry Ward Beecher, Elizabeth Tilton, Beecher–Tilton affair, 1874

Filtering by Tag: 1874