Researchers of early San Francisco are well served by historical newspaper clearinghouses like Newspapers.com, Genealogy Bank, and the California Digital Newspaper Collection (CDNC).

Between these three databases, historians can find nearly-complete collections of the earliest mid-to-late-19th-century decades of the Daily Alta California, Daily Evening Bulletin, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, and others — in the case of the Alta, dating back to 1849.

A notable outlier has been the Morning Call.

Founded as the Daily Morning Call in December 1856 and simplifying a bit to The Morning Call in December 1878, the Call has been available online at Newspapers.com and CDNC — starting with the edition of 1 April 1890.

But the only way to access earlier editions of the Call has been via microfiche or the original deadwood.

The culmination of a digitization project that was jump-started by The Emperor Norton Trust a year ago — in September 2024 — the following 26 years’ worth of the early Call arrived on Newspapers.com last month:

Daily Morning Call — 8 December 1863 – 20 December 1878
The Morning Call — 21 December 1878 – 31 December 1889

This

• closes a significant longstanding documentary gap in the online historical newspaper record;

• opens up a new avenue of research into the life of Emperor Norton — and early San Francisco history more broadly; and — a notable bonus…

• creates new access to the editions of the Daily Morning Call that carried Mark Twain’s writing between June and October 1864.