The Emperor Norton Trust

TO HONOR THE LIFE + ADVANCE THE LEGACY OF JOSHUA ABRAHAM NORTON

RESEARCH • EDUCATION • ADVOCACY

Filtering by Tag: California state legislature

Save the California Digital Newspaper Collection!

One of our most fundamental research tools at The Emperor Norton Trust is the California Digital Newspaper Collection (CDNC), based at UC Riverside.

CDNC is a freely available, searchable digital clearinghouse of historical California newspapers that has original sources on the California life of Emperor Norton that no other digital clearinghouse of historical newspapers has.

For the last decade, CDNC has relied for its existence on annual funding that it receives from the State of California. 

But, the FY2026 state budget currently making its way through the legislature's budget subcommittees would remove all funding for CDNC.

This would be a death sentence. 

For the Trust, CDNC is not just "nice to have." It is essential. 

The loss of CDNC would have a devastating effect on our future research enterprise.   

But, the quality, integrity, and future impact of the 12 years of the work that we already have done would be compromised, too.

Read on to learn more — including the names and contacts for those lawmakers who most need to hear from us ASAP. 

Thank you!

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Historians 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.

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A(nother) Bay Bridge Naming Explainer

For those who haven’t made a habit of “geeking out” on the subject, the California state legislature’s protocols and historical precedents for authorizing honorary names for state bridges like the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge can be difficult to parse.

This has led many who support adding “Emperor Norton Bridge” as an honorary name for the Bay Bridge to wonder, and even question, whether this is legislatively possible.

It is. Here’s our latest effort to break it down.

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