TO HONOR THE LIFE + ADVANCE THE LEGACY OF JOSHUA ABRAHAM NORTON
RESEARCH • EDUCATION • ADVOCACY
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 More
Eleanor Roosevelt cutting FDR’s birthday cake at the Willard Hotel, Washington, D.C., on 29 January 1938. Among the many notables who stayed at the Willard — or frequented its bar — in Emperor Norton's day were Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Julia Ward Howe, who wrote the lyrics to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" while staying at the hotel. Photo: Library of Congress. For more on the Willard Hotel, click here.
The Emperor's Norton Trust’s seventh annual celebration of the Emperor's historical birthday on February 4th — a tradition we inaugurated with a party for the Emp's 197th, in 2015 — takes place on Thursday 4 February 2021 at 6 p.m. Pacific / 9 p.m. Eastern.
Read More
With our founder, John Lumea, on the road to his new home in Boston, the Trust’s traditional celebration of Emperor Norton’s birthday is a virtual affair this year.
Read More
Piping the cake for Queen Charlotte's Birthday Ball, a charity event, c.1930, in support of Queen Charlotte's Maternity Hospital, in Hammersmith, London.
In February 2015, The Emperor’s Bridge Campaign inaugurated the modern tradition of celebrating Emperor Norton’s historical birth date with a 197th birthday party where we presented our research establishing 4 February 1818 as the Emperor’s date of birth.
We’ve been celebrating the Emperor’s birthday on February 4th ever since — including last year, when we led San Francisco in commemorating the Emperor’s 200th.
So, join the Campaign at the Comstock Saloon this coming February 4th to celebrate the Emperor’s 201st birthday…on his birthday!
Read More
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 MoreJoin The Emperor's Bridge Campaign in celebration of Emperor Norton's 199th birthday on 4 February 2017.
Read More
This 9-layer cake was created in 1916 to celebrate the 35th birthday of a large women's-goods store in Columbus, Ohio. The cake weighed nearly one ton. Source: Popular Science Monthly
Please join The Emperor's Bridge Campaign as we celebrate Emperor Norton's 198th birthday on 4 February 2016.
Read MoreJohn Tenniel's (1820-1914) illustration for the story of the Lion and the Unicorn, from Lewis Carroll's (1832-1898) novel, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871).
Was Emperor Norton really born in 1819, as his gravestone says? Or was he born in 1818? At the next event of The Emperor's Bridge Campaign, we'll shed new light on the answer to this old question.
Read More