The Emperor Norton Cartoon That Got the Jump on Jump

March 28, 2024 / John Lumea

Ask any careful student of the Emperor Norton story to name the most famous early cartoonist of the Emperor and they are likely to single out Edward Jump (1832–1883). They would be right about that.

They might go on to credit Jump as the first artist to depict Emperor Norton with the dogs Bummer and Lazarus. About this they would be wrong.

It's true that, in the early 1860s, Jump created three cartoons that featured the Emperor and the dogs in the same scene — and that these cartoons have been influential in associating the Emp with Bummer and Lazarus in the popular imagination.

But, Jump was not the first artist to make this connection.

That distinction goes to someone who was not even a cartoonist by profession — but whose lithographed and published cartoon, apparently sold as a standalone sheet, showing Bummer and Lazarus sitting near Emperor Norton predates by as much as a year or more Jump's earliest cartoon showing these characters together.

This is the story of the artist and the cartoon that appear to be Edward Jump's conceptual influencer.

That we are aware, this is the first time the story has been told.

Emperor Norton Was a San Francisco Fixture Within 3 Years of Declaring His Reign

January 16, 2024 / John Lumea

From the time that Joshua Norton publicly declared and signed himself “Norton I, Emperor of the United States” in his Proclamation published in the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin of 17 September 1859, there was a more or less steady pulse of newspaper publications of his subsequent Proclamations — as well as newspaper reports of activities and sightings of the new Emperor.

But, at what point was there evidence of a separate public consciousness that this “Emperor Norton” might be a new character that was here to stay — a public awareness of the Emperor’s early ubiquity and fame?

When did Emperor Norton start to go meta?

Here, we document the earliest signs of local awareness that a new player had arrived on the urban stage.

The Pantheonic Statuette of Norton I

May 30, 2023 / John Lumea

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.

The Emperor Norton Trust

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The Emperor Norton Cartoon That Got the Jump on Jump

Emperor Norton Was a San Francisco Fixture Within 3 Years of Declaring His Reign

The Pantheonic Statuette of Norton I