Four Previously Unpublished Photographs of the Emperor Norton Reburial Ceremony of 1934

December 12, 2024 / John Lumea

In response to the early 1930s closure and clearing of San Francisco's Masonic Cemetery, where Emperor Norton had been buried in 1880, a group of business and civic leaders who were members of the Pacific–Union Club came together in early 1934 and formed the Emperor Norton Memorial Association for the purpose of securing a new grave site and headstone for the Emperor.

Following the Emperor's April 1934 reburial in a plot the Association had purchased in Woodlawn Cemetery, Colma, Calif., the Association held a public dedication ceremony at the grave site on Saturday 30 June 1934.

It appears that, with a couple of exceptions, all of the newspaper coverage of this event that included photography featured one — very occasionally both — of two specific uncredited photos.

This week, we discovered that the photographs were taken by San Francisco Examiner staff photographer George Elmer Sheldon and that Sheldon actually took 6 photographs that day — including 4 photos that apparently were never published.

All 6 photographs were part of a 2006 donation of some 5 million photos from the San Francisco Examiner's photo morgue, c.1930–2000, to the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley.

As of February 2024, only about 22,000 of these photographs had been digitized and made available via the Berkeley Library Digital Collections website.

Happily, George Sheldon's 6 photographs of the June 1934 dedication ceremony for Emperor Norton’s reburial and headstone are among these.

According to Berkeley Library's viewing statistics for its Digital Collections page for this group of photographs, the photos have been viewed via the page only a handful of times since October 2021 — which presumably corresponds to when the photos went live on the page.

We present all 6 photographs here. We believe this is the first time the four unpublished photos of the ceremony — including a lovely capture of Golden Gate Park superintendent John McLaren helping to unveil the Emperor's new headstone — have been published outside the Berkeley database.

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categories / Research, Places, Original sources
tags / photograph, photographs, photographer, grave, reburial, headstone, Woodlawn Cemetery, Emperor Norton Memorial Association, Ernest Wiltsee, John McLaren, William Henry Crocker, Robert Ernest Cowan, San Francisco Examiner, George E. Sheldon, Bancroft Library, Charles A. Shurtleff, unpublished, 1932, 1934, 2006

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

The "Emperor Norton" Trees of Mariposa and Calaveras

April 24, 2024 / John Lumea

Some years ago, I happened upon a lengthy newspaper article — from the 1890s, if memory serves — with a list of honorarily named California redwoods. One of the trees carried the name “Emperor Norton” — so, I made a mental note and resolved to return to this “detective ground” in the future.

Recently, I was delighted to find photographic evidence of an “Emperor Norton” tree: an apparently unpublished stereocard by Eadweard Muybridge, dated 1868, showing a man in a deep bow before a redwood with an "Emperor Norton" sign affixed to it.

The Bancroft Library, which has the card, identifies the site of Muybridge's scene as "Probably in the Mariposa Grove, near Yosemite Valley."

In my effort to confirm this detail, I found multiple references — from the period between 1867 and 1910 — to "Emperor Norton" trees in both of the noted redwood sections of Yosemite: the one in Mariposa County and another in Calaveras County.

The evidence strongly suggests that the tree in Muybridge's stereograph is in Calaveras.

High-resolution image included.

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categories / Research, Places, Tributes, Original sources
tags / tree, redwood, sequoia, name, "Emperor Norton" tree, Calaveras County, Big Trees, Mariposa County, Mariposa Grove, photograph, stereograph, stereocard, Eadweard Muybridge, Yosemite, Edward Jump, 1867, 1868, 1870, 1872

A Better Date for Two Photographs of Emperor Norton

March 10, 2024 / John Lumea

Even at the most storied research libraries and historical societies, the catalog records for artifacts like early photographs — including basic details like the date and the photographer — can be notoriously unreliable.

Often, these records were created decades, even a century or more, ago — long before the advent of library science as a professional research discipline — and have not been reassessed or updated since then. Digitized, perhaps, but basically fossilized and forgotten. What this means for researchers is that catalog info can be little more than a starting point.

For the last decade, The Emperor Norton Trust has used 1864 as the date for two photographs of the Emperor that appear to have been taken during the same sitting. The date was from the catalog record of a major research institution — and, based on a variety of contextual factors, it was the only credible citation we were able to find.

Recently, we noted that the institution has removed this citation. This, together with our discovery of a new piece of evidence potentially relating to the photographs, prompted us to take a second look at the date question.

As a result of our investigation, we have revised our date for these photos.

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categories / Research, Original sources
tags / photograph, date, Bradley & Rulofson, Daily Alta California, Albert S. Evans, 1859, 1860, 1863, 1864, 1867, 1869

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

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

Joshua Norton, Pioneer

August 08, 2023 / John Lumea

In Colville’s San Francisco directory of 1856, Joshua Norton listed his “office” address as Pioneer Hall — the Society of California Pioneers’ headquarters and clubhouse on Portsmouth Square, San Francisco.

Joshua declared bankruptcy in 1856, so his living arrangements might have been unstable. But, he was affiliated with a Masonic lodge during this period — while he was not a member of the Pioneers.

So why did he list himself at Pioneer Hall rather than Masonic Hall (on Montgomery Street)?

Here’s a closer look at this episode, in which — apparently — Joshua Norton and the Pioneers were drawn into one anothers’ orbits and revealed things about one another in the process.

Includes a rarely seen 1861 photograph of Pioneer Hall after the Society had added “Pioneers” signage to the top of the building.

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categories / Research, Places, Original sources
tags / Society of California Pioneers, Pioneer Hall, Portsmouth Square, James Lick, Samuel Colville, address, directory, photograph, Overland Monthly, George R. Fardon, 1850, 1855, 1856, 1857, 1858, 1862, 1863

The Ferry Building Clock Tower from Emperor Norton's Street

July 20, 2023 / John Lumea

The best-known vista of the 245-foot-tall clock tower of the San Francisco Ferry Building is from along Market Street, looking northeast.

The best-known street vista — but not the only one.

The clock tower also rises as the eastern visual terminus of Commercial Street.

On today’s Commercial Street, the tower is most readily seen from the 2-block stretch between Montgomery Street to the east and Grant Avenue to the west. This is the stretch adjacent to, and near, the former site of 624 Commercial between Montgomery and Kearny Streets — where Emperor Norton lived from 1864/65 until his death in 1880.

The view of the Ferry Building clock tower from here is one reason why The Emperor Norton Trust has proposal that the tower be named Emperor Norton Tower. You can read our proposal and commentaries by clicking the Learn More button at EmperorNortonTower.org.

Click through for a series of seven views of the clock tower photographed from the 7-block stretch of Commercial Street between Drumm Street and Grant Avenue during the first half of the tower’s 125-year life-so-far — the period between c.1900 and 1960.

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categories / Research, Places, Projects, Tributes
tags / San Francisco Ferry Building, Ferry Building, clock tower, Commercial Street, photograph, photo, 1898, 1900, 1935, 1959, 1960, Emperor Norton Tower

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.

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categories / Research, Original sources, Tributes, ARENA
tags / Art, sculpture, statue, statuette, figurine, Herman J. Brand, Jonas Brand, jeweler, sculptor, plaster, medallion, token, charm, gold, saloon, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Society of California Pioneers, Wells Fargo History Museum, Santa Rosa Press Democrat, Allen Stanley Lane, William Drury, photograph, cabinet card, painting, lithograph, terra cotta, Pantheon, pantheonic, Rome, Oxford English Dictionary, 1862, 1865, 1867, 1868, 1869, 1872, 1876, 1877, 1878, 1879, 1880, 1881, 1883, 1906, 1921, 1930, 1935, 1939, 1986, 2021

Beinecke Library and The Emperor Norton Trust Partner to Correct Description of Carte de Visite

April 14, 2023 / John Lumea

At the suggestion and request of The Emperor Norton Trust, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University has corrected its description of a carte de visite photograph by Jacob Shew that was misidentified as being possibly of Emperor Norton.

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categories / Research, News
tags / carte de visite, photograph, Jacob Shew, Beinecke Library, Yale University, Carl Mautz, catalog, record, correction, update, 1860, 1867, 1868, 1869, 1870, 1871

An 1875 Photo Captures the Flavor of the Street Adjacent to Emperor Norton's Publisher and Printer

September 14, 2021 / John Lumea

Much of the relevant background is in the title.

The rare, fine-grained, wonderfully textured photograph, a stereoview, is by J.J. Reilly.

It's beautiful.

What's left is to get your bearings and see the view — which you can do by clicking below!

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categories / Research, Places, Original sources
tags / San Francisco, photography, photograph, stereoview, Sansome Street, Commercial Street, Clay Street, Niantic Building, Pacific Appeal, Cuddy & Hughes, J.J. Reilly, 1875

A Ring to Kiss?

August 10, 2021 / John Lumea

In three late-in-life studio portrait photographs — taken c.1878 by two different studios — Emperor Norton can be seen wearing a mysterious ring.

Were the rings shown in these photographs one and the same? Or were they different?

Was one, or both, a gift? If so: Did one, or both, of the rings feature an Emperor Norton insignia or inscription of some kind?

Was one a Masonic ring — a symbol the Emperor’s membership in Occidental Lodge No. 22 of Free and Accepted Masons?

Was the Emperor buried with one of these rings?

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categories / Research, Original sources
tags / photograph, photo, cabinet card, ring, Bradley & Rulofson, Imperial Gallery, Hector William Vaughan, 1878, 1879

Rarely Seen Version of Familiar Photo Reveals Clearer Picture of Emperor Norton

May 10, 2021 / John Lumea

In the mid to late 1870s, the Bradley & Rulofson studio created one of the seven photo-portraits of Emperor Norton the studio is known to have taken of the Emperor during his reign. The seated Emperor is holding his favorite walking stick, and his Chinese umbrella is propped against the chair.

The best-known version of this photograph appeared in a book published in 1964. The photo appears very dark — which adds to the mood but also obscures many details.

Here, we present a rarely seen brighter, more balanced — and more revealing — version of the photo that appeared in 1961.

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categories / Research, Original sources
tags / photograph, photographs, photography, Bradley & Rulofson, Ward Ritchie Press, Calcoin News, Fred R. Marckhoff, Ralph A. Mitchell, 1870s, 1961, 1964

Dating the Earliest Extant Photograph of Emperor Norton

October 08, 2020 / John Lumea

It appears that the earliest known photograph of Emperor Norton is a little earlier than we thought — and earlier than anyone else has said.

The case for the time frame that we focus on here draws on early artistic depictions of the Emperor and on one of the Emperor’s earliest sartorial choices, which is documented in an easy-to-miss newspaper item from May 1860.

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categories / Research, Original sources
tags / photograph, epaulettes, art, cartoons, T. Grob, Edward Jump, Daily Alta California, 1860, 1859

Stereographic Photos of Emperor Norton on a Chinatown Street (Hi-Res Edition)

July 29, 2020 / John Lumea

Last week, a long-rumored and probably unpublished pair of stereocard photographs of Emperor Norton on a street in San Francisco’s Chinatown appeared on Facebook.

The Emperor Norton Trust is delighted to be able to publish, for the first time, large, hi-res images of the original stereocard, courtesy of the previous owner.

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categories / Research, Original sources
tags / photograph, stereocard, stereoview, stereoscope, Chinatown, street, Thomas Houseworth, 1870s, unpublished

Emperor Norton, c.1871–72

June 27, 2017 / John Lumea

A little more than half of the 17 extant photographs of Emperor Norton have reliable dates attached. In this context, "date" means year.

Armed with one historical lead, a good set of links to early San Francisco directories, some basic detective skills and a little patience, we set out to pin down the date of a well-known photograph of Emperor Norton that had no date.

We found it.

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categories / Original sources, Research
tags / photograph, photography, Tuttle & Johnson, William Nutting Tuttle, Charles Wallace Jacob Johnson, Cosmopolitan Art Gallery, 1871, 1872

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