So What, If Emperor Norton Had a Sweet Tooth?

February 24, 2026 / John Lumea

In 1936, the San Francisco News ran a profile of 75-year-old "pioneer bartender" Jimmy Giusto in which Giusto claimed that Emperor Norton preferred a bag of candy to a drink.

This prompted a letter from a George Murphy calling out Giusto for exaggerating his pioneer bona fides. Murphy claimed to be "a gentleman who drank with 'Emperor' Norton" and went on to assert that the Emperor could not have frequented candy stores, as that would have made the Emperor a "sissy."

We disagree with Murphy on the last point, as there is a practical reason why Emperor Norton could have had a fondness for candy.

But, the whole episode illustrates how slippery memory can be.

0 Likes

categories / Research, Original sources
tags / drinking, candy, memory, pioneer, profile, interview, letter to the editor, James Giusto, Jimmy Giusto, George Murphy, bartender, bar, saloon, tobacconist, 1856, 1861, 1879, 1886, 1936

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.

1 Likes

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

The Emperor Norton Trust

Filtering by Tag: saloon

So What, If Emperor Norton Had a Sweet Tooth?

The Pantheonic Statuette of Norton I