Did Two Emperors, Norton I and Pedro II, Really Meet in 1876?
The story goes that, when Pedro II, the Emperor of Brazil, visited San Francisco in April 1876, he and Norton I had a confab.
But, is this true?
Read MoreFiltering by Category: Original sources
The Other Side of Bagley Place
In recent years, there have been several claims on social media and elsewhere that Emperor Norton’s funeral in 1880 took place on the northeast corner of Bagley Place and O'Farrell Street, in San Francisco — on (or nearest to) the site of a building, still standing, that opened in 1910 as a bank; that in the last decade has housed an Emporio Armani store; and that today is home to the Museum of Ice Cream.
The temptation to connect this site to the Emperor’s funeral is understandable. The heavy, domed, stone-clad, temple-like edifice that now occupies the site has more than a touch of the funereal. Until very recently, the building had on the O’Farrell Street side medieval-looking, vault-like wooden doors that only added to the effect.
But, most likely, Emperor Norton’s funeral was across the street.
Read MoreThe "Emperor Norton" Disappeared from the Ghirardelli Menu a Decade Earlier Than Believed
In the 17 years since the San Francisco Chronicle noted in 2004 that the Emperor Norton Sundae no longer was on the menu at the Ghirardelli ice cream shop in San Francisco's Ghirardelli Square, the conventional wisdom has held that 2004 was when the “Emperor Norton” was removed.
But, I always have pointed out that 2004 is when the absence was noticed and reported as news — the removal itself could have happened earlier.
Turns out I was right. But, the cherry on top may be that the Emperor Norton Sundae has been hiding in plain sight at Ghirardelli — under a different name — for 20-plus years.
Read MoreRarely Seen 1876 Photo Offers a Tiny First Glimpse of Emperor Norton's Residence
From late 1862 / early 1863 until his death in January 1880, Emperor Norton lived at the Eureka Lodgings — a kind of 19th-century SRO located at 624 Commercial Street, on the north side of Commercial between Montgomery and Kearny Streets, in San Francisco.
There is a handful of 1860s–1880s photographs, taken from across Montgomery or Kearny, that show distant views of the 600 block of Commercial Street.
What we’d never seen, though, is a photo of the 600 block of Commercial taken during the Emperor’s lifetime — taken from within the block — and showing the real, intimate flavor of the section of the street where Emperor Norton lived.
Our discovery, hidden in plain sight, is a c.1876 photograph apparently taken by Eadweard Muybridge.
A bonus: The photo appears to reveal a glimpse of the Eureka Lodgings itself.
If we’re right about this, we may have produced the first-ever visual ID of photographic evidence of the Emperor’s residence.
Kind of a big deal.
Read MoreDating the Earliest Extant Photograph of Emperor Norton
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.
Read MoreWhat Did Andrew Smith Hallidie Know About Joshua Norton's Original Funding?
The conventional “wisdom” is that Joshua Norton arrived in San Francisco in 1849 with a $40,000 bequest from the estate of his father, John Norton, who had died in 1848.
But, if Norton arrived with $40,000, he almost certainly didn’t get it from his father — who had died insolvent and broke.
So, what was the source of Joshua Norton’s original funding — $40,000 or otherwise?
Andrew Smith Hallidie, the “father of the cable car,” knew Joshua Norton as Emperor — and probably before that as well.
In 1888, Hallidie published an article suggesting that Norton had arrived in San Francisco as a “representative and confidant” of English backers.
This is quite different from the account one often hears.
Read MoreObituaries, Death Notices and Memories of Emperor Norton, January 1880: A Partial Listing
Detail from headline of article reporting on the 10 January 1880 funeral of Emperor Norton, San Francisco Chronicle, 11 January 1880, p. 8. Source: San Francisco Public Library.
When Emperor Norton died on 8 January 1880, there were 38 stars on the United States flag.
Remarkably, by the end of January, newspapers located in at least 33 of the current and future states of the Union had carried news of the Emperor’s death and funeral, as well as related stories and memories of the Emp.
Here is a listing of those papers that The Emperor Norton Trust has been able to determine took note of Emperor Norton’s passing during the month of January 1880.
We’ll add to the list as we learn of others.
Read MoreEmperor Norton, the Phoenix and the Branding of San Francisco
Photographs of Emperor Norton show that, just as the Emperor had a favorite walking stick, he also had a favorite hat pin — in the shape of a spread-winged bird.
Artists in the Emperor’s day painted and drew him wearing this pin.
It’s not surprising that contemporary San Francisco artists have rendered the bird as a phoenix.
Alas — spoiler alert! — it turns out that Emperor Norton did not wear a phoenix in his hat; the Emperor’s bird was a military American eagle.
But, this particular eagle does trace its heraldic roots to a phoenix — albeit it not a San Francisco one.
The fascinating story of how the phoenix of Scottish heraldry was transformed into the eagle of U.S. government iconography traces through the righteous Scottish cause of Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Continental Army coat buttons of George Washington and the design of the Great Seal of the United States.
One could say that Emperor Norton was wearing an eagle and a phoenix all at once: appropriate for an Emperor of the United States whose Seat was in the cool, grey city of love.
Pull up a chair!
Read MoreCharles A. Murdock, Second and Last Printer to Norton I: A Photo Gallery
Charles Murdock was a friend of Emperor Norton.
He also was a fine printer who created and produced the Emperor’s promissory notes for two years — from January 1878 until the Emperor’s death in January 1880.
Here are four rarely seen photographs of Emperor Norton’s printer and good friend.
Read MoreStereographic Photos of Emperor Norton on a Chinatown Street (Hi-Res Edition)
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.
Read MoreEmperor Norton in the Artistic Taxonomy of Antonio Sotomayor
The Emperor Norton mural in The Pied Piper, at the Palace Hotel, in San Francisco — painted by the city’s longtime “artist laureate,” Antonio Sotomayor (1904–1985) — is one of the best-known and -loved Emperor-themed works of art.
A newly discovered art-historical survey done for the San Francisco Arts Commission in 1953 offers an elusive date for the painting — and a new way of seeing it.
Includes rarely seen photographs.
Read MoreEmperor Norton, Political Independent, Gives a Speech in 1875
Here, we document our discovery of something we’ve never seen reported elsewhere: Emperor Norton’s attendance and participation at a “no party” political meeting held at the Mercantile Library, San Francisco, on 13 July 1875.
The Emperor’s role is included in next-day accounts from two San Francisco newspapers — the Daily Evening Bulletin and the Daily Alta California — as well as in a San Francisco dispatch that appeared in the Los Angeles Evening Express.
Read MoreOf Medals and Medallions: Four Artifacts of Mid-20th-Century “Norton Culture”
The period of the 1950s and ‘60s was a high-water mark of the Norton Cultural Complex in San Francisco.
Probably the best-known engine of “Emperor Norton awareness” during this time was the San Francisco Chronicle’s Emperor Norton Treasure Hunt. But, there were many other Norton-related projects, too — and some of them left behind beautiful physical traces.
At least three — perhaps all four — of the Nortonian artifacts discussed here trace their origins, production and promotion to the Chronicle.
And, two of them — a medallion and a medal — are relics of a “Grand Order of the West” that remains very mysterious indeed.
Includes rarely seen photographs.
Read MoreEven in Death and Wax, the Eyes of the Emperor Were on the Former HQ of Denis Kearney’s Anti-Chinese Crusade
In late 1882 — just shy of three years after Emperor Norton died in January 1880 — two brothers, Dick and Jack Kohler — arrived in San Francisco from Australia.
The Kohler brothers were known as musicians — quite famous ones — and had spent much of the 1870s in San Francisco cultivating that reputation.
But, on this return visit, the Kohlers brought something new: 150 wax figures, which they set up as a wax museum on Market Street.
A month after opening the museum, the Kohlers added a new figure to the exhibit: Emperor Norton.
The specific venue where this waxen Emperor stood watch is as significant as the tribute itself.
It’s a fascinating story. Dig in!
Read MoreOn the Road to the Emperor Norton Bridge, 1926–1932
Between 1926 and 1932, local, state and federal authorities in San Francisco; Oakland; California; and Washington, D.C., leaned in to an intense process for determining how best to create a transbay vehicular and rail bridge linking Oakland and San Francisco.
There were at least four major studies focusing solely on the bridge issue or, in one case, the bridge as part of broader regional transportation concerns.
Three of these studies — in 1926, 1927, and 1930 — included the specific location and route that Emperor Norton backed in 1872: Oakland to San Francisco via Goat Island, with a San Francisco landing at Telegraph Hill.
All three of these studies shortlisted two options that, between them, included these features: (1) direct connections between the traffic centers of Oakland and San Francisco; (2) a “hinge” at Goat Island (Yerba Buena Island); and (3) a San Francisco landing at Rincon Hill.
The 1930 study was the first to include an option that put all these features into one location and route — the one that eventually was built.
Read on for the Big Picture story of how it all came together — including the top-line maps, produced for these studies at the time, that illustrate the evolution of the design of the Emperor Norton Bridge.
Read MoreLockhart & Porter, Undertakers and Casket Makers to the Emperor in 1880
The two book-length biographies of Emperor Norton, published in 1939 and 1986, mention “the undertakers” and “the undertaking rooms.” But, a blind spot in Norton studies has been that there was a specific firm — with a name and an address — that provided funeral and burial services for the Emperor, including manufacturing the oft-mentioned rosewood and silver-trimmed casket.
We know that the Emperor’s old friend, James G. Eastland, and friends of Eastland’s at the Pacific Club raised the money and made the arrangements — but, rarely mentioned is who was on the other side of the contract.
The obituaries didn’t name the firm. And, the name appears to have been mentioned only a couple of times by later writers — in 1946 and again in 1974. But, even these were only passing mentions.
Here, we rescue from obscurity the name and the early history of a business that played a crucial role in giving Emperor Norton a fitting farewell.
Read MoreOofty Goofty Wore a Leather Pad in His Pants
Accounts of Emperor Norton often note that he is the most famous of a larger cast of Public Characters that peopled the streets of San Francisco during his lifetime.
But, with the exception of Frederick Coombs a.k.a. George Washington II, the biographical particulars of these Characters — legal names; dates of birth and death; and exactly when, and for how long, they were in San Francisco — often are left in clouds of ambiguity.
As it happens, one of the most famous Characters mentioned in connection with Emperor Norton didn’t even arrive in San Francisco until three or four years after the Emperor’s death.
Harvested from contemporaneous newspaper accounts, this timeline of five of the Characters most often associated with Emperor Norton — The Money King; George Washington II; The Great Unknown; The King of Pain; and Oofty Goofty — fills in many biographical blanks and finds surprising new details about the careers of these legendary figures.
Read MoreEmperor Norton & Denis Kearney, Together in 1879 — On the Back Cover of The San Francisco Illustrated Wasp
Emperor Norton and the fear-mongering, violence-inciting demagogue Denis Kearney were on opposite sides of California’s “Chinese question.” But, in December 1879, the two men were depicted together on the back cover of The San Francisco Illustrated Wasp, in a cartoon by George Frederick Keller.
The cartoon spoke volumes about the Emperor’s moral stature.
Read MoreEmperor Norton Days, 1989
Exactly 30 years ago — in mid-July 1989 — there was a big carnival in Civic Center Plaza, San Francisco. There was a midway with games. Some 25 “giant” rides. Sideshows. Food. There were concerts at night.
This was a big deal! It was called Emperor Norton Days.
The carnival was slated for Thursday 13 July to Sunday 16 July 1989 — but, it was so popular, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors granted an extension for the following weekend, from Thursday the 20th to Sunday the 23rd.
Although there were plans for a second Emperor Norton Days, in July 1990, it appears that the carnival might have had only the one run, in 1989.
Were you there?
Read MoreChief Crowley Releases a Sword
On 16 February 1880 — a little more than a month after Emperor Norton’s death on 8 January — the San Francisco Board of Supervisors conveyed the Emperor’s main personal effects to the Society of California Pioneers.
San Francisco Police Chief Patrick Crowley, who famously had released the Emperor from jail in January 1867 — the morning after an overzealous member of the police auxiliary had falsely arrested the Emperor on bogus charges of vagrancy and lunacy — had one more item to add to the Pioneers’ new collection of Imperial artifacts.
The Police Department had been holding on to it for 15 years.
Read More