TO HONOR THE LIFE + ADVANCE THE LEGACY OF JOSHUA ABRAHAM NORTON
RESEARCH • EDUCATION • ADVOCACY
For all the hundreds of times that we've done a Google image search on "Emperor Norton" here at The Emperor's Bridge Campaign, the Internet still has gifts and surprises for us. Yesterday, it was the following image of a "cabinet card" of the Emperor dated c.1878 and credited to the studio of Bradley & Rulofson, which took many of the most famous photographs of Emperor Norton. We'd never seen this one.
Read More"As everyone knows, the Emperor Norton I. visits this city every Monday." So wrote the Oakland Tribune newspaper on 30 December 1879, a little more than a week before the Emperor died on 8 January 1880.
Although Emperor Norton often is pigeonholed as a creature of San Francisco, the truth is that he spent quite a bit of time visiting places that were outside the seat of his Empire. Here's a look at two of those places — Oakland and the adjacent Brooklyn, Calif. — as well as two of the Emperor's proclamations that were datelined "Brooklyn."
Images include: the original Oakland Tribune item; archival 1850s-'70s maps of Oakland, Brooklyn and Alameda; and two "Brooklyn proclamations" of 1872. Bonus: The story of The Tom Collins Hoax of 1874.
Read MoreEarly last month, we ran Eadweard Muybridge's wonderful exterior photograph of the 1866 building of the Mechanics' Institute, where Emperor Norton spent many afternoons, wrote many proclamations and played many games of chess. But the more elusive prize has been a photograph(s) of the building's interior — of the physical spaces that Emperor Norton himself inhabited on all those afternoons, so many years ago.
Happily, we now can close this gap.
Read MoreOf the hundreds of Norton-ish folks that we've met over the course of the last year or so, some of those who harbor the deepest fondness for Emperor Norton and his story identify with one of two groups: the Jewish community or numismatists, the latter being the proper term for historians of coin and currency.
Here's a little discovery that brings both groups together — and that advances the case for 1818 as the year of the Emperor's birth.
Read MoreThe story of those who stood by Emperor Norton at his death in 1880 — and two prominent organizations that did not, when the Emperor was reburied in 1934. Includes images of original archival documents published for the first time.
Read MoreIt long has been known that, upon Emperor Norton's death in January 1880, many of his personal effects — including his regimentals, a hat, his sword and his treasured Serpent Scepter, an elaborate walking stick given him by his subjects in Oregon — went to the Society of California Pioneers (only to be lost 26 years later in the earthquake and fire).
Many, but not all. This week, we discovered archival traces of an early 1880 donation to the Odd Fellows' Library Association of San Francisco. The donation — by David Hutchinson, Emperor Norton's longtime landlord at the Eureka Lodgings — included the stamp the Emperor used to place his seal on his proclamations. It might also have included the Emperor's final proclamation: written and sealed, but not yet delivered and published.
Read MoreA remarkable 1868 photograph of a San Francisco street scene that would have been very familiar to Emperor Norton.
Read MoreEmperor Norton wrote many — possibly even most — of his Proclamations during his regular afternoon visits to the Mechanics' Institute at 31 Post Street, where he also is said to have played a fine game of chess. Here's a look at how the Institute featured in the Emperor's daily life, illustrated by a couple of photographs of the building — including a wonderful shot by the pioneering photographer Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904), who also took the famous 1869 photo of the Emperor astride a bicycle.
Read MoreThis day in 1863 saw the auction of the furnishings and other contents of the Metropolitan Hotel at the southwest corner of Sansome and Bush Streets, in San Francisco. Emperor Norton had lived here for the past two years. A year or two later — between late summer 1864 and late summer 1865 — the Emperor began living at his best-known residence: the Eureka Lodgings, at 624 Commercial Street. Almost certainly, it was the closing of the Metropolitan that prompted the move towards Commercial Street. But this was not the first time Joshua Norton had lived at this corner.
Read MoreStarting sometime between summer 1864 and summer 1865, Emperor Norton occupied a sparsely furnished 9-by-6-foot room on the top floor of a 50-cent-per-night three-story boarding house known as the Eureka Lodgings. A little more than a decade earlier, the pre-imperial Joshua Norton enjoyed accommodation in one of the best hotels in San Francisco. What's surprising is that the difference between the daily rates of the two places appears to have been only about 50 cents.
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The block of Commercial Street, in San Francisco, where Emperor Norton lived from 1863 until his death in 1880. This 1888 photograph captures the view looking east from Kearny Street. Source: California Views: The Pat Hathaway Photo Collection.
Join The Emperor's Bridge Campaign as we kick off our occasional series of Field Talks with a visit to the block of Commercial Street, between Montgomery and Kearny Streets, in San Francisco, where we'll explore the histories of the site (and its surroundings) where Emperor Norton lived from 1863 until he died in 1880.
Read MoreHow two of the Emperor's most loyal subjects sought to celebrate him but — despite their best intentions — wound up leading a generation to get one of the most basic facts about him wrong.
Read MoreThe following illustrated remarks were presented by Emperor's Bridge Campaign founder and president John Lumea at The Emperor's 197th Birthday, the Campaign's "party and presentation of recent findings" held on 3 February 2015 at the Eric Quezada Center for Culture and Politics in San Francisco.
Read MoreThis past Tuesday evening (3 February) was a "school night." So, The Emperor's Bridge Campaign was delighted to welcome some 55-60 guests — including many new faces! — to the Eric Quezada Center for Culture and Politics at 518 Valencia Street in San Francisco, for The Emperor's 197th Birthday, a "party and presentation of recent findings" in support of the Campaign.
Read MoreEmperor Norton's biographer, William Drury, maintains that "February 4th" had nothing at all to do with "His Majesty's Birthday." But was Drury right?
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 MoreHere's how Emperor Norton wished his subjects a Happy New Year one-hundred forty years ago today — on 2 January 1875.
Read MoreAccording to Google Trends, an identifiable surge in Bay Area interest in Emperor Norton began in late 2011. The surge continues today.
Read MoreBuilding on Campaign board member Joseph Amster's recent "rediscovery" of am 1865 newspaper item pointing to an 1818 birth date for Emperor Norton, Campaign founder John Lumea examines Robert Ernest Cowan's influential 1923 essay about the Emperor and finds that Cowan manipulated the same news item to make it appear to support his own theory that Emperor Norton was born in 1819.
Read MoreIn 1820, 2-year-old Joshua Norton emigrated with his parents and older brother from England to South Africa. They and the 4,000 others who participated in this colonization scheme came to be known as the 1820 Settlers. This week, in response to Board member Joseph Amster's recent "rediscovery" of an 1865 newspaper item pointing to an 1818 birth date for Joshua Norton, the leading historical and genealogical Web site documenting the story of the 1820 Settlers movement updated its birth date for Emperor Norton.
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