Arriving in San Francisco in 1858, Oscar Penn Fitzgerald (1829-1911) was the founder and sometime preacher at one of the churches that was on Emperor Norton's Sunday rotation. By the time he returned to his native South in 1878, Fitzgerald had become an influential leader in the development of higher education in California. They were twenty years that enabled Fitzgerald to witness firsthand nearly the whole of the Emperor's reign.
O.P. Fitzgerald's second book of "California Sketches," published in 1881, features one of the most carefully observed and wonderfully drawn portraits of Emperor Norton that we have — exploring, with great empathy, the paradox of an Emperor who carried a Bologna sausage in his hip pocket but whose nobility of mind and bearing were such as to rob his title of any paradox at all.
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In the mid 1880s, a Canadian illustrator and writer named Palmer Cox, then living in New York, started make a name for himself with a children's comic series that followed the exploits of fairy-like creatures called Brownies. But when Cox published his first book, in 1874, he was nearing the end of a 12-year stint in San Francisco. The book, a diary collection of Twain-like comic sketches, included Cox's endearing illustration of one of the city's most famous citizens.
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Ever the "union man," Emperor Norton was as ecumenical in matters of politics as he was in matters of religion.
In a cameo appearance on the front page of the 21 February 1861 edition of the Daily Alta California newspaper, the Emperor needed only five crisp words to pin his pro-Union colors unmistakably to the mast.
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In July 1869, Emperor Norton issued a Proclamation urging his subjects to do everything in their power to advance the steam-powered airship experiments of Frederick Marriott. Six years later, in 1875, Marriott published a beautiful map of San Francisco.
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At the recent San Francisco History Days fair at the city's landmark Old Mint building, Stephen Parr of the San Francisco Media Archive and Oddball Films screened a rarity from the Oddball archive — a 1947 film short titled Emperor Norton, from the Academic Film Company.
In fact, Emperor Norton is a retitled reissue of the film The Story of Norton I, made by Columbia Pictures in 1936. This may be the earliest film portrayal of the Emperor.
We haven't yet connected all the dots. But the picture of this film is much clearer than it was. It's a fascinating story.
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For nearly 50 years, Allen Stanley Lane's 1939 biography of Emperor Norton was recognized as the standard reference on the subject. But, as often as Lane is cited in Norton studies and within "the Norton community" more generally, it appears that there is no online record of Lane — apart from references to the fact that he wrote his book.
There appears to be no mention of Lane's personal life — or of anything else he might have written or produced about Emperor Norton.
So it's been gratifying, over the last couple weeks, to have been "gifted" with a couple more documentary signs of Lane's existence.
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In August 2015, The Emperor's Bridge Campaign received a generous seed grant from the San Francisco History Association to research, write and publish a book of selected Proclamations of Emperor Norton — a resource that doesn't exist today. Our goal is to produce a collection of Proclamations that illustrates the full range of the Emperor's concerns.
Next up in the Campaign's series of Chamber Talks, we'll preview some of what we've discovered so far. Please join us!
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No proclamation attributed to Emperor Norton more often is actually quoted than the one in which he is said to have railed against the word "Frisco." But did the Emperor actually write this? As it turns out, the source of the "Frisco" proclamation is far from clear. In this wide-ranging, link-packed essay, we detail our quest for the origins of the decree and find that all roads may lead to 1939.
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It stands to reason that The Emperor’s Bridge Campaign* is one of the few organizations or individuals to be actively researching the question of whether Emperor Norton wrote the anti-"Frisco” proclamation so often attributed to him. So it was gratifying, a couple of days ago, to have our efforts acknowledged by the respected San Francisco-based magazine Mother Jones.
* In December 2019, The Emperor's Bridge Campaign adopted a new name: The Emperor Norton Trust.
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Here, in one handy list, are the links to The Emperor's Campaign's original research and other commentary that we published on our blog in 2015.
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In a brief article last year, veteran San Francisco journalist Lynn Ludlow offered a fascinating, erudite and thought-provoking account of why early Herb Caen had it all wrong on "Frisco."
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Emperor Norton was a favorite subject of a number of celebrity portrait photography studios that came to prominence in San Francisco during his reign. The Emperor is most closely associated with the studio of Bradley & Rulofson; and he was included in the studio's Celebrity Catalogue, which clients used to order prints of photographs produced by the studio. The Catalogue was a kind of index of the social stratification of the day — and offers a window into the Emperor's place in the social structure.
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The Emperor outlines his immigration policy in this timely Proclamation, published in the Pacific Appeal newspaper on 24 April 1875.
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In the late nineteenth century, the popular amusement resort known as Woodward's Gardens — located in the area that now is San Francisco's Mission District — had what has been called the West Coast's largest rollerskating rink. In March 1872, Emperor Norton tried to go for a skate there. The Emperor was turned away. He was not happy.
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When we tried to establish the authenticity of an unsourced "Norton I" signature, we found the source — and a whole lot more.
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The Emperor's Bridge Campaign is pleased to announce that the nonprofit San Francisco History Association, as part of its Research Gift program, recently awarded the Campaign with a lead grant to develop and publish a book of selected Proclamations of Emperor Norton.
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In the current San Francisco mayoral election, one of the challengers to sitting mayor Ed Lee has offered an anti-corruption plan that includes a proposal that San Francisco create a new elected office for a Public Advocate.
Other major cities already have Public Advocates; the level of authority depends on the city.
But the general idea is that the Public Advocate is a kind of official watchdog — someone who helps to ensure that the citizens are being treated fairly; that government agencies and private companies are properly maintaining basic utilities and services like streets, public transit, water, electricity and gas (and not gouging the people in the process); and that corruption that affects the general populace is called out wherever it is found.
Sound familiar? It should.
The original Public Advocate is Emperor Norton.
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Three intriguing photographs of Emperor Norton taken by the studio of Thomas Houseworth & Co. in the 1870s show the evolution of the Emperor's style.
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One of the most arresting and enigmatic images of Emperor Norton is an 1870s watercolor of him — in street clothes and smoking a pipe — that hung for more than 30 years in the library of the Bohemian Club, in San Francisco. No doubt known by the Emperor himself during his lifetime, this painting later made its way into the Overland Monthly — thanks, in part, to a member of Robert Louis Stevenson's extended family.
Here's the story of this wonderful portrait.
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Herb Caen had his reason's for not liking "Frisco." But perhaps they had very little to do with Emperor Norton.
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