TO HONOR THE LIFE + ADVANCE THE LEGACY OF JOSHUA ABRAHAM NORTON
RESEARCH • EDUCATION • ADVOCACY
The 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 MoreIn 1934, Emperor Norton was (re)buried in Colma, Calif. But the connection of Colma to the life of San Francisco runs much, much deeper than simply providing real estate for burial plots. SF Weekly reporter Joe Eskenazi was up this past week with a really fine historical-observational piece that fleshes out everything that Colma has done for San Francisco, and why this matters.
Read MoreYesterday, I was honored to be welcomed by Clampers far and wide as a guest at their Emperor Norton Day celebration in Colma, Calif.
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 MoreOn Emperor Norton Day 2015, the 135th anniversary of the Emperor's passing on 8 January 1880, The Emperor's Bridge Campaign left a flower and a note at the Emperor's grave in Woodlawn Memorial Park, Colma, Calif. Here's a gallery from the day.
Read MoreOn this day in 1872, the Pacific Appeal newspaper published the first of Emperor Norton's three Proclamations that year setting out the original vision for the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Here's how the Proclamation appeared on the front page, 143 years ago today.
Read MoreTwo opportunities to mark the 135th anniversary of Emperor Norton's death on Thursday 8 January 1880.
Read MoreHere's how Emperor Norton wished his subjects a Happy New Year one-hundred forty years ago today — on 2 January 1875.
Read MoreMight an elder statesman of San Francisco and California state politics take one more run at Sacramento and use the opportunity to make a bold and elegant gesture?
Hmmmm . . .
Read MoreAccording to Google Trends, an identifiable surge in Bay Area interest in Emperor Norton began in late 2011. The surge continues today.
Read MoreA recap of The Emperor's Bridge Campaign's 2nd Annual Tannenbaum Toast, held on Sunday 14 December 2014 at Union Square and The House of Shields, San Francisco.
Read MoreTHE CHRISTMAS TREE IN UNION SQUARE, SAN FRANCISCO, 1910. Collection of the Oakland Public Library history room.
Join The Emperor's Bridge Campaign for The 2nd Annual Tannenbaum Toast!
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.
Read MoreCombing through microfiche of old San Francisco newspapers at the San Francisco Public Library yesterday, Emperor's Bridge Campaign board member Joseph Amster stumbled across an item on the front page of the 4 February 1865 edition of the Daily Alta California. The item invites us to take a much closer look at a possible birth date for Emperor Norton that was dismissed by earlier biographers.
Read MoreYesterday afternoon, at Comstock Saloon in San Francisco, six supporters of the Campaign — plus another, who found the nearest highway exit and joined us via cellphone from the road — gathered beneath the watchful gaze of the casting of Peter Macchiarini's sculpture of Emperor Norton that presides over Comstock's historic 1907 bar. In a joyful ceremony lubricated by Sazeracs, Manhattans, Bloody Marys, absinthes and beers — and punctuated by a lot of laughs — here's what we did.
Read MoreThe First Annual Tannenbaum Toast was a smashing success!
Read MoreThe official drink for The Tannenbaum Toast is The House of Shields's version of the classic Boothby cocktail — created in 1908 by legendary San Francisco bartender William T. "Cocktail" Boothby, during his tenure at the Palace Hotel, just across the street from The House of Shields.
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