TO HONOR THE LIFE + ADVANCE THE LEGACY OF JOSHUA ABRAHAM NORTON
RESEARCH • EDUCATION • ADVOCACY
To celebrate the advent of the bike craze in San Francisco, as memorialized by Eadweard Muybridge's iconic 1869 photograph of Emperor Norton on a bone-shaker, The Emperor's Bridge Campaign is delighted to be partnering with SF Tweed and San Francisco Steampunks to present a May Day bike ride ending with a picnic at Marina Green. Our friends from the Mechanics' Institute also will be joining us. Details on the flip!
Read MoreIn 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.
Read MoreAt 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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Emperor Norton and his "ride," 1869. Photograph by Eadweard Muybridge. Collection of the Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley.
One of the most iconic images of Emperor Norton is an 1869 photo, taken by the pioneering photographer and inventor Eadweard Muybridge, of the Emperor astride a "velocipede," the contraption — newfangled at the time — that we know as the bicycle.
To celebrate this famous photograph, The Emperor's Bridge Campaign is partnering with the Mechanics' Institute, SF Tweed and San Francisco Steampunks to present a "couplet" of events: a free lecture at the Mechanics' Institute on Wednesday 20 April and The Emperor's Ride — a bike ride and picnic on May Day.
Read MoreFor 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.
Read MoreIn 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!
Read MoreNo 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.
Read MoreIt 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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This 9-layer cake was created in 1916 to celebrate the 35th birthday of a large women's-goods store in Columbus, Ohio. The cake weighed nearly one ton. Source: Popular Science Monthly
Please join The Emperor's Bridge Campaign as we celebrate Emperor Norton's 198th birthday on 4 February 2016.
Read MoreIn this letter to supporters and friends, Emperor's Bridge Campaign president John Lumea reviews the Campaign's accomplishments in 2015 and looks ahead to its opportunities in 2016.
Read MoreHere, 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.
Read MoreIn 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."
Read MoreEmperor 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 Christmas tree in Union Square, San Francisco, 1910. Original black-and-white source photograph: Collection of the Oakland Public Library history room. Hand-tinted version © Bennett Hall 2015.
The Emperor's Bridge Campaign invites one and all to join us in this third enactment of a new holiday tradition. From the Christmas tree in Union Square, San Francisco, we process to The House of Shields saloon, where we raise a glass to Emperor Norton in celebration of the legend that the tree was the Emperor's idea. Please join us!
Read MoreThe Emperor outlines his immigration policy in this timely Proclamation, published in the Pacific Appeal newspaper on 24 April 1875.
Read MoreIn 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.
Read MoreA Proclamation of Thanks to all those who pledged to the summer 2015 Kickstarter for the limited edition t-shirt to inaugurate the Campaign's series of Sartorial Public Service Announcements.
Read MoreThe Emperor's Bridge Campaign is delighted to announce the appointment of John Law to join us as our newest Advisor.
Read MoreWhen we tried to establish the authenticity of an unsourced "Norton I" signature, we found the source — and a whole lot more.
Read MoreThe 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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