The Emperor Norton Trust

TO HONOR THE LIFE + ADVANCE THE LEGACY OF JOSHUA ABRAHAM NORTON

RESEARCH • EDUCATION • ADVOCACY

Rarely Seen 1876 Photo Offers a Tiny First Glimpse of Emperor Norton's Residence

October 21, 2020  /  John Lumea

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.

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categories / Research, Original sources, Places
tags / Eureka Lodgings, Commercial Street, U.S. Sub-Treasury, U.S. Branch Mint, 642 Commercial, 632 Commercial, 624 Commercial, 608 Commercial, Morning Call, Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Samuel Clemens, Eadweard Muybridge, Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress, 1876

Dating the Earliest Extant Photograph of Emperor Norton

October 08, 2020  /  John Lumea

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.

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categories / Research, Original sources
tags / photograph, epaulettes, art, cartoons, T. Grob, Edward Jump, Daily Alta California, 1860, 1859

Author & Journalist Gary Kamiya Cites Emperor Norton Trust in Correction on "Frisco"

October 04, 2020  /  John Lumea

In the Trivia Time feature that accompanied his 19 September 2020 history column for the San Francisco Chronicle, historian Gary Kamiya stated that Emperor Norton imposed a $25 fine for using the word “Frisco.”

In the Trivia Time that ran with his next column, published on 3 October 2020, Kamiya issued a correction and cited Emperor Norton Trust founder John Lumea as the authority for saying that “no primary documents have been found to support this claim.”

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categories / Media coverage, Research
tags / Frisco, Gary Kamiya, Portals of the Past, San Francisco Chronicle, 2020

What Did Andrew Smith Hallidie Know About Joshua Norton's Original Funding?

September 29, 2020  /  John Lumea

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.

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categories / Research, Original sources, Open Questions
tags / Andrew Smith Hallidie, Overland Monthly, John Norton, South America, Rio de Janeiro, Valparaiso, 1888

Emperor Norton, the Phoenix and the Branding of San Francisco

September 02, 2020  /  John Lumea

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!

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categories / Research, Original sources, Legacy
tags / hat plate, hat pin, photographs, art, phoenix, eagle, shield, three arrows, heraldry, Scotland, Scottish, George Washington, Continental Army, buttons, inaugural buttons, Robert Scot, Great Seal of the United States, U.S. Army, insignia, headgear, bell crown cap, light artillery cap, George Frederick Keller, Oscar Kunath, Michael Morgan, Jeremy Fish, Sam Flores, 1852, 1859, 1869, 1874, 1875, 1877, 1879, 2010, 2015, 2016

Charles A. Murdock, Second and Last Printer to Norton I: A Photo Gallery

August 24, 2020  /  John Lumea

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.

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categories / Research, Original sources
tags / Charles A. Murdock, photographs, printers, notes, bonds, Cuddy & Hughes, John Cuddy, Edward C. Hughes

Stereographic Photos of Emperor Norton on a Chinatown Street (Hi-Res Edition)

July 29, 2020  /  John Lumea

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.

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categories / Research, Original sources
tags / photograph, stereocard, stereoview, stereoscope, Chinatown, street, Thomas Houseworth, 1870s, unpublished

Life and Death of an Emperor Norton Mural (Bottle Caps Edition)

July 08, 2020  /  John Lumea

A fondly regarded public artwork — a mural-sized rendering of Emperor Norton in bottle caps — came on the scene in The Mission, San Francisco, in late 2011.

It left quietly a few months ago.

Photographs and Google street views from 2009 to the present document the rise, fade and fall.

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categories / Places, Tributes, Legacy, ARENA
tags / Art, public art, mural, bottle caps, Scott Bowers, Mission, Bryant Street

Emperor Norton in the Artistic Taxonomy of Antonio Sotomayor

May 06, 2020  /  John Lumea

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.

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categories / Research, Original sources, ARENA, Tributes, Legacy, Places
tags / art, mural, Antonio Sotomayor, Palace Hotel, Pied Piper, Happy Valley Room, San Francisco Arts Commission, Martin Snipper, Mark Twain, Bret Harte, The Great Unknown, Lotta Crabtree, Frederick Coombs, George Washington II, 1935, 1953

Emperor Norton, Political Independent, Gives a Speech in 1875

April 24, 2020  /  John Lumea

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.

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categories / Research, Original sources, Places
tags / politics, independence, no party, Mercantile Library, Evening Bulletin, Daily Alta California, 1875

Of Medals and Medallions: Four Artifacts of Mid-20th-Century “Norton Culture”

April 17, 2020  /  John Lumea

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.

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categories / Research, Tributes, Original sources, ARENA
tags / Emperor Norton Treasure Hunt, Grand Order of the West, Thanksgiving Day Parade, Playland at the Beach, medallion, medal, note, souvenir, San Francisco Chronicle, Shreve & Co., 1953

Even in Death and Wax, the Eyes of the Emperor Were on the Former HQ of Denis Kearney’s Anti-Chinese Crusade

March 20, 2020  /  John Lumea

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!

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categories / Research, Original sources, Legacy
tags / wax works, wax museum, Richard Wildblood Kohler, Richard W. Kohler, R.W. Kohler, Dick Kohler, John Wildblood Kohler, J.W. Kohler, Jack Kohler, music, England, Australia, New Zealand, Charter Oak House, California Workingmen's Party, Denis Kearney, Chinese, St. Ignatius College, Ignatius Hall, 1868, 1882, 1883

Library of Congress & Emperor Norton Trust Update Emperor Norton's Birth Year from 1819 to 1818

March 05, 2020  /  The Emperor Norton Trust

The Library of Congress, at the request of The Emperor Norton Trust, has updated its information for Emperor Norton, changing the Emperor’s birth year from 1819 to 1818 and adding 4 February 1818 as the birth date.

In its updated record, the Library has added a citation crediting the Trust as the source of the research that the Library used to make these changes.

The many research institutions and databases that use Library of Congress records as the basis for their listings now will be able to use the Library’s updated record for Joshua Abraham Norton to update their own subject headings for him.

As this happens, 1818 will become more and more widely accepted as the year when the Emperor was born.

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categories / News, Research
tags / Emperor Norton's birth date, Library of Congress, name authority record, subject heading, 2020

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