The Emperor Norton Trust

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

RESEARCH • EDUCATION • ADVOCACY

Filtering by Tag: Eadweard Muybridge

The "Emperor Norton" Trees of Mariposa and Calaveras

Some years ago, I happened upon a lengthy newspaper article — from the 1890s, if memory serves — with a list of honorarily named California redwoods. One of the trees carried the name “Emperor Norton” — so, I made a mental note and resolved to return to this “detective ground” in the future.

Recently, I was delighted to find photographic evidence of an “Emperor Norton” tree: an apparently unpublished stereocard by Eadweard Muybridge, dated 1868, showing a man in a deep bow before a redwood with an "Emperor Norton" sign affixed to it. 

The Bancroft Library, which has the card, identifies the site of Muybridge's scene as "Probably in the Mariposa Grove, near Yosemite Valley."

In my effort to confirm this detail, I found multiple references — from the period between 1867 and 1910 — to "Emperor Norton" trees in both of the noted redwood sections of Yosemite: the one in Mariposa County and another in Calaveras County.

The evidence strongly suggests that the tree in Muybridge's stereograph is in Calaveras.

High-resolution image included. 

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Emperor Norton Does Art Criticism With a Borrowed Jackknife — And the Crowd Loves It

By 1861 — and for the 18-plus-year remainder of his reign — Emperor Norton was a favorite and enduring subject for San Francisco cartoonists and theater troupes, who found that local audiences enjoyed the good-natured lampooning of their Emperor.

The Emperor himself was less amused — and, there are a couple of oft-cited examples of the Emperor’s expressing his royal displeasure over how he was portrayed in these contexts.

Recently, we uncovered an “episode of displeasure” that is even better documented than the familiar examples.

The occasion was the mounting of an advertisement using Emperor Norton’s image on a construction fence at Montgomery and California Streets. The Emperor borrowed a jackknife; cut out the image of himself; and sliced the image to shreds.

The crowd, as they say, “went wild.”

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The Sporting Emperor Norton

Emperor Norton tried his hand at riding a bike — roller skating — even jumping rope.

Later, the Emperor was a regular attendee at everything from horse races to endurance walking marathons to wrestling tournaments.

Here’s a first effort at documenting an underappreciated “sporting” thread in the Emperor’s story.

This includes:

  • many new details about known episodes (velocipede; skating), 1869–72

  • several new episodes, 1873–79

Also includes documentation of what may be the last reported sighting of Emperor Norton.

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Emperor Norton’s Residence, the Eureka Lodgings, Was Not Located (Exactly) Where You Think It Was

Over the last 25 years or so, a consensus has emerged among those attuned to San Francisco history — and particularly among Nortonophiles — that the former site of the Eureka Lodgings — where Emperor Norton is documented to have lived between 1864/1865 and his death in 1880 — is the privately owned public open space (POPOS) known as Empire Park, located at 642 Commercial Street between Montgomery and Kearny Streets.

That's been the consensus.

But, a careful analysis of two key bodies of evidence — (1) photographs of this stretch of Commercial Street taken between 1877 and 1906, and (2) Sanborn fire insurance and official San Francisco block (property) maps from the generation or two before and after the earthquake and fires of 1906 — reveal the Empire Park designation to be mistaken.

The Eureka Lodgings was located on Commercial Street between Montgomery and Kearny — just not on that site.

In the attached deeply researched and documented — and extensively illustrated — article, I provide:

1) Confirmation — for the first time, I believe — of the visual ID of the Eureka Lodgings building, using photographs from during and after Emperor Norton's lifetime. (Don’t miss the fabulous detail in these new hi-res scans from 1878, c.1892–94 and 1906 — worth the price of admission!)

2) A new location for the former site of the Eureka that better accords with the historical record.

It's a deep dive — so, pull up a chair!

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

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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THE EMPEROR'S RIDE: Sunday 1 May

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!

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In the Emperor's Study

Early 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.

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The Proclamatorium of Post Street

Emperor 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.

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