In February 1868, Emperor Norton issued his first extant Proclamation in defense of the Chinese.
A year before that, in February 1867, an anti-Chinese riot in San Francisco prompted a San Francisco correspondent to a paper in Stockton — 60 miles to the east of San Francisco — to suggest that Emperor Norton was better-positioned than the San Francisco Mayor to lead on the Chinese question.
Did the Emperor and the correspondent know one another from before?
Had they traded their views on the Chinese question?
Did they influence one another on this issue?
Very likely, both men were regular visitors to the same building on Post Street between 1862 and 1867. This would have created the opportunity for them to meet and befriend one another.
If so, the operative question is: What did they talk about?
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From the time that Joshua Norton publicly declared and signed himself “Norton I, Emperor of the United States” in his Proclamation published in the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin of 17 September 1859, there was a more or less steady pulse of newspaper publications of his subsequent Proclamations — as well as newspaper reports of activities and sightings of the new Emperor.
But, at what point was there evidence of a separate public consciousness that this “Emperor Norton” might be a new character that was here to stay — a public awareness of the Emperor’s early ubiquity and fame?
When did Emperor Norton start to go meta?
Here, we document the earliest signs of local awareness that a new player had arrived on the urban stage.
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Conventional wisdom holds that, when Joshua Norton arrived in San Francisco, he immediately found a business partner and established Joshua Norton & Co. — and that this firm operated continuously until the legal and financial fallout from Joshua’s prolonged rice contract dispute left him deserted and on his own.
But, a close reading of the newspaper record indicates that, during his first 3½ years in San Francisco, Joshua Norton alternated between periods of working with a partner (“& Co.”) and working as a sole proprietor — and that there were three distinct business partnerships that operated under the name “Joshua Norton & Co.”
The primary 20th-century biographers of Emperor Norton identify Joshua’s first business partner as Peter Robertson. But, our recent discovery of details that apparently were missed by these authors suggests that Joshua and Peter did not meet until nearly a year into Joshua’s San Francisco sojourn — and that they met at a time when the “original” Joshua Norton & Co. already had disappeared from view and Joshua was once again working solo.
The circumstantial evidence points to Peter Robertson as the partner in the second Joshua Norton & Co — not the first.
Read on for the full story.
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There’s a familiar and popular illustration of Emperor Norton that most Nortonians know because it appeared on a Discordian flyer created by Greg Hill a.k.a. Malaclypse the Younger.
Hill wasn’t just any Discordian. He was one of the two co-founders of Discordianism, the mystical “anti-religion” that reveres Emperor Norton as a saint. It is Hill qua Malaclypse who is credited with the oft-quoted aphorism: “Everybody understands Mickey Mouse. Few understand Hermann Hesse. Hardly anybody understands Einstein. And nobody understands Emperor Norton."
But, it wasn’t Hill who drew the Emp that is featured on his flyer. He cribbed the illustration from one of the most influential corporate advertising firms in the United States. The illustration was work the firm had just done for an Old West banking client that has been a household name for generations.
The ad firm already had a connection of sorts to the Emperor. Soon — 50 years ago this past July — the firm would create what now is regarded as one of the most legendary ads in the history of the discipline.
The obscure origins of the firm’s portrait of the Emperor have remained hidden for decades.
Read on to see what’s under the rock. It’s a fascinating story.
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Two of the most basic modern assumptions about the locations and business enterprises of Joshua Norton in 1852 San Francisco appear not to bear scrutiny.
The assumptions — that Joshua Norton held forth from facilities that he “built” on 3 of the 4 corners of Sansome and Jackson Streets, and that one of these facilities was a rice mill — were espoused and may, in part, have been created by Norton’s 1986 biographer, William Drury.
But, Drury’s claims were undocumented. A deep-dive into the documentary record points to a different picture.
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When Emperor Norton died on 8 January 1880, there were 38 stars on the United States flag.
Remarkably, by the end of January, newspapers located in at least 33 of the current and future states of the Union had carried news of the Emperor’s death and funeral, as well as related stories and memories of the Emp.
Here is a listing of those papers that The Emperor Norton Trust has been able to determine took note of Emperor Norton’s passing during the month of January 1880.
We’ll add to the list as we learn of others.
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