On Thursday 23 March, The Emperor’s Bridge Campaign presents Lights! Camera! Norton! — an evening of three films about Emperor Norton at the legendary Roxie Theater in San Francisco.
The event includes a screening of our own 35mm print of a 1936 short that we believe features the earliest dramatic portrayal of the Emperor on film.
This special evening takes place in the 254-seat Big Roxie theater and is a fundraiser for the Campaign: After the first 50 tickets sold, 50 percent of all proceeds from this screening will benefit The Campaign.
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Tonight, the Emperor's Bridge Campaign is throwing the Emperor a party. A link to details and a comic from the annals of imperial confectionery humor, on the flip.
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Join The Emperor's Bridge Campaign in celebration of Emperor Norton's 199th birthday on 4 February 2017.
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The annual holiday party of The Emperor's Bridge Campaign celebrates the legend that it was Emperor Norton who originally called for the raising of a great tree in Union Square every Yuletide season. By tradition, the celebration takes place on the second Sunday of December in the mezzanine of the historic House of Shields bar in San Francisco, where we'll gather for the fourth time on Sunday 11 December from 4 to 6 p.m.
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On Saturday 12 November 2016, the Emperor Norton Bridge a.k.a. the Bay Bridge turns 80.
Please join The Emperor's Bridge Campaign for a celebration to wish the Emperor's bridge a happy birthday and to show your support for naming the bridge for Emperor Norton in 2022 — the 150th anniversary of the Emperor's proclamations in 1872 setting out the original vision for the bridge.
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At a special event on Thursday 13 October, titled My Emperor, My Muse, The Emperor's Bridge Campaign will bring together an eclectic and interesting mix of people — artists who've created specific Emperor-themed works and others who have thought deeply about Emperor Norton — for a conversation about the Emperor's abiding cultural import as an avatar of whimsy, openness, tolerance and fair play.
We'll learn why Emperor Norton moves these people; how he has shaped their projects; why they think the Emperor remains a cultural touchstone; and the role that they think art can play in shaping and polishing the stone.
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On Sunday 12 June 2016, Emperor Norton — played by Joseph Amster of Time Machine Tours — will lead a special "off the menu" historical walking tour focusing exclusively on Emperor Norton sites and stories.
The tour is a fundraising benefit for the Campaign. Please join us!
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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 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.
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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.
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In 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!
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No 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.
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It 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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Please join The Emperor's Bridge Campaign as we celebrate Emperor Norton's 198th birthday on 4 February 2016.
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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!
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The Emperor outlines his immigration policy in this timely Proclamation, published in the Pacific Appeal newspaper on 24 April 1875.
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In 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.
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The 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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A portion of remarks offered by Emperor's Bridge Campaign founder and president John Lumea at the Campaign's inaugural celebration of Empire Day in San Francisco's Redwood Park on 17 September 2015. The event was held to mark the 156th anniversary of Joshua Norton's declaration of himself as "Emperor of these United States" on 17 September 1859 and to welcome the 157th year of the Nortonian realm and reign.
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An Empire Day meditation on one of least understood words of Emperor Norton's original Proclamation of 17 September 1859.
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