May 31, 2010 • 18 mins
When Joshua Norton returned to San Francisco following a disastrous business deal, he was a little bit loopy. Norton went to the newspapers and declared himself emperor of the United States. Here's the crazy part: it worked. Tune in and learn more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Dowdy. And there's something
really big that you might have missed in history class,
(00:22):
which is the fact that for a time in the
mid eighteen hundreds, the United States was ruled by an emperor. Yeah,
for real. He abolished Congress, he fired the president, and
he wore these militaristic uniforms and roam the streets of
San Francisco. So we definitely missed this in history class.
But fortunately our listeners did not know our subject for today,
(00:46):
the self proclaimed legendary eccentric Norton, one day Grattia, Emperor
of the United States and Protector of Mexico, is one
of our most popularly requested subjects in the history of
listener mail. It's up there with like Canadian history and
history of the sixties, like very broad topics. So we
(01:07):
will we will oblige today. So we don't know a
whole lot about Joshua Abraham Norton's early life except that
he was probably Jewish, and he was probably born in
eighteen eighteen or eighteen nineteen in London, and from there
his family must have moved to South Africa, and he
obtained a pretty substantial amount of wealth while he was
(01:27):
living there. He arrived in San Francisco in eighteen forty
nine hoping to make some money off the gold Rush
like everyone else did, and he was a successful merchant
worth about forty thousand dollars, a lot of money at
the time. But he may, according to some accounts, have
already shown signs of psychological instability. But Sara, you said
(01:48):
you didn't put a lot of stock in that will.
Other accounts say he's he's fine until later in his life,
and we'll certainly be getting there soon. But whatever, he
does quite well in commodities and his fortune balloon uns
to two and fifty thousand dollars. He's even invited to
join San Francisco's Vigilance Committee, which is a pretty big deal.
It's not a vigilante as I originally read it. That
(02:11):
would be a different kind of podcast. But in December
eighteen fifty two, he makes a really bad business decision.
There's a rice shortage that drives up the price of
rice from four cents a pound to thirty seven cents
a pound, and he's thinking, I'm going to cash in
on this. So a ship arrives in the harbor and
he decides he will buy the entire shipment of rice
(02:35):
at twelve cents a pound, probably thinking he's getting a
pretty good deal. Right well, right as he's about to
close the deal, another ship filled with rice comes in
and the value plummets to three cents, and of course
Norton is ruined by his his could have been deal.
And it's unclear exactly what happens to him after this,
(02:58):
but it seems as though nor And tried to pay
off his debts before he declared bankruptcy in eighteen fifty six.
And the last record of him in this period of
his life is as a juror in September of eighteen
fifty seven, and then he disappears. He's gone. So two
years later he comes back September sev eighteen fifty nine.
(03:21):
He's dressed as Napoleon the Third when he wanders into
the offices of the San Francisco Bulletin demanding that they
published this proclamation, and the bulletin editor at the time,
George Fitch, is he's okay with this. You know this
strangely dressed man coming in ordering that he prints something,
and UH issues the proclamation at the peremptory request and
(03:45):
desire of a large majority of the citizens of the
United States, I, Joshua Norton, declare and proclaim myself Emperor
of these United States. So there we go, and that's
the root of our story here. And I think most
towns in the eighteen fifties would have locked up someone
who was proclaiming himself emperor and um writing it in
(04:07):
the newspapers. Not San Francisco. No, they love their bizarre characters.
And before Norton even arrived, they had already been entertained
by George Washington the Second, who wore a revolutionary war costume.
You know what else would he wear? Uh? The King
of Pain, not like the police song now the Money King,
(04:28):
the Great Unknown, the gutter Snipe, and Ufti Goofty, which
I think is Katie's favorite favorite of I wanted to
introduce us as Katie the Gutter Snipe and Sarah Ufti Goofty,
but she wouldn't because Ufti Goofti would take hits with
the pool queue for fifty cents, which I mean, there's
got to be a better way to earn your money
(04:48):
than that, I think. So Norton is tolerated and even encouraged,
and roams the streets of San Francisco for the next
twenty years, issuing proclamation and attending civic functions, reviewing the
core of cadets of the University of California, and attending
the Senate Chambers in Sacramento, where he had a special
(05:10):
chair and took extensive notes. And so unsurprisingly, a young
reporter in town, Samuel Clemens, notices him and eventually models
his character of the king in Huckleberry Finn on Norton.
This is, of course Mark twain Um, but Norton is
a pretty colorful character who would even stand out among
(05:31):
all these other wild figures in this frontier town in
American history. Fred Dickey writes that he wore a tall
beaver hat with a plume and rosette, dressed in a
blue suit with tarnished gold plate epaulets, and carried both
a cane and a tricolor umbrella. His oversized shoes were
sensibly ventilated with holes to provide relief for his corns.
(05:52):
On ceremonial occasions, he would even wear a sword, So yeah,
I think he would cut quite a figure in town. Here.
We should clarify that he's not homeless, even though that's
a part of the Emperor Norton's story. He rented rooms,
but he relied on the generosity of his subjects for meals, uniforms,
and transportation. As far as food, any restaurant would feed him,
(06:15):
and somewhat even except the fifty cent bonds that he'd
printed up. In nineteen thirty three, journalist Herbert Asbury wrote,
he ate without paying at whatever restaurant, lunchroom or saloon
took his fancy. After he visited an establishment, the owners
were permitted to post a sign by appointment to the
Emperor Norton the first Invariably, these appointments brought great business
(06:38):
to the saloon or restaurant, so graced, which is a
tactic I planned to try in Atlanta. It's a bold tactic,
but you never know. M His clothes were also really
important to him. The city government would even give him close.
They bought him a new uniform after he released yet
another proclamation saying we, etcetera, have heard serious complaints of
(07:00):
our adherents and all around that our imperial wardrobe is
a national disgrace, and even his majesty, the King of Pain,
has had his sympathy excited so far as to offer
us a suit of clothing, which we have had a
delicacy in not accepting. Therefore, we warn those whose duty
it is to attend to these affairs that their scalps
(07:20):
are in danger if our said word is unheeded. So
you know, he gets his new beaver hat and his
ballets and the whole shebang. I think we, etcetera would
be a good name for a collection of short stories
if you're looking for one. But switching back to our
actual subject, transport. The Central Pacific Railroad gave him a
(07:40):
lifetime past to travel, So not a bad life being
Emperor Norton the first. But you know, and Peror Norton
is not all about maintaining his own serene highness with
his fancy clothes and his fine dining. And he issues
real proclamations that mean real serious business. That likely that
a lot of his proclamations were simply made up by
(08:03):
the newspapers, but we know at least some of them
were authentic. And just to give you a taste of
the severities of these proclamations. On July sixteenth, eighteen sixty
he issued a decree dissolving the United States of America,
and then on October one, eighteen sixty he issued another
(08:23):
bar in Congress from meeting in Washington, d C. On
August twelfth, eighteen sixty nine, a decree from Norton dissolved
and abolished the Democratic and Republican parties due to party strife,
and on December sixteenth, eighteen sixty nine, he demanded that
Sacramento clean its muddy streets and placed gas lights on
streets leading to the capitol, so some civic pride there.
(08:46):
He even went as far as to fire Lincoln, and
he charged the Army General to use troops to break
up Congress if they were maybe a little reluctant about
leaving Washington, dare resistant to do that. And he's pretty
serious about his bank notes too, because he orders that
the assets of San Francisco's first national Bank be seized. Um. So, yeah,
(09:08):
a lot of very serious business for Emperor Norton, and he,
or perhaps the sensitive newspaper editors even abolished the nickname
Frisco quote, which has no linguistic or other warrant, which
I think everyone in San Francisco would agree with. But
even though some of these decrees sound awfully serious, he's
(09:29):
a really nice guy and he's pretty non threatening. So
it's something that makes all these, you know, wild things
he does more palatable to the citizens of San Francisco
and even lovable. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote in what other
city would a harmless madman who's opposed himself Emperor have
been so fostered and encouraged. So it's just a San
(09:52):
Francisco thing. Every now and then, though the city would
make a mistake, some maybe overenthusiastic police sir would decide
that they wanted to arrest Norton. This happened in eighteen
sixty seven when a patrol special officer took him in
for involuntary treatment of a mental disorder, and it caused
a citywide uproar. People were furious that their Emperor had
(10:16):
been arrested, and the police chief was forced to apologize
to Norton and ordered his release. Editorials in the newspapers
condemned the incident, and officers started to salute him after this.
After this big faux paw, it's not just the city
that loved him. He also earned the love of a
couple of famous San Francisco mutts street dogs named Bummer
(10:40):
and Lazarus, who also seized the public's attention in the
mid eighteen sixties. And this is a weird story in
its own right. Bummer who had a really severe underbike.
He actually couldn't close his lips over his his big
dog teeth. I was making dog faces at Sarah earlier. Sorry,
you guys must have so anyways, Bummer rescues Lazarus, who
(11:02):
is a smaller, mangy dog, from a dog fight, and
after that the two of them stick together. And also
after that, the people of San Francisco become obsessed with
these two mutt dogs roaming around the city. They're allowed
to run free, even downtown, where they're really strict leash
and muzzle laws. And when a dog catcher caught Lazarus once,
(11:25):
a crowd raised money for his release, kind of like
um when Norton gets arrested and Norton didn't claim the dogs,
but they'd be seen together looking for lunch or walking
the streets, And I thought sounded a bit like a
Disney story of the eccentric character with his you know
animal pals like Milo and otis roaming, probably to talk
or something. Maybe they'd have funny accents. Well, and Mark
(11:48):
Twain again wrote Bummer's obituary. So this is one seriously
famous dog notable claim for any dog, definitely. So on
January eight, Norton the first eyes on a street corner
and that's when authorities learned that he had been living
at a fifty cent room at Eureka lodging house for
the past seventeen years. And they go into his room
(12:10):
for the first time, and it's really tiny, only ten
by six and it has a cot, one chair, a
picture and a basin, and it's covered with proclamations that
he's written and telegrams and stock certificates and pictures of
other reigning monarchs and his favorite, uh, you know, other
(12:30):
reigning monarch happens to be Queen Victoria, who he hopes
will one day become his consort. Was my favorite line
from this entire outline. Despite his meager accommodations, people sent
him off in style. Citizens raised money for a new
uniform and a rosewood casket, and his funeral cortege was
(12:50):
two miles long and attended by as many as thirty
thousand people. So he's sent off like an emperor. Definitely. Um,
he's buried in the city by a mason's but then
he is exhumed. Has so many of our podcast subjects
are Um. Yeah, there's this great relocation of San Francisco bodies,
(13:12):
which I'm sure people who live there know about, but
I had never heard of it. They're relocated to Coma
and Norton is exhumed in nineteen thirty four and reburied
in Woodlawn Cemetery. And a strange side note, this is
the same cemetery where previous podcast mentions such as White Earth,
Joe DiMaggio and William Randolph Hursts are now buried. So
(13:36):
good company. I guess. His name was bandied about in
the past several years, due in part to an eighteen
seventy two proclamation in which he called for a suspension
bridge to be built as soon as convenient between Oakland
Point and Goat Island and then on to San Francisco,
and some people had suggested that the Bay Bridge be
(13:57):
renamed in his honor, but perhaps surprisingly, the people in
Oakland were not impressed with the idea. Yeah, if you
look up the San Francisco newspaper quotes on this people
in Oakland have some pretty funny ideas, funny opinions of Norton. Um,
so we're loft with a big question here. What went wrong?
(14:18):
Uh for Norton? You know, he's he's this very successful businessman.
He has this great, uh disastrous ruin and then he
descends into uh, severe delusion, and people have thought, you know,
maybe the Rice speculation and the failure with that actually
drove him insane. A nineteen thirty nine biographer Alan Stanley
(14:42):
Lane said there is no evidence that Norton revealed any
striking erratic tendencies during his business career. He probably held
in check any irrational whims, but being a proud and
sensitive man, he suffered great mental torture over his misfortunes.
But we know from other accounts, though, that he may
have shown signs of delusion even before his great Rice failure.
(15:06):
But a more modern analysis suggests that he wasn't schizophrenic
or bipolar, but maybe he reached this delusional state after
the stress of his failure, which is in keeping with
the earlier assessment. Regardless, his eccentricity has lived on in
the public imagination and that of our listeners, even if
his name won't grace abridge. There have been books and
(15:28):
plays and opera has written about him Henry Mollacone's Emperor Norton,
and in California there have been Beers, Sundays Inns, and
a now defunct record label named for him, which Sarah
was looking up earlier. Yeah. Weirdly enough they represented Lady Tron.
But members of the Raucous History Society e lamp As
(15:48):
a Vitus, which has also been a listener suggestion lately
by Lucy make these annual pilgrimages to his grave which
kind of reminds me of Houdini to the seances, and
his cane is kept at the California Historical Society. But
Sarah has a different favorite fact about him. Yeah. In
(16:09):
August eighteen seventy, he responded to a census taker listening
himself as living at the address six Commercial Street and
noting his occupation as emperor. Of course, what else would
it be? So that answers the question of our podcast title,
who was Emperor of the United States? And that brings
(16:31):
us to listener mail. So our first emails from Kira
in Ireland and She wrote that she had to choose
a project for a major exam in Ireland that you
basically have to do well on before you get into college,
and she couldn't decide what to pick, and after listening
to a few of the Medici podcasts, she found her subject.
(16:52):
And she just wanted to say thanks, and uh, let
us know. So you're welcome and we're glad that you
loved the Medici And we have a nun their Medici email,
and this one is from Sarah in Illinois, and she wrote,
I liked the Medici super series. I have a vague
memory of reading about Katherine de Medici's corset when I
was a kid. It had the zodiac symbols on it,
(17:12):
I think, and I remember wanting one just like it.
I remember reading that the ladies of her court were
only allowed to have small waists thirteen inches or smaller.
And Sarah, this is actually something I read in a
biography of Katherine de Medici. She kept a flying squadron
of lovely court ladies around her in part to counterbalance
(17:32):
her as this very serious widow dressed in mourning. She
she knew it kind of set her off, you know,
And as always, if you'd like to email us where
at History podcast at how stuff works dot com, and
you should also follow us on Twitter at Miston History
or join our Facebook fan page where we post all
(17:52):
kinds of cool stuff that we're reading and researching, and
feel free to check out our homepage at www dot
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and be sure to check out this stuff you missed
in History class, blogged on the how stuff works dot
com home page
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Dowdy. And there's something
really big that you might have missed in history class,
(00:22):
which is the fact that for a time in the
mid eighteen hundreds, the United States was ruled by an emperor. Yeah,
for real. He abolished Congress, he fired the president, and
he wore these militaristic uniforms and roam the streets of
San Francisco. So we definitely missed this in history class.
But fortunately our listeners did not know our subject for today,
(00:46):
the self proclaimed legendary eccentric Norton, one day Grattia, Emperor
of the United States and Protector of Mexico, is one
of our most popularly requested subjects in the history of
listener mail. It's up there with like Canadian history and
history of the sixties, like very broad topics. So we
(01:07):
will we will oblige today. So we don't know a
whole lot about Joshua Abraham Norton's early life except that
he was probably Jewish, and he was probably born in
eighteen eighteen or eighteen nineteen in London, and from there
his family must have moved to South Africa, and he
obtained a pretty substantial amount of wealth while he was
(01:27):
living there. He arrived in San Francisco in eighteen forty
nine hoping to make some money off the gold Rush
like everyone else did, and he was a successful merchant
worth about forty thousand dollars, a lot of money at
the time. But he may, according to some accounts, have
already shown signs of psychological instability. But Sara, you said
(01:48):
you didn't put a lot of stock in that will.
Other accounts say he's he's fine until later in his life,
and we'll certainly be getting there soon. But whatever, he
does quite well in commodities and his fortune balloon uns
to two and fifty thousand dollars. He's even invited to
join San Francisco's Vigilance Committee, which is a pretty big deal.
It's not a vigilante as I originally read it. That
(02:11):
would be a different kind of podcast. But in December
eighteen fifty two, he makes a really bad business decision.
There's a rice shortage that drives up the price of
rice from four cents a pound to thirty seven cents
a pound, and he's thinking, I'm going to cash in
on this. So a ship arrives in the harbor and
he decides he will buy the entire shipment of rice
(02:35):
at twelve cents a pound, probably thinking he's getting a
pretty good deal. Right well, right as he's about to
close the deal, another ship filled with rice comes in
and the value plummets to three cents, and of course
Norton is ruined by his his could have been deal.
And it's unclear exactly what happens to him after this,
(02:58):
but it seems as though nor And tried to pay
off his debts before he declared bankruptcy in eighteen fifty six.
And the last record of him in this period of
his life is as a juror in September of eighteen
fifty seven, and then he disappears. He's gone. So two
years later he comes back September sev eighteen fifty nine.
(03:21):
He's dressed as Napoleon the Third when he wanders into
the offices of the San Francisco Bulletin demanding that they
published this proclamation, and the bulletin editor at the time,
George Fitch, is he's okay with this. You know this
strangely dressed man coming in ordering that he prints something,
and UH issues the proclamation at the peremptory request and
(03:45):
desire of a large majority of the citizens of the
United States, I, Joshua Norton, declare and proclaim myself Emperor
of these United States. So there we go, and that's
the root of our story here. And I think most
towns in the eighteen fifties would have locked up someone
who was proclaiming himself emperor and um writing it in
(04:07):
the newspapers. Not San Francisco. No, they love their bizarre characters.
And before Norton even arrived, they had already been entertained
by George Washington the Second, who wore a revolutionary war costume.
You know what else would he wear? Uh? The King
of Pain, not like the police song now the Money King,
(04:28):
the Great Unknown, the gutter Snipe, and Ufti Goofty, which
I think is Katie's favorite favorite of I wanted to
introduce us as Katie the Gutter Snipe and Sarah Ufti Goofty,
but she wouldn't because Ufti Goofti would take hits with
the pool queue for fifty cents, which I mean, there's
got to be a better way to earn your money
(04:48):
than that, I think. So Norton is tolerated and even encouraged,
and roams the streets of San Francisco for the next
twenty years, issuing proclamation and attending civic functions, reviewing the
core of cadets of the University of California, and attending
the Senate Chambers in Sacramento, where he had a special
(05:10):
chair and took extensive notes. And so unsurprisingly, a young
reporter in town, Samuel Clemens, notices him and eventually models
his character of the king in Huckleberry Finn on Norton.
This is, of course Mark twain Um, but Norton is
a pretty colorful character who would even stand out among
(05:31):
all these other wild figures in this frontier town in
American history. Fred Dickey writes that he wore a tall
beaver hat with a plume and rosette, dressed in a
blue suit with tarnished gold plate epaulets, and carried both
a cane and a tricolor umbrella. His oversized shoes were
sensibly ventilated with holes to provide relief for his corns.
(05:52):
On ceremonial occasions, he would even wear a sword, So yeah,
I think he would cut quite a figure in town. Here.
We should clarify that he's not homeless, even though that's
a part of the Emperor Norton's story. He rented rooms,
but he relied on the generosity of his subjects for meals, uniforms,
and transportation. As far as food, any restaurant would feed him,
(06:15):
and somewhat even except the fifty cent bonds that he'd
printed up. In nineteen thirty three, journalist Herbert Asbury wrote,
he ate without paying at whatever restaurant, lunchroom or saloon
took his fancy. After he visited an establishment, the owners
were permitted to post a sign by appointment to the
Emperor Norton the first Invariably, these appointments brought great business
(06:38):
to the saloon or restaurant, so graced, which is a
tactic I planned to try in Atlanta. It's a bold tactic,
but you never know. M His clothes were also really
important to him. The city government would even give him close.
They bought him a new uniform after he released yet
another proclamation saying we, etcetera, have heard serious complaints of
(07:00):
our adherents and all around that our imperial wardrobe is
a national disgrace, and even his majesty, the King of Pain,
has had his sympathy excited so far as to offer
us a suit of clothing, which we have had a
delicacy in not accepting. Therefore, we warn those whose duty
it is to attend to these affairs that their scalps
(07:20):
are in danger if our said word is unheeded. So
you know, he gets his new beaver hat and his
ballets and the whole shebang. I think we, etcetera would
be a good name for a collection of short stories
if you're looking for one. But switching back to our
actual subject, transport. The Central Pacific Railroad gave him a
(07:40):
lifetime past to travel, So not a bad life being
Emperor Norton the first. But you know, and Peror Norton
is not all about maintaining his own serene highness with
his fancy clothes and his fine dining. And he issues
real proclamations that mean real serious business. That likely that
a lot of his proclamations were simply made up by
(08:03):
the newspapers, but we know at least some of them
were authentic. And just to give you a taste of
the severities of these proclamations. On July sixteenth, eighteen sixty
he issued a decree dissolving the United States of America,
and then on October one, eighteen sixty he issued another
(08:23):
bar in Congress from meeting in Washington, d C. On
August twelfth, eighteen sixty nine, a decree from Norton dissolved
and abolished the Democratic and Republican parties due to party strife,
and on December sixteenth, eighteen sixty nine, he demanded that
Sacramento clean its muddy streets and placed gas lights on
streets leading to the capitol, so some civic pride there.
(08:46):
He even went as far as to fire Lincoln, and
he charged the Army General to use troops to break
up Congress if they were maybe a little reluctant about
leaving Washington, dare resistant to do that. And he's pretty
serious about his bank notes too, because he orders that
the assets of San Francisco's first national Bank be seized. Um. So, yeah,
(09:08):
a lot of very serious business for Emperor Norton, and he,
or perhaps the sensitive newspaper editors even abolished the nickname
Frisco quote, which has no linguistic or other warrant, which
I think everyone in San Francisco would agree with. But
even though some of these decrees sound awfully serious, he's
(09:29):
a really nice guy and he's pretty non threatening. So
it's something that makes all these, you know, wild things
he does more palatable to the citizens of San Francisco
and even lovable. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote in what other
city would a harmless madman who's opposed himself Emperor have
been so fostered and encouraged. So it's just a San
(09:52):
Francisco thing. Every now and then, though the city would
make a mistake, some maybe overenthusiastic police sir would decide
that they wanted to arrest Norton. This happened in eighteen
sixty seven when a patrol special officer took him in
for involuntary treatment of a mental disorder, and it caused
a citywide uproar. People were furious that their Emperor had
(10:16):
been arrested, and the police chief was forced to apologize
to Norton and ordered his release. Editorials in the newspapers
condemned the incident, and officers started to salute him after this.
After this big faux paw, it's not just the city
that loved him. He also earned the love of a
couple of famous San Francisco mutts street dogs named Bummer
(10:40):
and Lazarus, who also seized the public's attention in the
mid eighteen sixties. And this is a weird story in
its own right. Bummer who had a really severe underbike.
He actually couldn't close his lips over his his big
dog teeth. I was making dog faces at Sarah earlier. Sorry,
you guys must have so anyways, Bummer rescues Lazarus, who
(11:02):
is a smaller, mangy dog, from a dog fight, and
after that the two of them stick together. And also
after that, the people of San Francisco become obsessed with
these two mutt dogs roaming around the city. They're allowed
to run free, even downtown, where they're really strict leash
and muzzle laws. And when a dog catcher caught Lazarus once,
(11:25):
a crowd raised money for his release, kind of like
um when Norton gets arrested and Norton didn't claim the dogs,
but they'd be seen together looking for lunch or walking
the streets, And I thought sounded a bit like a
Disney story of the eccentric character with his you know
animal pals like Milo and otis roaming, probably to talk
or something. Maybe they'd have funny accents. Well, and Mark
(11:48):
Twain again wrote Bummer's obituary. So this is one seriously
famous dog notable claim for any dog, definitely. So on
January eight, Norton the first eyes on a street corner
and that's when authorities learned that he had been living
at a fifty cent room at Eureka lodging house for
the past seventeen years. And they go into his room
(12:10):
for the first time, and it's really tiny, only ten
by six and it has a cot, one chair, a
picture and a basin, and it's covered with proclamations that
he's written and telegrams and stock certificates and pictures of
other reigning monarchs and his favorite, uh, you know, other
(12:30):
reigning monarch happens to be Queen Victoria, who he hopes
will one day become his consort. Was my favorite line
from this entire outline. Despite his meager accommodations, people sent
him off in style. Citizens raised money for a new
uniform and a rosewood casket, and his funeral cortege was
(12:50):
two miles long and attended by as many as thirty
thousand people. So he's sent off like an emperor. Definitely. Um,
he's buried in the city by a mason's but then
he is exhumed. Has so many of our podcast subjects
are Um. Yeah, there's this great relocation of San Francisco bodies,
(13:12):
which I'm sure people who live there know about, but
I had never heard of it. They're relocated to Coma
and Norton is exhumed in nineteen thirty four and reburied
in Woodlawn Cemetery. And a strange side note, this is
the same cemetery where previous podcast mentions such as White Earth,
Joe DiMaggio and William Randolph Hursts are now buried. So
(13:36):
good company. I guess. His name was bandied about in
the past several years, due in part to an eighteen
seventy two proclamation in which he called for a suspension
bridge to be built as soon as convenient between Oakland
Point and Goat Island and then on to San Francisco,
and some people had suggested that the Bay Bridge be
(13:57):
renamed in his honor, but perhaps surprisingly, the people in
Oakland were not impressed with the idea. Yeah, if you
look up the San Francisco newspaper quotes on this people
in Oakland have some pretty funny ideas, funny opinions of Norton. Um,
so we're loft with a big question here. What went wrong?
(14:18):
Uh for Norton? You know, he's he's this very successful businessman.
He has this great, uh disastrous ruin and then he
descends into uh, severe delusion, and people have thought, you know,
maybe the Rice speculation and the failure with that actually
drove him insane. A nineteen thirty nine biographer Alan Stanley
(14:42):
Lane said there is no evidence that Norton revealed any
striking erratic tendencies during his business career. He probably held
in check any irrational whims, but being a proud and
sensitive man, he suffered great mental torture over his misfortunes.
But we know from other accounts, though, that he may
have shown signs of delusion even before his great Rice failure.
(15:06):
But a more modern analysis suggests that he wasn't schizophrenic
or bipolar, but maybe he reached this delusional state after
the stress of his failure, which is in keeping with
the earlier assessment. Regardless, his eccentricity has lived on in
the public imagination and that of our listeners, even if
his name won't grace abridge. There have been books and
(15:28):
plays and opera has written about him Henry Mollacone's Emperor Norton,
and in California there have been Beers, Sundays Inns, and
a now defunct record label named for him, which Sarah
was looking up earlier. Yeah. Weirdly enough they represented Lady Tron.
But members of the Raucous History Society e lamp As
(15:48):
a Vitus, which has also been a listener suggestion lately
by Lucy make these annual pilgrimages to his grave which
kind of reminds me of Houdini to the seances, and
his cane is kept at the California Historical Society. But
Sarah has a different favorite fact about him. Yeah. In
(16:09):
August eighteen seventy, he responded to a census taker listening
himself as living at the address six Commercial Street and
noting his occupation as emperor. Of course, what else would
it be? So that answers the question of our podcast title,
who was Emperor of the United States? And that brings
(16:31):
us to listener mail. So our first emails from Kira
in Ireland and She wrote that she had to choose
a project for a major exam in Ireland that you
basically have to do well on before you get into college,
and she couldn't decide what to pick, and after listening
to a few of the Medici podcasts, she found her subject.
(16:52):
And she just wanted to say thanks, and uh, let
us know. So you're welcome and we're glad that you
loved the Medici And we have a nun their Medici email,
and this one is from Sarah in Illinois, and she wrote,
I liked the Medici super series. I have a vague
memory of reading about Katherine de Medici's corset when I
was a kid. It had the zodiac symbols on it,
(17:12):
I think, and I remember wanting one just like it.
I remember reading that the ladies of her court were
only allowed to have small waists thirteen inches or smaller.
And Sarah, this is actually something I read in a
biography of Katherine de Medici. She kept a flying squadron
of lovely court ladies around her in part to counterbalance
(17:32):
her as this very serious widow dressed in mourning. She
she knew it kind of set her off, you know,
And as always, if you'd like to email us where
at History podcast at how stuff works dot com, and
you should also follow us on Twitter at Miston History
or join our Facebook fan page where we post all
(17:52):
kinds of cool stuff that we're reading and researching, and
feel free to check out our homepage at www dot
how stuff works dot com. For more on this and
thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com
and be sure to check out this stuff you missed
in History class, blogged on the how stuff works dot
com home page
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