Talk:Emperor Norton

Photo of Wells Fargo "Proclamation" in article

This photograph — dated 2008 and apparently taken during the photographer User:BrokenSphere's visit to the Wells Fargo Museum, in San Francisco, where the document was on display — has been part of this article for some time. The "proclamation" refers to a Wells Fargo memo dated 4 July 1868 — which suggests that the "proclamation" itself would have been issued shortly thereafter.

But, I find no contemporaneous documentation of a summer 1868 "proclamation" with the text in the document — nor evidence of provenance for this document.

In fact, there doesn't appear to be evidence of any other proclamation of Emperor Norton that was laid out and printed in this way — on a single sheet, with a decorative "Proclamation" header. So, I question the authenticity of this. Johnlumea (talk) 19:48, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

Notice of reassessment of photograph ID'd as Joshua Norton

The photograph here was taken from the website of The Emperor Norton Trust. I am the founder of the Trust and note here that we are in the process of reassessing the photo.

Although the uploader identified the Trust as the "source," the photo is in the collection of the Society of California Pioneers. The Pioneers acquired the photo as part of the collection of member Charles Beebe Turrill (1854–1927) that the Society purchased upon Turrill's death. The Pioneers' catalog record for the photo — probably transcribed from Turrill's own catalog — IDs the subject as Emperor Norton and dates it to 1871. But, this is not what Emperor Norton looked like in 1871.

Norton's biographers — Allen Stanley Lane in 1939 and William Drury in 1986 — tried to finesse this obvious dating error by captioning the photo as Joshua Norton in his San Francisco merchant days, with Drury specifying 1851. But, the clothes and facial hair of the subject appear to be from at least a decade or more later, when — again — Emperor Norton looked very different. And: A portrait photograph taken in 1851 would have been a daguerrotype — which this is not.

The truth is: The subject and date of this photograph have been asserted but never substantiated. On our website, the Trust has revised our description and caption of the photo to reflect our increasing doubt that the person in the frame is Joshua Norton.Johnlumea (talk) 17:52, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

Requested move 8 January 2026

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. WP:SNOW close. (closed by non-admin page mover) Jeffrey34555 (talk) 07:06, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

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Emperor Norton → Joshua NortonJoshua Norton – He wasn't actually an emperor; he merely claimed to be one. Using this name for the article is likely to cause confusion. Coddlebean (talk) 06:18, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose move. Despite not being a legitimate emperor, he is typically referred to as Emperor Norton, as was established in a previous RM eighteen years ago. O.N.R. ^(talk) 10:18, 8 January 2026 (UTC)
• Oppose. WP:COMMONNAME should take precedence over whether he was actually a legitimate emperor or not. WP:COMMONNAME should also take precedence over such readers who may have stumble across such an article without having any idea what the subject is all about, and would be immediately be confused without reading the lead section for such details. Zzyzx11 (talk) 15:39, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

Oppose - this is a simple case of WP:Commonname. FYI, Queen Latifah isn't a monarch either. Cristiano Tomás (talk) 15:50, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose. Compare Capability Brown, Wild Bill Hickok, etc, etc. Tevildo (talk) 19:15, 8 January 2026 (UTC)
• Oppose. Everyone knows he just claimed to be an emperor but was not really one. However, he is still commonly referred to as "Emperor Norton". See WP:COMMONNAME. JIP | Talk 11:57, 9 January 2026 (UTC)
• Oppose — I am the founder of The Emperor Norton Trust, a nonprofit that is the leading public resource on this figure. This proposal is a solution ISO a problem. The only reason we know about Joshua Abraham Norton at all and, indeed, why this article entry exists, is because he lived as "Emperor Norton" for the last third of his life. Nearly all the contemporaneous documentation refers to him as "Emperor Norton" (or "Norton I"), with his birth name returning for a cameo appearance only in the obits. Leave the title of this entry alone.Johnlumea (talk) 20:06, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Addition of mental disorders.

Would it be appropriate to include a section about possible mental disorders Emperor Norton had? He was never formally diagnosed, but he displayed many symptoms consistent with HPD and bipolar disorder. AndrewEdwards21 (talk) 15:51, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

It is not our place to conduct original research or speculate, but to include verifiable information from reliable sources. With reliable sources, we could consider whether to include such discussion. Do you know of any?

Also, it looks like you're new to Wikipedia. Welcome and happy editing! I'm not the most experienced, but if you have questions you're welcome to reach out on my talk page and I'll do my best to assist. Polunbus (talk) 03:53, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

This is a tricky one — not least because, as Polunbus points out, the subject matter is highly speculative. There is one academic peer-reviewed article on this: "His Majesty's Psychosis: The Case of Emperor Joshua Norton," by Eric Lis, a self-employed Canadian psychiatrist who had his article published while he was completing his residency at McGill University. But this article, submitted for review in March 2014, is only 5 pages long. It was published before the last 12 years' surge of biographical documentation — and, for evidence of Norton's life, the article relies heavily on a handful of often-blinkered, folkloric, and even historically discredited sources. If there's nothing better than this, it seems to me that this may be a place where Wikipedia has to remain silent.Johnlumea (talk) 21:17, 24 January 2026 (UTC)