My Quirky Find: Emperor of the United States

The 1870 California census contains a quirky entry for a man whose job is identified as “Emperor”.
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Joshua Norton (1818-1880) had been a successful businessman in South Africa before he arrived in San Francisco in 1842. After a decade of successful investments in commodities and real estate, he had become one of San Francisco’s wealthiest and most respected men. 
In 1852, China banned the export of rice, which caused the price of rice in San Francisco to skyrocket. Learning that a shipment of Peruvian rice would soon arrive, Norton made a deal to buy the ship’s entire contents, hoping to corner the market. However, soon more ships bearing Peruvian rice began arriving, causing the price of rice to plummet.  Norton sued, claiming he had been assured only the one ship would arrive. He won the lawsuits in lower courts, but eventually the California Supreme Court overruled them, and Norton was wiped out financially. Infuriated by what he saw as a lack of justice, in a series of letters to newspapers in 1859, he declared himself Norton the First, Emperor of the United States: “At the peremptory request and desire of a large majority of the citizens of these United States, I, Joshua Norton…declare and proclaim myself Emperor of these United States.”