Talk:Jeannie Mole

Jeannie Mole has been listed as one of the History good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Review: May 24, 2016. (Reviewed version).

A fact from Jeannie Mole appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 26 March 2016 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the British trade union organiser Jeannie Mole, an early follower of dress reform, liked to wear an outfit reminiscent of Greek robes?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2016/March. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Jeannie Mole.

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GA Review[edit]

This review is transcluded from Talk:Jeannie Mole/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Caeciliusinhorto (talk · contribs) 11:52, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be happy to review this article. It looks fascinating. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 11:52, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

If you haven't read it already, you might want to take a look at WP:Writing about women. It's an essay, not policy, but I think it gives some useful guidance.
Thanks for this, I've changed Jeannie to Mole throughout - We hadn't given it much thought as she was known as Jeannie so that's what we called her.. we have been reflecting on our own inherent prejudices. ツStacey (talk)
Is the clause "after marrying her second husband" really important enough to go into the lead?
Done ツStacey (talk)
"Where Jeannie took an interest in the black rights movement and other societal issues": do we know what other issues she was particularly interested in?
Done No, it's just a passing mention in the source, which seems to be building her up as a socialist. I've removed it Worm^TT(talk)
"Jeannie spent some time working with the poor in the slums of London": doing what? Does this mean as a charity worker/campaigner to help the poor, or simply doing a job which was largely done by poor slum-dwellers? I presume the first, but the article should make this clear...
Done I've changed the word to "helping". The sources don't make it clear what she actually did, if it was active help for individuals (as she seemed to do later in her life) or more general activism, but we have a few sources which mention her working in the slums and her black rights interest. It was clearly an important part of her identity, even if the detail was never really spoken about. Worm^TT(talk)
"In 1879, Jeannie remarried in London to another fruit merchant, William Keartland Mole, who was also the son of a wealthy Liverpool jeweller." This is jarring to read, as the article doesn't note that her previous marriage ended. When and how? Did her first husband die, or did they divorce?
~~We were puzzled by this too.. We have no idea! We've searched through books, online resources and the British Newspaper Archive but there was nothing..~~ Change that, we found it! It was all with the key word fruit; we found the newpaper archive of her divorce.. it seems someone was having an affair.. tut tut.. Done ツStacey (talk)
"There she was dismayed by the level of poverty within Liverpool, creating a lifelong ambition to change this." This sentence is clunky. Can you rewrite it?
I've had a go but might have made it worse.. ツStacey (talk)
Can more detail be given on why women's-only trades unions were controversial? Was there notable opposition to them?
Done removed problematic word - the source just said it was.. we've taken it out as we can't find anymore details. ツStacey (talk)
"Liverpool Workwomens Society": is this correct, or should it be "Workwomen's"?
Done
Gendered professional terms such as "tailoresses" are almost all obsolete in English. If you really need to specify, try "female tailors" or "women tailors", but I suspect that given that these are members of a "Workwomens Society" then "tailors" is all that is needed
Done ツStacey (talk)
"These poorly paid trades were overly represented by women, with four female workers for every male worker." I would write "Women were over-represented in these poorly paid trades, with four women for every man working in them."
Done Thank you, thats much better. ツStacey (talk)
What was the official role in which Jeannie Mole attended the Old Swan Rope Works Inquiry? As a representative of the LWIC? As an expert witness?
Done We remember why we didn't put this in as it was quite a mouthful.. Jeannie attended the case as secretary of the society for inquiring into the conditions of working women ツStacey (talk)

Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 12:19, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that Caeciliusinhorto I'll dig out the sources and get back to you asap Worm^TT(talk) 14:18, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

And a few more comments/questions:

Might it be worthwhile to give some context on the Rational Dress people? Currently there's simply a link to Victorian dress reform, but I suspect that the movement is sufficiently obscure that adding a line about what they did might be worthwhile.
I've put in a few words, do you think that sufficiently explains what they're about?
Yes, I think that's fine.
"the Women's Industrial Council was formed[...] a Liverpool branch was set up". I'd put this in the active voice. Something like: "Clementina Black set up the WIC; soon after, Mole helped found a Liverpool branch in which she was the secretary"
Done Rephrased as suggested. Worm^TT(talk)
Do we know why Rathbone and the LWIC disapproved of the rope makers' strike? I suspect that there were disagreements over tactics, which would be worth putting into the article, but I don't have access to all of the relevant sources to check...
Rathbone felt the LWIC should be used for "social investigation". She was making large steps in campaigning elsewhere and I get the impression that Mole's push for trade unions and strikes were upsetting the apple cart. I've clarified a little on the article, hopefully that's sufficient. Worm^TT(talk)
This looks good, too.

Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 16:24, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry I have been slow to get back to you on this, Worm That Turned and Staceydolxx...

Right, on to the GA criteria. Certainly I think the article is sufficiently well-written, and it complies with the relevant MoS sections. It's also certainly stable, and the illustrations are fine.

It's fairly short, but looking around this appears to be because there simply isn't that much available on Jeannie Mole. With that in mind, the main points of Jeannie Mole's life appear to be covered.

One final thing which confuses me is your distinction between Mole's feminist and socialist work. I can see how setting up the Worker's Brotherhood is socialist activity, and how campaigning for dress reform is feminist activity, but much of the women's trades unions stuff appears to be (at least arguably) both. Does this separation come from the sources that you have used? Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 10:33, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

They were just natural headings that we stuck in as we were building. I've combined both sections as I agree there is a significant crossover. Worm^TT(talk) 11:50, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. Whilst looking to see whether there were any useful journal articles available, I found Krista Cowman's PhD thesis, which seems to contain a decent amount of information about Jeannie Mole, though it may all be also covered in Mrs Brown. It's called "Engendering Citizenship": The Political Involvement of Women on Merseyside, 1890 - 1920 if you are interested (and if you can't get hold of it, get in touch with me and I'll see what I can do). There also seems to be a journal article "‘It be only for a moment’: placing women into the history of industrial militancy in Liverpool" (Cowman 2015), but I don't have access from home, so I can't see how useful it might be. Finally, I found references to information about Mole being in Labour Annual 1895 (p.180), and Labour Chronicle 1896 (in an article by Joseph Edwards, apparently). I don't know if any of these would be helpful to the article. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 10:33, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've managed to get my hands on Engendering Citizenship, which is a beast of a PhD thesis! There doesn't seem to be any more biographical information on Mole, I'm still scouring it for information to put in the article. I can't access It be only for a moment though, I don't know if there's anything helpful in there. As for the Labour Annual sources, I was using secondary/tertiary sources which refer to them, but hadn't actually accessed them myself. Having looked, I don't currently have access to the any Labour Annuals before 1900 (but I can get access to 5 afterwards, none of which write about Mole, besides noting her membership). Worm^TT(talk) 10:57, 14 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I apologise for being so horribly terribly slow at completing this review; I can't even plead that real life got in the way, I've just been putting off dealing with all of my responsibilities recently. As far as I can see, this article meets all of the GA criteria. Congratulations, Worm That Turned and Staceydolxx, and thank you for working on such a worthy subject for a biography! Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 21:00, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]