Talk:Mary Seacole/Archive 1

Hagiography

So she wore bogus medals, supplied booze to the troops and "she liberated some items from the city" (I think the word is "stole"). Perhapos this article should be in a hagiography section.

194.46.238.22 12:20, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I am very impressed with this article - it is a good example of Wikipedia's collaborative encyclopedia editing. Should we perhaps start working towards a featured article status? There is presently an exhibit on Mary Seacole at St. Thomas' Hospital in London. JFW | T@lk 08:19, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

I am currently expanding it from the cited sources. It will take me some time, but I should be done later this week, I hope. -- ALoan (Talk) 23:34, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Review

This is in many ways a wonderful article but is in my opinion far too long. I started reading it with great interest but it dawned on me that I was in for a very long haul; and I prefer a quicker read on the internet, at least for minor historical figures. I’ve appended below a few random passages and details which I believe could be reduced, but if this is to become a featured article, I’d suggest a wholesale restructuring of the article and its emphasis. Most of the stuff about Panama was dreary and superfluous, I thought, as were other passages that had little relevance to Seacole’s notability. As soon as she’s in the Crimea, however, the article lifts off and becomes riveting. Perhaps the proportions she observed in her autobiography showed acumen; the article might benefit by following suit and focussing largely on her adventures in the Crimea.

In other respects, the article is a tour-de-force of reliability and referencing. The editors deserve great credit for what (as I know well) is a laborious and difficult task. Few articles reach such a high standard. From the point of view of information, this article is in my opinion a great asset to Wikipedia.

Below are some details and passages which in my opinion could be cut or reduced:

at the bottom of the road near the harbour

In 1850, Seacole's half-brother Edward moved to Cruces, in Panama, then New Granada. There, approximately 45 miles (70 km) up the Chagres River from the coast, he followed the family trade by establishing the "Independent Hotel" to service the many travellers between the east coast and the west coast of the United States. The number of travellers had boomed thanks to the 1849 California Gold Rush.[27] Cruces was the limit of navigability of the Chagres River during the rainy season, from June to December.[28]. Travellers would ride donkeys approximately 20 miles along the Las Cruces trail from Panama City on the Pacific coast to Cruces, and then downriver to the Atlantic (or vice versa).[29] In the dry season, the river subsided, and travellers would switch from land to the river a few miles further downstream, at Gorgona.[28] Most of these settlements have now been drowed by Lake Gatun, formed as part of the Panama Canal.

She took a boat past Chagres to the noxious Navy Bay (renamed Aspinwall in 1852 after the American chairman of the railway company, but now known as Colón),

Cholera was to return again: Ulysses S. Grant passed through Cruces in July 1852 on military duty, and a 120 men, third of his party, died of the disease there or shortly afterwards en route to Panama City.[31]

Salih notes the use of a white American pidgin vernacular, contrasting with Seacole's clear English, as an inversion of renditions of "black" speech in contemporary literature, and as a claim of moral and intellectual superiority.[35]

Seacole also comments on the positions of responsibility taken on by escaped American slaves in Panama, in the priesthood, the army and public offices, [30] commenting that "it is wonderful to see how freedom and equality elevate men".[33] She also records an antipathy between the Panamanians and Americans, which she attributes in part to so many of the former being former slaves of the latter.[34]

Units from Jamaica were sent to the Crimea after war broke out in 1853. After a period of increasing international tension arising from the gradual weakening of the Ottoman Empire — dubbed the "sick man ... gravely ill" by Russian Tsar Nicholas I,[40] troops from the Russian Empire occupied the provinces of Moldavia and Walachia in July 1853. These provinces were autonomous, but still nominally within the Ottoman Empire. The British and French sent naval forces to give moral support, and the Ottoman Sultan, Abd al-Majid, declared war on Russia on 5 October 1853. On 30 November, ships from the Russian Black Sea fleet, armed with the new explosive munitions, attacked a vastly inferior Turkish fleet at Sinope, sinking 16 vessels. France and Britain delivered an ultimatum, requiring Russia to withdraw its forces from the Ottoman Danubian provinces and from the Black Sea, or they would also declare war. Britain finally declared war on 28 March 1854, and sent a force to Scutari in Turkey and then Varna in Bulgaria. Disease broke out almost at once, and hundreds died of fever (mostly cholera) in their camp. Finally, an invasion of the Crimea was launched in August 1854, with a view to capturing the vital Russian Black Sea port of Sevastopol. After landing at Kalamita Bay to the north of Sevastopol on 14 September, and repelling a Russian attack at the Battle of Alma on 20 September, the bombardment of Sevastopol began on 17 October. The allied forces repelled Russian counterattacks at the battles of Balaclava and Inkermann, and the siege continued.

where she was conducted on a tour by a cicerone and bumped into some friends from the 48th Regiment that she knew from the Caribbean

She found the trip rather precarious, fitting her "well-filled-out, portly form" into the small boat.

The usual one shilling entrance charge was quintupled for the first night the usual rate, and then halved for the Tuesday performance, before returning to the usual level for the last two nights, with a reduced number of performers.

Much had changed in her absence. The economic fortunes of the white settlers had continued to decline, while a black journalist and politician, Edward Jordan, was already mayor and would become the first black Jamaican to be knighted in 1861. Further changes were around the corner. Rioting after a political meeting at Morant Bay in 1865 led to the Governor Edward Eyre ordering the militia to fire on the crowds. He subsequently offered an amnesty to induce the protestors to surrender, but he then had the ringleaders, Paul Bogle and George Gordon, and more than 400 supporters, hanged. Outrage in London quickly led to the recall of Eyre, the dissolution of the island Assembly, and the imposition of direct rule as a Crown Colony. British money flowed into Jamaica, improving its economy substantially.[89][90]

By 1870, Seacole was back in London, and Robinson speculates that she was drawn back by the prospect of rendering medical assistance in the Franco-Prussian War.[93] It seems likely that she approached Sir Harry Verney, Member of Parliament for Buckingham who was closely involved in the British National Society for the Relief of the Sick and Wounded, the fore-runner of the Red Cross. A letter from Florence Nightingale to Verney dated 5 August 1870 has survived, giving Nightingale's views on Seacole, insinuating that she kept a "bad house" in the Crimea, and was responsible for "much drunkenness and improper conduct".[94]

Prince Victor of Hohenlohe-Langenburg (also known as Count Gleichen), a nephew of Queen Victoria, carved a marble bust of her in 1871 which was exhibited at the Royal Academy summer exhibition in 1872 (Seacole had treated him when he served in the Naval Brigade in the siege of Sevastopol in the Crimea).[95][96]

It has been proposed to re-position the blue plaque at another residence, in 14 Soho Square, where she lived in 1857.

qp10qp 16:05, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

GA Nomination

This article is excellent, and as such it should be recognised as such. Please support this nomination, and please edit it to make it great. Ixistant 20:36, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

First off, some of your references have dissapeared. Please work to retrieve them. Secondly, remove 'vivid' from lead regarding her biography. It's not neutral. Overall, more advice as it comes, but good job. WikiNew 21:32, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I was aiming for FA last autumn. I may still get there, if and when the wind fills my sails again. -- ALoan (Talk) 22:45, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm failing this article. Failed to meet GA conditions. GreenJoe 17:07, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry but that's my job. I'll give them the benefit of doubt with an A class but please restore cites. WikiNew 17:18, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Um, why? Some more feedback would be helpful.

Regarding the word "vivid", have you read the book? That adjective is rather common descrition of her writing. I'll give one of many examples: [1]

And which references have "disappeared"? -- ALoan (Talk) 17:22, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Look, there are cites but there's no information? And vivid is in violation of NPOV. WikiNew 17:50, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I see what you mean about the cites. Fortunately, it is easy to reconstruct what 'name="SeacoleX"' and 'name="robinson54"' means. Hopefully that is better now.

But "vivid" is POV? How so? It is vivid; other people have called it vivid; as far as I am aware, no-one has disputed that description. -- ALoan (Talk) 18:04, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikinew are you sure about your NPOV assertion:-

"The neutral point of view is a means of dealing with conflicting views. The policy requires that, where there are or have been conflicting views, these should be presented fairly. None of the views should be given undue weight or asserted as being the truth, and all significant published points of view are to be presented, not just the most popular one"

Firstly, one adjective does not a point of view make; unless our prose is to read like a Haynes Manual they are necessary. Do we have a contrary point of view that suggests it isn't 'vivid', is nebulous or indistinct, that should be incorporated? Without that contrary point of view how can you claim that vivid is a violation of NPOV. Are you making the mistake of assuming there must be one? I've made my point, but as an aside I'd like to point you towards Synethesia and the research of Vilayanur S. Ramachandran. He lectured at the Reith Lectures a few years ago (they used to be available for download from the bbc website). Synethesia as an extreme condition is quite a problem - hearing colors, smelling words etc. but he found that to a certain extent synesthesia is present in most of us to a reduced degree (and to arty types more so). This function of the brain is the basis for metaphor, so we can say to each other "this cheese is sharp" clearly the taste of the cheese will not actually cut our tongues, but the description serves us well in imagining the particular quality of the cheese. Subjective assessments of artistic endevours may not be as subjective as we have previously imagined, and certainly for the purposes of wikipedia, cited assessments are sufficient. Kind regards--Joopercoopers 22:20, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

This familiar misconception of what an authentic violation of a neutral point-of-view would entail, has ensured that Wikipedia's articles on novels, for example, are limited to plot summaries of the kind that would disqualify a third-grader's book report, in a better school. The prospect of submitting any article to such a jejune critical "eye-balling" is not encouraging: so much for "Good Articles"! --Wetman 10:35, 27 March 2007 (UTC)