Talk:Caroline Brady (philologist): Difference between revisions

Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →

Ealdgyth (talk | contribs)

2 user groups
157,795 edits
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
m Formatting
Ealdgyth (talk | contribs)
Autopatrolled, Administrators
157,795 edits
scheduled
Line 13: Line 13:
|dykdate = 23 March 2018|dykentry = ... that [[philology|philologist]] '''[[Caroline Brady (philologist)|Caroline Brady]]''' wrote about the words used for weapons and warriors in the [[Anglo-Saxon]] poem ''[[Beowulf]]''?
|dykdate = 23 March 2018|dykentry = ... that [[philology|philologist]] '''[[Caroline Brady (philologist)|Caroline Brady]]''' wrote about the words used for weapons and warriors in the [[Anglo-Saxon]] poem ''[[Beowulf]]''?
|four=yes
|four=yes
|maindate=November 27, 2019
}}
}}
{{WikiProjectBannerShell|1=
{{WikiProjectBannerShell|1=

Revision as of 16:05, 27 October 2019

Featured articleCaroline Brady (philologist) is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
Main Page trophyThis article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on November 27, 2019.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
May 19, 2019Good article nomineeListed
August 12, 2019Featured article candidatePromoted
Did You Know
A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on March 23, 2018.
The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that philologist Caroline Brady wrote about the words used for weapons and warriors in the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf?
Current status: Featured article

Personal life section

Largely removed from article due to concerns over use of primary sources:

1920 Black and White photograph of the Bessie Dollar at dock in Valcouver
S.S. Bessie Dollar at dock in Vancouver in 1920

Caroline Agnes Brady was born in October 1905 in China.[1][2][3] Her father was Col. David John Brady, an engineer, and her mother Annie Lucy Maude Brady (née Short).[4][5][6][7][8] The two were married on 10 May 1904 in Shanghai.[7][8] On 16 May 1910 the three arrived in San Pedro, California on the steamer[9] Bessie Dollar,[10] and by 1911 they were living in Cranbrook, British Columbia.[1] A sister, Frances Barbara Brady (or Frances Maud Brady[11]), was born on 10 April 1915.[6][12][13] In 1917 the family returned to the United States, settling in Los Angeles.[12]

David Brady died in late January, 1953,[5] and his wife, now going as Maud Short Brady, on 23 November 1959.[14][15] Caroline Brady was referred to as "the late Caroline Brady" in 1983.[16][17] Frances Brady, by then Frances Brady Ackley, died on 14 December 1993; her obituary mentioned only cousins among her survivors.[18]

References

  1. ^ a b Canada Census 1911.
  2. ^ United States Census 1930b.
  3. ^ United States Census 1940.
  4. ^ Los Angeles Times 1938.
  5. ^ a b Los Angeles Times 1953.
  6. ^ a b California Death Index 1993.
  7. ^ a b UK Overseas Registers 1904a.
  8. ^ a b UK Overseas Registers 1904b.
  9. ^ Los Angeles Herald 1906.
  10. ^ California Passenger Lists 1910.
  11. ^ Social Security Claims.
  12. ^ a b United States Census 1920.
  13. ^ United States Census 1930a.
  14. ^ Los Angeles Times 1959.
  15. ^ California Death Index 1959.
  16. ^ Anglo-Saxon England Contents 1983.
  17. ^ O'Donoghue 1986, p. 238.
  18. ^ Los Angeles Times 1993.

Sources

Question

Usernameunique, where is your reference in the article for the statement that "Brady began work at Harvard around 1952"? Gatoclass (talk) 18:42, 25 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Good point Gatoclass, I've changed it to "around 1953". In September 1953 she is listed at "19 Garden St., Apt. 38, Cambridge 38, Mass." in the PMLA members list, and a 1955 review of one of her works stated that "Miss Brady has now been working for some time at Harvard". The 1952–53 Talbot fellowship, which followed an apparent gap in teaching positions (assuming she didn't do anything after leaving the Oregon community college in 1949) may imply that she took up her Harvard position in 1952, but there's nothing that definitively says so. --Usernameunique (talk) 19:00, 25 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The reason I asked Usernameunique is because reference 41 states that she was working at the University of California, but I just noticed that this source is from the 1930s yet is being used to support the statement that she was living in California in the 1950s, so this looks like an erroneous cite to me. Gatoclass (talk) 19:15, 25 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Gatoclass, references 40 and 41 work together to support the statement that "in 1952 [Brady] was also listed as living at her parents' California address." 40, from 1952, lists Brady as living at "132 S. Laurel Ave., Los Angeles 48, California". 41, from 1935, is used to show that this address was her parents address ("Miss Brady was accompanied by her sister, Miss Frances M. Brady. They are the daughters of Col. and Mrs. D. J. Brady, of 132 South Laurel avenue, Los Angeles."). --Usernameunique (talk) 19:20, 25 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, thanks for the clarification. I am going to have to continue revamping this article tomorrow, as converting the references has turned out to be a more difficult job than I anticipated. Gatoclass (talk) 19:34, 25 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your work, Gatoclass. I think I've finished formatting the references to the extent practical. --Usernameunique (talk) 20:05, 25 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Date of death

That this article asserts she died "before 1984" is surprising. One would expect anyone who died in the early 1980s to have at least the year, if not the day, recorded of her death; doctors are usually in attendance to provide a time & cause of death. Is there a reason this article states that, such as she was discovered dead weeks, if not months, afterwards? Or is this just an interim workaround until the date of her death can be found? -- llywrch (talk) 04:17, 23 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Llywrch, an obituary would clear up many of the uncertainties in this article, but so far I haven't been able to find one—what she did after 1955 is also missing. As far as her year of death goes, it's probably 1980. The journal issue in which her 1983 article was published terms her "the late Caroline Brady", while a signed offprint of her 1979 article (offprint may have been issued in 1980) indicates that she was alive in 1979 and maybe 1980. Ancestry.com lists a "Caroline Brady" (3 Oct 1905 – November 1980) in the Social Security Death Index, and a "Caroline A Brady" (abt 1905 – 5 November 1980) in the Washington State Death Index; that's probably her. --Usernameunique (talk) 12:46, 23 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
So it's an interim workaround. I understand. But I am a little surprised her death information isn't easily found. I have seen a number of one-page death notices for academics published in periodicals they were frequently published in, so maybe one she published in contains one. (BTW, I did a quick search thru JSTOR between 1979-1983 & found nothing.) Maybe AAUW has the info; I'd cite their database as a source before Ancestry.com, & I remember a dispute some time back about using SS records as a source. (Sigh.) Hope my hints help in finding this bit of info. Good luck. -- llywrch (talk) 17:57, 23 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
AAUW is a good thought, Llywrch, just sent them an email. Washington papers seems to be severely underrepresented on newspapers.com and newspaperarchive.com (don't see anything on ProQuest either), so an obituary may be somewhere that I just haven't found. I think what hinders this is that she seems to have dropped of the face of the academic earth for a good quarter-century, before two articles at the end of her life. It's quite possible she changed careers, and in doing so lost touch with the contacts and organizations that would have noted her death (e.g., her membership in the Modern Language Association of America lapsed in the 1950s). Primary sources were certainly controversial during the DYK nomination, and a published source would be ideal. --Usernameunique (talk) 20:00, 23 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Or she was married & raised a family. Or a family member contracted an illness & needed a care giver. Things like this derail a woman's career to a greater degree than a man's. -- llywrch (talk) 20:03, 23 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Fair point, Llywrch; the salient point is that after 1955 or so she started doing something else. I've looked for marriage records to no avail, and the fact that her sister's 1993 obituary only mentions cousins among survivors Brady didn't have children. --Usernameunique (talk) 20:13, 23 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"The salient point is that after 1955 or so she started doing something else." -- also a fair point. IMHO, this is something that should be mentioned in the article -- that she appears to have left academia for some reason. (I can think of several: sexism, burnout, unpleasantness in her personal life, etc.) Exactly what was the reason... well, I think we can agree this might not be revealed soon. Although it definitely makes her more intriguing. (BTW, I thought of another possible angle to pursue: would the alumni organization at UCLA/UC Berkeley have any info about her?) It's beginning to look as if there is a story here that could be sold for publication. If you're interested in writing for pay, that is. -- llywrch (talk) 20:32, 23 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Llywrch, I agree with you, although words to that effect were removed from the article during the DYK nomination due to concerns (not mine) that they would constitute original research. I'm glad you find her intriguing. There are a lot of aspects about her life that call out for more detail: her birth in China (to a military father—couldn't find his records, but may not have searched hard enough), her parents Shanghai wedding, her childhood abroad, her different academic positions, especially her months at a random community college and subsequent resignation due to "ill health" (as convincing an excuse as "personal reasons"), her many moves, and her ultimate disappearance and reappearance. You're almost certainly right that she dealt with sexism, and Kemp Malone's two(!) cutting reviews of her dissertation may be one such indication. Good suggestions re: UCLA/Berkeley. Sent both of them emails. Suppose I should do the same with Penn/Harvard, maybe their libraries could be of help. --Usernameunique (talk) 21:31, 23 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • On the gap in her teaching and publishing, don't discount the death years of her parents. Her father died in 1953, and her mother in 1959. She may well have been caring for her mother during the later 50s. Whatever the story though, it doesn't belong in this article unless some secondary source writes about her life and mentions what she did in the gap. Yngvadottir (talk) 16:26, 19 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that seems likely. Someone in the area could search physical copies of the local paper in the library—likely just the Seattle Times?—for a death notice. But without something published and actually tying the death date to her career, or giving her full name, we can't state that as her death date in the article. Yngvadottir (talk) 15:36, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea Yngvadottir, just asked here. --Usernameunique (talk) 16:15, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Dissertation

Noting since it doesn't seem to have been looked for before that the University of California has her dissertation: http://oskicat.berkeley.edu/record=b15406130~S53 . That establishes it as having been accepted in September 1935. (She may well have attended a graduation ceremony in 1936.) It also attests to the von Egmont part of her name. It is possible that she had already married by that time, but it would be unusual in the US for her to adopt her husband's name as the first part of a double-barreled surname, and a double-barreled surname would be unusual in that period in any case. It's more likely that was her full birth name; universities have generally required the entire legal name on a dissertation. She was probably eager to drop the German-sounding bit in the late '30s and after. Yngvadottir (talk) 16:14, 19 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea, Yngvadottir, just sent them an email asking them to check; I'll try to ILL it if they can't. I think "Brady, Caroline Agnes von Egmont, 1905-" may just be copied from WorldCat (the 1943 publication of her dissertation is listed similarly, but from looking at a physical copy, her name is actually given as "Caroline Agnes Brady"), but you're right that the actual dissertation is more likely to have her full name than most sources.
Thanks for prompting the discussion again. The AAUW got back to me a few weeks ago. Brady's fellowship file includes only a photograph (just asked if it's possible to use it), but the person who responded also dug up a 1952 mention of her receiving the fellowship. I'll add the source shortly, but it has some good information: that Brady was born in Tientsin, China, discussion about her proposed research, that her "place of study" was Harvard and Johns Hopkins, and that the fellowship was for $2,200. It also mentions that she was the "synonym editor" for "C. L. Barnhart, Inc., Bronxville, New York." On this information, perhaps we can surmise that she left academia for private practice after her "ill health" resignation from the community college (she's still listed until the early 1950s by the PMLA as at Penn, but that might not be correct), and that the fellowship was a way of trying to go back. It also puts her Harvard work in a different light; her time there seems likely to have been part of her fellowship, and not necessarily a teaching post. --Usernameunique (talk) 18:50, 19 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yngvadottir, that was a great suggestion. Berkeley just sent a scan of the dissertation cover page, and the Programme of the Final Examination for the Degree of Doctor oh Philosophy. The cover page says "Caroline Agnes Brady", with an edit mark between "Agnes" and "Brady"; the program, however, says "Caroline Agnes von Egmont Brady". Per email the spine also says "C. A. V. E. Brady". I had thought the "von Egmont" was an error introduced in the Proceedings of the Modern Language Association, but this makes it look as if you may well be right that she dropped the German-sounding part of her name. --Usernameunique (talk) 19:56, 23 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Caroline Brady (philologist)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: J Milburn (talk · contribs) 13:57, 7 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]


Great topic - I'm not sure how many GAs we have on philologists, but it surely won't be many! Josh Milburn (talk) 13:57, 7 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Ok, first thing I want to ask is about the death date - I wonder what steps you've taken to identify a death date? It's not the end of the world for GAC purposes, but I'd be interesting to know!
  • There's a fairly lengthy discussion about the death date—and other unknowns—on the talk page. The end result is that, without much doubt, she died on 5 November 1980 in Bellevue, Washington. We would have to cite this to the Social Security Death Index, which, given that it's a minor point about the article (and generally substantiated by other means), I would be fine doing if you like.
  • Done.
  • I'm also a little concerned about the use of a non-free image. There is no previous publication information (or information about the author/copyright holder), and we have two free images further down the article. Both of these are problematic from the perspective of the non-free content criteria.
  • The photograph is from the American Association of University Women, who were happy to have it used here (although they preferred not to release it under a CC license). Incidentally, it is the only item in their file on her. The other photographs are out of copyright, but being as they are from Brady's undergraduate days, they are not representative of her as a scholar.
  • I understand the thought, but I think the argument would carry a little more weight if her appearance was highly significant for some reason, and/or her appearance had significantly changed. We could request a third opinion, if you like? Josh Milburn (talk) 16:27, 13 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think her appearance has clearly changed, which is not surprising, considering that in her yearbook she is 22, and in the other photo, she is around 47. This is also the only good photograph of her that I know about (some particularly bad ones, perhaps still under copyright, can be found here and here); it is otherwise unpublished, and would be a shame to be left that way.
  • Nikkimaria, it is not known to have been published anywhere. It was the only item in the American Association of University Women's file on Brady; the organization named her their 1952–53 Marion Talbot Fellow, which came with a $2,200 grant for her scholarship. My guess would be that Brady had the photo taken herself (in the United States) and sent it to the AAUW along with her application. Brady, meanwhile, has no apparent heirs (when her sister died after her, only cousins were mentioned as survivors). --Usernameunique (talk) 22:59, 15 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Okay, so likely an orphan work. Unfortunately then I'm going to have to side with Josh on this one: while the later photo is much nicer, the change in appearance isn't significant enough to warrant a fair-use image when a free one exists. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:24, 16 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "were termed by A Beowulf Handbook "three fundamental studies" that were "philological in the traditional sense" and shed light on "the shades of meaning of the diction" used in the poem." Why not refer to the particular chapter author(s)? If this handbook is anything like some I've read, the various contributors will disagree with each other!
  • Good point. See what you think now ("termed by Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe in A Beowulf Handbook"); I could also remove the references to A Beowulf Handbook, although given the scope of the work—it serves primarily to give an overview of scholarship on the poem (see the preface)—there seems to be less danger of giving a disputed idea disproportionate weight.
  • The article is currently under 10k characters, so firmly in the "one or two paragraphs" lead category, per MOS:LEADLENGTH. I think you could realistically lose quite a few words without losing anything too important. I'd be happy to have a go at trimming it down, if you'd prefer?
  • I've taken a stab at it, though—knowing that you and I have different perspectives on appropriate lead lengths—I wouldn't hold you back from removing some more. Certainly a plus if we can keep it long enough to keep the infobox from bumping into "Early life and education", though
  • Looks good. I've added a small portion which I think is interesting and makes it flow better, but have otherwise left it as is.
  • "His two brothers, John W. and Will P. Brady—Caroline Brady's uncles—both become prominent Texas attorneys and jurists." Check tenses?
  • Fixed.
  • "Bessie Dollar" Can I recommend against the link?
  • Do we know who supervised her studies?
  • Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur chaired her dissertation committee and is one of two dedicatees of the book form of her dissertation (and mentioned first in the acknowledgements), but I don't know of anything specifically stating that he supervised her studies.
  • Done.
  • If it's an article, it should surely be "The Synonyms for 'Sea' in Beowulf", rather than The Synonyms for "Sea" in Beowulf. The same with the other articles; MOS:MINORWORK specifies that titles of "Articles, essays, papers, or conference presentation notes (stand-alone or in a collected larger work)" should be placed in double quotes, rather than italics.
  • Done.
  • Could we perhaps have a bit more about what was important about Brady's book? We have lots of quotes saying how original she was without really explaining what was novel about the thesis.
  • See what you think now. It doesn't seem that her thesis has caught on much (even the positive reviews are unconvinced by it); the work has been noted more for its breadth.
  • "are described by A Beowulf Handbook as" As above. Can I also suggest that you cite the chapter, rather than the volume as a whole?
  • Done.
  • Generally, I think I would like to hear a little more about the content of her monograph.

The references look fine for GAC purposes. Interesting read! Josh Milburn (talk) 15:00, 7 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review, J Milburn. Responses are above. I hadn't realized how few GAs there are about philologists until you mentioned it (Carl Joachim Hambro (philologist), but hopefully also Stephen J. Herben Jr. in time). This one was particularly interesting to write, especially given the many intriguing parts of Brady's life about which little is known: being born in China and the "von Egmont" in her name, for example. Moreover, other than a few publications, I still have no idea what she did after 1952. --Usernameunique (talk) 20:39, 7 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
From my perspective, I'm happy to promote once we've resolved the image issue. We disagree about MOS:LQ (judging from the editing back and forth), but that's not part of the GAC criteria, and while this article is arguably not MOS:LEAD-compliant, the section in question is sketchy, and doesn't seem to be followed in practice at FAC, so being a stickler at GAC seems counter-productive. Josh Milburn (talk) 11:49, 18 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments, J Milburn, and apologies for not responding earlier. As you have seen, I have also asked for another look at the photograph issue before removing it. It would feel a shame to remove it, but of course I will defer to consensus. I'll have to take another look re: logical quotation. I had thought I was following it, but looking again now, it appears I may not have appreciated a difference in guidelines for quoting full sentences versus fragments. --Usernameunique (talk) 19:09, 24 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
J Milburn, I've taken another look for logical quotation. It seems you've caught all the ending punctuation; I only made one change, to put a period within a quotation when the full sentence was being quoted ("Miss Brady ... in Beowulf."). The photo discussion has certainly ballooned a bit, as you have said. I'm happy wait for its resolution before moving on here, or to move on and just let it play out, whatever you think is best. Thanks, --Usernameunique (talk) 17:59, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
There's no rush from my perspective; let's let it play out. My reading is that the current infobox image is probably going to wind up deleted on sourcing grounds. The question then becomes whether you support uploading a different non-free image in its place (which I would oppose). It's not impossible that the newspaper photographs are actually PD, perhaps based on this or this. That would need looking into, though. If they were PD, I would naturally have no objection to them being included. Josh Milburn (talk) 18:27, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good, J Milburn. --Usernameunique (talk) 18:34, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
J Milburn, seems like the image discussion has been concluded. --Usernameunique (talk) 19:40, 8 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
If you have no plans to appeal deletion or upload another image or anything, I'm happy to go ahead and promote. The only thing I'd say is that it may be worth moving one or both of the yearbook images to the infobox. Josh Milburn (talk) 11:08, 9 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't thought that far ahead, J Milburn, but in any event, the only reason that that image would be added again is if there is a consensus to do so; in that case, the non-free concerns would have been adequately met. As to the college photos, I don't think they make much sense as the lead image, so I'll leave them as is for now. --Usernameunique (talk) 18:27, 9 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, great, I'm going to go ahead and promote. Good working with you, as ever. Josh Milburn (talk) 09:36, 19 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox image

Just going to add a link to WP:MCQ#Fair use image - reasonable or not for reference since it deals with the infobox image and some opinions on whether it meets WP:NFCC#1. Since there appears to some difference in opinion, it might be helpful to seek out more feedback by starting a discussion at WP:FFD. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:48, 25 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special%3ADiff%2F923288536