Talk:James Eads How

Dates

Do any of the sources say when How started living as a hobo (like, was there a particular year that he left college and started traveling), or was it more of a gradual, on-again-off-again thing? rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 13:34, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

DYK

Nominated for DYK: T:TDYK#James Eads How. I hope you think the article is more or less ready! I did some copyediting and misc cleanup first. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 18:17, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

As always, thank you very much! It is getting quite finished, and DYKs don't have to be perfect anyway. I may be able to get a picture for this article. --Apoc2400 (talk) 18:35, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Splitting the book refs off and specifying page numbers must have been a lot of work. I should have done that myself from the beginning. --Apoc2400 (talk) 18:51, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Additional sources

• From a police perspective, but not a reliable source I think.

That I don't have access to:

• "James Eads How: Portrait," Collier's, p. 16, June 26, 1926. A depiction of the millionaire-hobo.
• "Millionaire Hobo is Dead," Christian Century, p. 1020, August 20, 1930. An obituary-like account of James Eads How, his life and accomplishments, with particular focus on his work for the betterment of hoboes and their condition.
• Frank Orman Beck, Hobohemia (Rindge, N.H.: R.R. Smith, 1956).
• "James Eads How Seen through Eyes of an Old Friend" (July 27, 1930) St. Louis Post-Dispatch

NYTimes:

• JAMES E. HOW DIES, FRIEND OF HOBOES
• HOBO COLLEGE SPECIALIZES IN WORK FOR VAGRANT KNIGHTS OF THE ROAD
• HOBOES FIND A WAY TO ABOLISH POVERTY; Convention Asks Gov. Moore to Guarantee All Citizens 'a Right to Work.'

About his later personal life, marriage, etc. I wonder hos much of this is actually interesting.

• MILLIONAIRE HOBO' JAMES E. HOW, WEDS; Founder of Brotherhood of Daily Life Mu,'es Miss Sorenson, His Secretary, 29.
• HOW'S $1,000,000 LEFT TO WORKERS
• HOW GAVE FORTUNE AWAY.; Little Left, Besides $125,000, of Inheritance From Mother.
• James E. How's Estate Settled.
• SUIT FILED OVER HOW'S TRUST FUND
• Poet and Hobo Millionaire to Join Benedicks

--Apoc2400 (talk) 18:55, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Good article?

Apoc, are you planning to go to GAN with this? I think you've definitely dug up enough sources and information here to make this a good GA candidate, and if you get access to that image you were mentioning that would help too. I'm still curious about whether we can find a more specific date for when he left college and started living as a hobo, but other than that I think everything is pretty good. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 13:38, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Also, I might be able to access some of the sources in the above section through my university library, I'll have to do some snooping around. If we do have them then I can probably send you pdfs of them as well. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 13:39, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

How much does it take to become a GA? It would certainly be interesting to get it there.

I think this article from 1899 is from soon after he started the hobo life. He was about 25 then. I will see if I can find out for sure.

I was thinking of asking you about those sources. I understood that you live in America and know how to use a library. If you have time it would be very helpful. I believe the Collier's article is the source of this photo we discussed before, but then it would still be copyrighted. --Apoc2400 (talk) 15:23, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

There is a pretty wide variety of articles that make GA, both in terms of length, comprehensiveness, and writing quality. There is probably more specific information at Wikipedia:Good article criteria, but my general understanding is that if an article is pretty clean (well-organized, no obvious typos or structural issues, refs properly formatted, etc.), neutral, and more or less exhausts the material we have available, it at least has a good shot at GA. I say that because I've seen articles that would barely make DYK (like, articles about 2,000 characters long) get GA because they covered everything that there is to be said on the subject.

I think all we really need to do for this is get all the information we can out of all the refs we have (including the refs we haven't really used yet) and make sure the article has a good structure, and maybe beef up the intro section with some more summary of what IBWA and Hobo News were all about (and while I'm thinking of that, we could probably also say a bit more about Hobo News itself in the appropriate subsection, just sort of summarizing stuff from the main Hobo News article). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 19:11, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

About when he started living as a hobo: I cannot find anything about that in the book sources. This is what I found in New York Times articles:

• [1] "Dress like a tramp" June, 1899, first mention I found of him
• [2] "Is now traveling about the country doing chores for a living" October, 1901
• [3] "I have been on the road for five years", September 1907

This would mean he started about 1899-1902, age 25-27.

What I would like to find out more about is the hobo conventions. I haven't seen any source discuss them is details, but they are often mentioned. --Apoc2400 (talk) 21:32, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Pictures

• [4] though i have in slightly higher resolution. Nothing known.
• how.jpg (not online) of How speaking to a group of unemployed in Chicago 1921. From an unknown newspaper.
• jameshow.jpg (not online) Quite unclear. Nothing known.
• [5] from Colliers 1926. Photo taken 1922.
• [6], comic illustration of How by Art Young, from his 1939 book. There he writes about meeting how when publishing the journal Good Morning (1919-1921), so it might have been published there.
• [7], plain photo of How in Nels Anderson's The Hobo (1923). Still, 1923 is once year too late to be in the public domain.

--Apoc2400 (talk) 10:27, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Nice photo. I noticed, though, that the caption says he's speaking to "unemployed workers"... I think I get what you mean, but I'm sure a reviewer will say it sounds like an oxymoron. Can you think of a good way rephrase it? rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:38, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

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