Talk:Statue of Industry

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Freedom4U talk 21:42, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

Students dancing around Statue of Industry after tarring and feathering it

• ... that some said Statue of Industry "impressed all who gazed upon it"; others said it was "the ugliest sight in the Exhibition"; and still others tarred and feathered it (pictured)?
  • ALT1: ... that after George Frampton's Statue of Peter Pan was tarred and feathered, two of Jacob Epstein's statues received the same treatment, and Herbert Maryon's Statue of Industry was next (pictured)?
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Songs of Muad'Dib

Created by Usernameunique (talk). Self-nominated at 07:42, 31 October 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Statue of Industry; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

• the hook itself is interesting but is not phrased so. i would recommend trimming it down to keep only the tarring. the tarring sounds metaphorical and needs rephrasing to emphasize it was literally tarred. a source is needed in the hook too.RagingPichu (talk) 06:55, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
• Why not "the Statue of Industry" (in the first hook, not ALT1), and why the italics? Ham II (talk) 20:45, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

• RagingPichu, how about:

ALT2: ... that Statue of Industry was tarred and feathered (pictured)?

ALT3: ... that 80 police officers were needed to disperse a crowd which tarred and feathered Statue of Industry (pictured)?

RagingPichu (talk) 23:15, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Source: link.

Ham II, the italics are used, and there is no "the", because Statue of Industry is the name of the work. --Usernameunique (talk) 21:18, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

The article's references refer to it in running text as the Statue of Industry, the statue of Industry, a statue representing "Industry" (with quotation marks doing the job of italics) and a few variations on these and on Mother Industry and the Mother of Industry, but never "Statue of Industry"/Statue of Industry without the definite article. It's telling that the string of references which refer to it as if Industry were the title (nos. 56–60) are the only ones quoting the sculptor. This is analogous to the Statue of Liberty (note the absence of italics), which has the formal title Liberty Enlightening the World. The issue with the definite article could be avoided altogether if the hook used the construction "Herbert Maryon's Statue of Industry". Ham II (talk) 09:22, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Usernameunique i like ALT3 the best. i'd pass that one RagingPichu (talk) 22:57, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Sounds good, thanks RagingPichu. To get this into the approved list, could you please confirm that you’ve checked article against the DYK criteria, and add the green checkmark? --Usernameunique (talk)

And then what?

The article states the statue was seen in 1931, but that was 90 years ago. What happened to it? Was the site closed after the company went out of business? Did a later inventory or map show nothing where the statue was? The article should at least say something about that. Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 12:29, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

All valid questions, Piledhigheranddeeper. The reason the article does not say anything about the post-1931 history, however, is because I haven't found any sources discussing it. You should feel free to take a look too if you wish; there's a book (Arcs, Sparks & Engineers) on the history of A. Reyrolle & Company that is in my list of things to track down, and it's possible that libraries in Hebburn might have additional ideas. --Usernameunique (talk) 00:29, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

If it's not there now (sorry, I can't pop over and have a look—too many time zones involved), there might be something to the effect of "Most of the Reyrolle Works site has been closed; the statue's fate is uncertain." Something to tie it up. Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 11:56, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

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

Reviewer: Eddie891 (talk · contribs) 18:23, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

I'll review this one in the coming days. Looks fascinating! Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 18:23, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, the lead image isn't pd based on the tag as far as I can tell? We'd want to wait until Jan 1? Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 02:25, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

I was going off of U.S. rules, which may have been a mistake. Do you know which template/rules would apply for the UK? If PD-UK-unknown, would ln't that still be okay, at 70 years? --Usernameunique (talk) 04:35, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

I guess you're right. I thought newspapers were under copyright with or w/o copyright notices, but couldn't find anything on that Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 15:36, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Sources all seem reliable and well-formatted. I will do a spotcheck later. Pity there aren't more scholarly sources, but what can you do. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 02:32, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

• "after the Second World War, Maryon went on a second career as a conservator at the British Museum, where his work on the Sutton Hoo ship-burial led to his appointment as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire" While interesting, is this really relevant background to this article?

• Not strictly, but it's arguably what he's most notable for—I think worth at least a sentence in a "Background" section. --Usernameunique (talk) 04:37, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

• I added one conversion factor, is there a reason other figures don't have them?
• "Maryon began by creating a small sketch model of the statue. He began" any way to avoid the double repetition of 'began'?

• Changed the first to "started". --Usernameunique (talk) 05:38, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

• Is there anything about the choice to make a sculpture/the selection of the sculptor/payment?

• Unfortunately no. Presumably Maryon was chosen because it was a fair about local abilities and he was the Master of Sculpture at the nearby college, but that's just guesswork. --Usernameunique (talk) 07:49, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

• ""like an Epstein fright"" Is there anything you can link to Epstein here?

• Linked to Jacob Epstein. --Usernameunique (talk) 06:05, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

• "By October 1929, several statues had been defaced" I don't think it's clear whether you mean statues at the exhibition or broader. You may als owant to add "recently"?

• Clarified that the others were in London. A bit more ambivalent about "recently", given that the chronology begins four years earlier. --Usernameunique (talk) 05:45, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

• "Two months later, in December, three students at King's College tarred statues as part of a rivalry with University College, and in the process inadvertently poured tar on the school's war memorial. They were ultimately suspended two terms—until the following October" Is this really relevant to this article?

• Directly so; I've added a line to clarify why. "According to The Sunday Sun, "it was deemed essential that strict measures should be taken" due to the spate of recent raggings, including against Statue of Industry." --Usernameunique (talk) 05:57, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Overall, a really nice read, just a few minor suggestions. Not wedded to any of them. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 03:09, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Spotchecking: 8,16,18,25,30,37,43,48,55,62.

Can't find the designer of the memorial in FN 18

Citations seem to me to suggest that Rima was tarred and feathered on the 9th not the 8th?

Changed to on the night of 8 October 1929. It was discovered in the early hours of the 9th, but would have been tarred at some point before. --Usernameunique (talk) 04:42, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Everything else looks good to me. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 02:26, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks very much, Eddie891. Responses above. --Usernameunique (talk) 04:43, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Primary sources

I've removed the {{primary sources}} template from the article. The sources we have are simply the sources we have; while every article would benefit from multiple lengthy and well-researched books on the subject, this is a rare luxury. Though most of the sources used here are contemporary newspaper articles, there is nothing suggesting they are unreliable. --Usernameunique (talk) 00:15, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree with JoelleJay here. It's not a question of whether the sources are reliable, it's about avoiding original research. Per WP:OR: Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them. The only secondary sources in this article are those used to support the background information, and none of them mention the statue. If there are no secondary sources about the statue, that's an indication that the topic isn't notable. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 06:25, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Oppose adding the tag. The use of newspaper sources seems fully appropriate to me. What specific areas of the area do you think are OR? I don't see what purpose slapping a badge of shame on this article would serve, especially given it's already been through a peer review process. The article is currently a good article nominee, I think it would be better to make any comments on sourcing there - or if there's a genuine concern over notability then feel free to nominate it for deletion. ITBF (talk) 09:08, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

I thought about this, and I don't think the primary sources tag applies-- the newspaper reports are reliable for what they cite, and carefully used. Because this is, in my eyes, a sub-article of North East Coast Exhibition, and is too long to reasonably be merged in there, it doesn't make sense to nom for AfD. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 19:31, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Old newspaper articles reporting local news are most definitely primary... Four-sentence blurbs like "The Statue of Industries...was tarred and feathered last night" are non-significant breaking news, not secondary analysis. It doesn't matter that it's reliable for what it says; per policy, such sources cannot be the basis for the article.

And beyond that, almost 100% of them are from 1929, with the author above admitting they can't find later coverage; this strongly suggests a 1E situation. The fact is that no one else has seen the statue or its defacing as deserving of in-depth retrospective commentary. JoelleJay (talk) 17:27, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

I've again removed the banner. This article passed a good-article review, and the reviewer addressed the sourcing above. Continually slapping a cleanup template atop the article accomplishes nothing—let alone when added by an editor who has not made a single other edit to this article.

Incidentally, the age of the sources is irrelevant; notability is not temporary, meaning that if the statue was notable in 1929, it is notable now. Also, Ayris 1999 discusses both the statute and its tarring, and has been added to the raticle. --Usernameunique (talk) 19:24, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

There is no consensus on the talk page that the tag isn't due, considering the comment by @Sojourner in the earth. Again, news articles are primary sources, and article subjects are required to have WP:SUSTAINED coverage. If the Ayris piece really is 12 pages then sure, that's SIGCOV, but a passing mention is not sufficient to meet SUSTAINED and given it's only used to source a single sentence I have trouble believing it is enough to satisfy the "based on secondary sources" policy. JoelleJay (talk) 21:00, 26 December 2023 (UTC)