Talk:William Thomas Pike

Refn notes in this article

The Refn notes in this article are there for a reason. They explain or give the context for material in the article. Regarding the siblings list, it is there to show part of the context for Pike's habit of creating family businesses. The background section shows that he grew up in family businesses, and the career section shows him employing his brother in his own business. However being employed by Watts did not work for him. His most successful era was the last one, in which he employed a brilliant photographer who has remained anonymous. We cannot comment on that without citations, but we can show the little that we do know.

There is no genealogy (i.e. lists of relatives) here, that is included just for the sake of it. That would be pointless. That Refn note is there for a reason. If in doubt, please discuss here before removing functional parts of the article. Storye book (talk) 10:52, 30 January 2024 (UTC).

The background section shows that he grew up in family businesses, and the career section shows him employing his brother in his own business. However being employed by Watts did not work for him. Certainly - but that context and explanation does not rely on the note. Knowing the names and dates of the siblings doesn't contribute to reader understanding of Pike's habits, and so should be excluded per WP:NOTGENEALOGY, as well as for lack of reliable secondary sourcing. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:02, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Then I shall put it back in due course with citations and a contribution to the understanding. This may take a while as I am currently unable to work full time. Storye book (talk) 08:59, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Societal Context

The introductory section notes that Pike's biographies only rarely included women, while, in the section entitled "Pike's New Century Series, 1898–1912," the contextual statement is made that the almost total exclusion of women from that work "indicates the social hierarchy of the pre-First World War era." Shouldn't this quoted phrase (or similar wording) be included in the introductory section also, to provide the societal context just as is done in the "Pike's New Century Series, 1898–1912" section? --216.15.56.15 (talk) 02:23, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

That social context, regarding women, is of course correct for the Edwardian era: women did not have the vote, they could not yet hold certain educational and professional qualifications, could not remain in certain employments (e.g. teaching) if they married, etc. etc. Thus, that comment about social context in the body of the article is by no means untrue, regarding contemporary preconceptions of women's social position in that era.

However, the header acts as a summary of the article, and in my opinion it is a more genuine summary if it just says that women were as good as excluded from the biography series. This is because, although the social hierarchy existed in a powerful way, Pike could still have included women in an acceptable manner: there were female aristocrats, female writers, female actors and female artists, who were household names, who could have subscribed to the series to Pike's financial advantage, and whose faces would have sold more books. In my opinion, a far stronger influence on Pike was the sensitivity of the men who subscribed. The books were sold on the understanding that the company of superiors in the same book would enhance the standing of the more humble subscribers, and there was still a large contingent of influential males who did not like or want the company of women in any public context. Look at the gentlemen's clubs of the era - they excluded women at members' insistence. Keeping their mistresses secret was probably only one of many motives. Pike may or may not have felt the same. Either way, including women might have made it more difficult for him to sell the idea of the books to potential subscribers - and there were far more rich men than rich women.

We don't know the whole answer as to why women were excluded;, and we can only provide cited evidence for a small part of the explanation. So I suggest that we keep the header simple. That way, we don't restrict the reader's understanding of the truth. It is more productive to leave them wondering if there were more to it than just the formal social hierarchy which used to dictate who sat where at a formal dinner, and who walked where in a formal procession. Storye book (talk) 10:11, 2 February 2024 (UTC)