Eliza7784

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Hello, Eliza7784, and welcome to Wikipedia! My name is Ian and I work with Wiki Education; I help support students who are editing as part of a class assignment.

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If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me on my talk page. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:32, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Peer Review

Editing Ma Rainey for the edit-athon.

Ma Rainey#cite note-Lieb2-7

What exactly do I dislike about the wiki?

The intro section of the wiki page has some choppy sentences that I feel need to be revisited. Specifically, "Gertrude "Ma" Rainey (born Gertrude Pridgett, 1882 or 1886 – December 22, 1939) was one of the early African-American professional blues singers and one of the first generation of blues singers to record." Considering it is the first sentence for the page I feel it should reed better than it does.

Possible changes-

"Gertrude Ma Rainey (born Gertrude Pridgett, 1882 or 1886 - December 22, 1939) was one of the early African-American professional blue singers that also got their work recorded."

Section- Early Life:

I feel this section should have more content in it/fleshed out more. Is there more information about her relationship with the church? It's mentioned once or twice in other sections that she was apart of it and it was where she seemed to use her musical talent before going professional.

"She had at least two brothers and a sister, Malissa Pridgett Nix, with whom Gertrude was later confused by some writers." Is this saying that people got Malissa and Gertrude mixed up? What exactly is being said in this sentence to be included and be important for this page. Upon further research I suggest removing the sentence from the wiki page.

Section- Personal Life and Death:

This section is also extremely sparse. It mentions Ma taking over theaters until her death after she retired from professional music. Could add some information about that. Conclusion: She was a proprietor for theaters which gives some insight, meaning she literally owned them.

Section- Legacy and Honors:

There is no mention of the museum that was founded in 2007 in the house she built for her mother. I think this would be a good place to include at least a sentence about.

There was a museum opened in Columbus in 2007 to honor Ma Rainey's legacy. It is in the very house that she had built for her mother and later lived in until her death in 1935.

What does the talk page say about this?

There is a lot of discussion back and forth on whether Ma Rainey was part of the LGBTQ+ community. I feel it is not my place to say "yay or nay" on the subject since it is under immense controversy between historians who make it their life to research these things. It also seems to be a slight back and forth with a lot of emotion about it in the talk page which perhaps means it best to steer clear of.

Another thing that is discussed is an unclear sentence that opens up the section "Recording Career" which I think just needs more elaboration on. It says there was an increase demand for black artists to be recorded in 1910 and that in 1920 Mamie Smith was the first black woman to be recorded. I think that the clarity could be achieved by laying a little heavier on the fact that it wasn't until 1920 that women were starting to be recorded but there were men already having their music recorded 10 years prior.

SOURCES IM GOING TO USE- If I need to research anymore I will add the sources as I go here.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ma-Rainey

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/12/obituaries/ma-rainey-overlooked.html

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/dec/15/ma-rainey-black-bottom-netflix-mother-of-the-blues

To my peer review partner: Do you think my edits suffice for the project or should I try to make more elaborate changes? The page is pretty flushed out the problem is that a lot of the "official" records of her life aren't around anymore so what things we don't know, i.e. her specific birth year, is all conjecture and guess work. Was there something that stood out to you from the wiki page that you think might need changed that I missed? Thank you! Eliza7784 (talk) 16:50, 25 February 2021 (UTC)Eliza7784

@Eliza7784: Hi Morgan, Dr. Sarraf here. Thank you for this careful and detailed description of proposed edits to the Ma Rainey entry. I wonder if you can find some scholarly sources to support your changes. For example, if you wanted to expand the "In popular culture" section, there are articles about August Wilson's play "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom." Here's one: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41237566?seq=1

I agree that this sentence is confusing: ""She had at least two brothers and a sister, Malissa Pridgett Nix, with whom Gertrude was later confused by some writers." Wikipedia's style guidelines would say that instead of saying "some writers," we specify who said that. It looks like that claim comes from this source, which you can double check: Lieb, Sandra (1983). Mother of the Blues: A Study of Ma Rainey (3rd ed.). University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 0-87023-394-7. KjessJKT (talk) 15:40, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Peer Review: Let me start by saying that I believe that all the edits you suggest are good ideas as long as you can definitively back up the historical content. I ran into the same problem as you in that my own historical figure is lacking in information about his childhood, so I understand the difficulty of fleshing out their story. With this in mind, I would not add to the Early Life section of the article unless you are really sure about the information. I do think however that the sentence about people mixing up Ma Rainey and her sister could be improved and made more clear. The Personal Life and Death section could definitely use some improvement, I think any information you can add in would be an improvement since as you mentioned its not very fleshed out. I would also suggest clearing up that whole section, since I personally found it confusing that they mentioned three people with the last name Rainey, but just referred to each of them as Rainey within the section. The sentence about the divorce also seems very short, so if you could find any additional information about that I would definitely add it in. Your last suggested edit about the museum would I think be a useful addition. It may just be me, but I feel like if you have a museum in your honor, it is an important part of your legacy. My only other suggestion would be moving the discussion about Ma Rainey's sexuality from the Recording Career section to Personal Life, as I feel that it does not really fit in there. I would also suggest removing that part of the sentence "According to the website queerculturalcenter.org", as that is something that would belong in the reference section and not in the body of the article. It may not hurt to also make sure that source is credible one. Otherwise, I feel that the edits you suggested are all good ideas and you should go forward with them. Bravestofbrave (talk) 16:33, 25 February 2021 (UTC)