Talk:Maria E. Beasley

Rewrite required

The article appears to have been written very subjectively, like a youngster's vague college essay. It would benefit from being written by a more competent author in order to give the article more credibility and weight. Maria Beasley, if a genunine entrepenurial inventer in her own right and not just a suffrogette pet icon, deserves a much better description of her life and endevours in her honour. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.27.7.218 (talk) 09:29, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Rewrite complete. I think the article is much stronger now (and should give readers a clearer/more accurate picture of Beasley's life and work). Alanna the Brave (talk) 02:08, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

The Titanic lifeboats were radically different from her design...

...and collapsible boats go back to before she was born. Qwirkle (talk) 20:35, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Titanic rescue claims seem pretty uncertain

There are plenty of websites claiming that Beasley's liferaft design was used on the Titanic, but I haven't been able to find a credible source for this claim. The Titanic apparently used lifeboats, not liferafts, and while there were four collapsible lifeboats, it's not clear how closely they were based on Beasley's design (and those four boats probably would not have been large enough to save "the hundreds of passengers" mentioned in Titanic/Beasley stories)[1]. I also did a scan of digitized American newspaper archives from 1910-2020, and Beasley is not mentioned once in connection with the Titanic. While Beasley did indeed patent significant improvements to the design of liferafts, I think the Titanic story is likely just an Internet rumour -- if I find a good source that supports this, I'll add it into the article. Alanna the Brave (talk) 22:32, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Maria E. Beasley/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Mujinga (talk · contribs) 14:17, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Overview

I'll take this on as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/GAN Backlog Drives/January 2022. Looking forward to reading into Maria E. Beasley's life! Mujinga (talk) 14:17, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Nice article, thanks for nominating it! I think it should be quite easy to bring this up to GA standard. Please see my comments below and let me know when you are done / if anything needs clarifying. I'll put the article on hold for a week, if more time is needed let's discuss. Cheers, Mujinga (talk) 14:59, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

@Mujinga: Thanks for the review! I've made copy edits and have responded to your queries below. Let me know if you have any other questions or recommendations. Best, Alanna the Brave (talk) 17:46, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the fast answers, that's all looking good now so happy to pass this, nice one! Mujinga (talk) 22:33, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	i used this as a worktable to check things, all comments made below table
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).
	2c. it contains no original research.
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
	7. Overall assessment.	Pending

Copyvio check

• No problems suggested by earwig check

Infobox

• will come back to last
• seems good, just a question on her activity times below

Images

• File:Maria E. Beasley.png - license ok, no need for circa on date?

Circa removed. -A

• File:Wall Paper Printing Press, Machinery Hall at the centennial, 1876, Philadelphia LCCN2006677406.jpg - license ok, wallpaper for wall paper in caption?

Done. -A

• File:Maria_Beasley_Life_Raft_patent_1880.png - license ok

Lead

• will come back to last
• i was going to say this needs expanding but everything is summarised well and for a faitly short article one paragraph is ok
• suggest add the "equivalent to $40,325,185 in 2020" to $1.4 million

Done. -A

• suggest make Hauser bold and make the redirect

Done. -A

Early life

• Maria Hauser - no need to be in bold and can be made as a redirect to this page

Done. -A

• I'm sure you checked, but no mention of the mother?

I found her mother's name (added), but none of my sources tell me anything else about her, unfortunately. -A

• When she was thirteen, suggest at the age of thirteen, just because there's another "when" in the following sentence

Done. -A

• Hauser married - when?

Couldn't find a date for this. Author Autumn Stanley thought that Maria married an Andrew Beasley in 1865, but I don't think that date works for John Q. Beasley, as Maria and John were apparently already married when the Civil War started in 1861. There could be a source out there that clarifies the marriage date, but nothing accessible to me right now. -A

• Beasley decided - suggest Beasley then decided

Done. -A

Career

• Really interesting stuff!
• couldn't abuse - suggest could not abuse

Done. -A

• [13]: 263  As she continued to patent her inventions, she secured funding assistance by transferring partial rights to business partners.[14]: 187 - you could add these page refs to the citation itself which would fit the overall referencing style better

Done. -A

Footwarmer

• The present tense is a bit discombobulating, but it is used consistently

I agree it feels a little odd, but I think it makes sense to talk about the mechanics of her inventions in present tense (similar to how we talk about literary plots). Just like the plot of a book, the workings of this patented invention aren't fixed in the past. -A

Barrel-hooping machine

• ok

Life raft design

• ok

Anti-derailment device for trains

• well explained!

Thank you! :-) I'm not a mechanic, but I tried really hard to make this explanation clear. -A

• maybe it's good to say here, if there's a source for it that it was her last patent? this would then legitimate the claim in the infobox that she was active between 1878 and 1898

I'm not sure any sources explicitly confirm this. This patent is chronologically the last one mentioned in the sources I've found, but it's always possible that she patented other things afterwards and we just don't know about them. I've added "circa" to her years active in the infobox. Does that work? -A

Death

• Not wild about such a small section, but then I can see the response being where else to put it...

I know -- usually I try to combine death info with later life/legacy info, but I just couldn't find anything for Beasley. -A

See also

ok

Notes

ok

References

ok

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 Theleekycauldron (talk) 16:31, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

Maria E. Beasley

• ... that between 1878 and 1898, American inventor Maria E. Beasley patented fifteen innovations, exhibited her work at two World's fairs, and founded a company that later sold for $1.4 million? Source: "Between 1878 and 1891, Maria E. Beasley ... received 14 patents... Later, in Chicago, she patented an anti-derailment device for railway cars (1898) ... She apparently exhibited her barrel-hooping machine at the World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition in New Orleans in 1884." (Autumn, Stanley [1995]. Mothers and Daughters of Invention: Notes for a Revised History of Technology. Rutgers University Press. pp. 347-348). "By the time of the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, [Beasley] had become one of the leading women inventors in the world, and her patented machines were prominently displayed ... Beasley was quickly able to secure enthusiastic financial backers, which allowed her to establish her own enterprise in 1884 to make and sell barrels. The Beasley Standard Barrel Manufacturing Company, in which she was the majority shareholder, was acquired in 1891 by the American Barrel and Stave Company of New Jersey for $1.4 million in equity." (Khan, B. Zorina [2020]. Inventing Ideas: Patents, Prizes, and the Knowledge Economy. Oxford University Press. p. 269).
  • ALT1: ... that between 1878 and 1898, American inventor Maria E. Beasley patented a footwarmer, an improved life raft, several barrel-making machines and an anti-derailment device for trains? Source: "Between 1878 and 1891, Maria E. Beasley... of Philadelphia received 14 patents, eight of which had to do with the barrel-making industry. Six of these eight were machines... Later, in Chicago, she patented an anti-derailment device for railway cars (1898)... she patented a foot-warmer, a baking or roasting pan, and two improved life rafts..." (Autumn, Stanley [1995]. Mothers and Daughters of Invention: Notes for a Revised History of Technology. Rutgers University Press. pp. 347-348).
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/René Prêtre

Improved to Good Article status by Alanna the Brave (talk). Self-nominated at 19:14, 4 January 2022 (UTC).

• A newly minted GA, cited to reliable sources and by a well established user. A QPQ has been conducted, hooks are supported in the articl and AGF'ing on offline source. This looks good to go. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 14:47, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

ALT1 to [[[T:DYK/P2]] without image