Talk:Marie Van Brittan Brown and Albert L. Brown

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 4 January 2019 and 17 April 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Anusha Neu.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 00:34, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Syntallen. Peer reviewers: Akeme001.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 03:23, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Google Patents link Was wrong

The google patents link was incorrect. It linked to Norma Brown who invented a bunch of stuff but is not Marie Van Brittan Brown. Changed it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by J00shk (talk • contribs) 19:56, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Norma is, apparently, Marie's daughter. I'd like independent confirmation. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 20:54, 11 July 2024 (UTC).

Photo inconsistency

The photo uploaded for Blount-Griffin is identical to the photo uploaded for Marie Van Brittan Brown. It's unclear which of these (if either) is the correct photo, so I am removing it until this is resolved.--Blueclaw (talk) 22:17, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Hi oh,it i forgot hahahahs Alyxis (talk) 02:24, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

External Links Tag

Kj cheetham Could you please elaborate on what the issue is with the external links? ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:06, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Hi ScottishFinnishRadish. It's almost always best to avoid any external links at all in the main text of the article. I had a bit of time today, so I've tidied it slightly myself and removed the tag. -Kj cheetham (talk) 13:49, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm still trying to clean it up a bit as well. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:53, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

CCTV

this article says this was the first closed circuit television system. That's totally not true Meandmynine (talk) 22:05, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Other features

This also said this device had a remote unlock the door and a connection to the police. Can any of this be verified? Was this machine ever built or used? Is there a picture? This is close to 1970 I'm expecting pictures of at least one. Are you allowed to connect commercial CCTV equipment to the police? Or is that only for rape/panic alarms police install themselves. This honestly just looks like a patent that was never used. Have you seen the size of a CCTV camera in 1966? How would it go behind a door and move to three separate peepholes? How big is the frame moving the camera? Also a remote to open a door? Do you know how much work that is for 1966. This patent makes zero sense and I suspect it's just a drawing made of technology that wasn't even possible at the time. Meandmynine (talk) 22:12, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

The system was never manufactured of marketed. Whether the Browns ever built a prototype we do not know, but it seems unlikely as the cost would have been very high. The connection to the police was not, I think, a CCTV connection but a simple alarm signal, which was "a thing" in those days, although I don't know how it worked, and I don't think the patent specifies - not that you are prevented patenting something simply because there would be beau acratic hurdles to implementation. This was all possible, whether it was all practicable is another matter. New apartment buildings often had CCTV. The use of radio rather than a wired connection for the remote seems a strange choice, a simple battery powered wired remote opener was child's play even then. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 10:28, 7 November 2024 (UTC).

CCTV cameras

In 1966 CCTV cameras were as big as a modern microwave. This is just a patent drawing. It was never made or sold. All accompanying data is made up. There's no way something the size of a microwave could go behind someone's front door and move to four different peepholes. That would be hard to do today. This is a patent drawing that was never put into production Meandmynine (talk) 22:20, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Update

I found this in a Smithsonian magazine. Just as i thought. Can the article be updated please. They filed a patent for their device in 1966, citing Marie as lead inventor. It was approved three years later. “The equipment is not in production,” the New York Times reported, “but the Browns hope to interest manufacturers and home builders. That never happened, presumably because the Browns’ system was ahead of its time. “The cost of installing it would be pretty high,” says Robert McCrie, an emergency management expert at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan. Marie’s invention, though it didn’t benefit them financially, would earn the Browns a measure of recognition in the tech world Meandmynine (talk) 22:28, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

There is no such concept in US patents as "lead inventor" - Marie's name was listed first. We don't know why, though we could come up with many different reasons. As far as I know the Browns received no recognition apart from the New York Times article until around he turn of the century, when articles started to appear mostly about Marie, eliding ALbert - one even says "As a black woman on her own, it would have been very difficult to sell an idea into what was totally a male business world." All the best: Rich Farmbrough 10:35, 7 November 2024 (UTC).

Legacy

this legacy states that after this this technology was used for security in banks and businesses. This was already the case, CCTV systems were sold commercialy as early as 1950 and were even used to watch the Kremlin in the 1930's. Meaning they were already used for security and it stems from the invention of cctv itself. Meandmynine (talk) 22:39, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

False source

The source material in the response section, does not match the sources? Meandmynine (talk) 20:56, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

There was a lot of vandalism that got left in the article. These edits made by a single purpose account, are basically just made up.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough 20:52, 11 July 2024 (UTC).

I get you. Thank you Meandmynine (talk) 01:40, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Copied from Reference Desk/Miscellaneous

Apparently Marie Van Brittan Brown was presented with an award from the prestigious "National Scientists Committee". There are hundreds of references to support this. However I can find no trace of this body, except in said references.

• Does this body or did this body exist?
  • If so, what awards did it make? Is there a list I can consult?
  • If not:
    1. Was Marie Van Brittan Brown and/or her husband Albert L. Brown given any other award?
    2. How do we explain this in the article. "Numerous references claim ... but there is no trace of such an organisation.^{[Citation needed]}"

All the best: Rich Farmbrough 17:38, 12 July 2024 (UTC).

Perhaps the awarding organization was the National Safety Council, which issues a variety of awards, such as its "Distinguished Service to Safety Award".^[1] Someone may have made an incorrect guess what the initialism NSC stands for; others copied without checking.  --Lambiam 19:27, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. It could be, but I can't find any matches. I had already tried the National Science Board and Foundation. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 13:51, 13 July 2024 (UTC).

The earliest ref I could find in Google News was dated 7 March 2016. It gives "National Science Committee", a variant that was in the Wikipedia article, but not in its reference. It was introduced to the WP article in this edit, in February 2016. It cites this short article, which is undated, archived by archive.is on 29 April 2016 and by archive.org in January 2016 (It carries "© Copyright, African American Registry, 2000 to 2013" which however looks like a generic sitewide copyright notice).

However another source dated 11 April 2016 here, also mentioning the award, provides sources, namely:

1. Raymond B. Webster, African American firsts in science & technology, (1999);
2. The Inventor of the Home Security System: Marie Van Brittan Brown by Think Protection;
3. Patent: US 3482037 A;
4. “Brown Interview with the New York Times,” New York Times, December 6, 1969.

It's not in 1 or 3. I can't yet find 2, and I doubt it will be in 4, since this was a short while after the patent was granted. It's not impossible that this author (Rebecca Hill) also consulted Wikipedia, which by then contained the claim.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough 13:51, 13 July 2024 (UTC).

OK it's the thinkprotection source. Here at archive.org. No visible author or date, but dated March 2016 by the upload directory. Hence postdating the introduction into Wikipedia. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 14:23, 13 July 2024 (UTC).

A Google search for ["National Scientists Committee" -Brown] does not yield any relevant results, so I recommend removing the statement, clearly incorrect in its present form and as far as we could figure out unfixable. The common origin may be this article, published February 16, 2012, on the website of 107 JAMZ, a radio station based in Lake Charles, Louisiana.  --Lambiam 09:19, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Difficult

I'm finding this article very difficult. There's some [potentially] useful information here, about Marie's education [Harrison College, DeVry University, and the University of Phoenix]. However the same source says "she invented the first security cameras" and "Marie also built security cameras". This is, so far, from the common misunderstanding X has a patent for a Foo, therefore x invented the Foo, rather than X invented a (new and better) Foo (Which I've seen about other inventors.) that I don't feel I can trust it on the education. I even have doubts about the children, which may have been spread from earlier versions of this Wikipedia article. Many of the other sources clearly have insufficient editorial oversight, as they include mistaken claims that would be dispelled just by reading the patent. Few of these sources would be RS in any case to base an article off, though they might be reasonable to support detail. In the same way I don't feel it's good to have almost the whole article based of dubious sources, albeit much has already been removed. The only sources I feel comfortable with at the moment are the patent, the New Your Times article, and a PhD dissertation by Spaulding. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 13:31, 15 July 2024 (UTC).

There are a few books that may be useful, that I can't access. There are more, however, that from a snippet view I can see are no good. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 14:04, 15 July 2024 (UTC).

Hunker cites the Klein ISD article. It also cites the author of a book for elementary (primary) school children on MVBB. Some of this can be seen online, it's essentially the same content recycled for under 8s. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 14:04, 15 July 2024 (UTC).

Primary sources may exist at the Internet Archive when it comes back. https://blog.archive.org/2024/09/24/illuminating-the-stories-of-brooklynites-through-digitized-directories/ All the best: Rich Farmbrough 11:21, 18 October 2024 (UTC).

Images

As far as I can see there are three putative images of Marie and one of Albert.

1. The New York Times photo of the couple. This of course is almost certainly genuine. But it is in copyright. Fair use may apply, or a general CCBYSA/Pubic domain release could be sought.
2. A photo almost certainly of Bessie Blount Griffin.
3. A photo possibly (probably?) of Marie Dutton Brown, shown here: Black History at PSU.

Avoid using any of these without ensuring that it meets WP policy and is actually a picture of one or both subjects. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 20:28, 6 October 2024 (UTC).