Talk:Michael A. Healy

John Muir on the Corwin

"Renowned naturalist John Muir made a number of voyages with Healy during the 1880s as part of an ambitious scientific program." This is at least a bit misleading and needs a reference. As I understand it Muir made one voyage on the Corwin, in 1881. C.L. Hooper was Captain; Healy was First Officer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dankarl (talk • contribs) 22:02, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Still don't get this, but see where it came from. USCG bio has the statement; but other places, C.L. Hooper is captain of the Corwin in 1881. Muir made no other trips on the Corwin; he was basically out of science 1882-1887, and when he went north in 1890 it was on commercial vessels.Dankarl (talk) 21:39, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Concentrate on Michael in this article

There is an article on the Healy family, as well as individual ones for the other two brothers. I don't think there should be as much info here on the family - it will be hard to keep several articles accurate, and this one should concentrate on Michael, rather than repeating so much of what is in the family and other articles. I intend to edit it to do that.Parkwells (talk) 02:11, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

False, Propagandistic Picture

A PBS documentary on Healy focuses on his role as a martinet, viciously enforcing discipline against reluctant sailors in service of capitalist masters, and deals with the two trials he underwent for violation of duty, following which he was relieved of duty for four years. Healy ultimately degenerated into alcoholism, attempted suicide, and was brought back to port and classified as insane. This article entirely omits these vital details for understanding this complex person in its sychophantic concern to praise his every action, and as such is below Wikipedia's standards. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.198.164.6 (talk) 21:15, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

This is rather strong - Healy had a volcanic temper and got in trouble with his superiors from time to time, but he had a long and successful career during which he was the highest US government official in Alaska for lengthy periods of time. The Coast Guard thought enough of him to name a cutter after him in the 1990s. I think the article's somewhat heroic portrayal is at least somewhat justified. Stewart king (talk) 17:54, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Clark or Smith

We have a reference (Reference 1) that states that Michael Healey's mothers name Eliza Clark [1]and another that states that the name was Mary Elisa Smith (Reference 2) [2]. Which is it? One is obviously wrong. Cuprum17 (talk) 19:04, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Marriage Date must be wrong

It can't be 1829, as the groom wouldn't yet have been born... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.192.84.197 (talk) 02:49, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Complexion

I recall that it reportedly was not known by his Revenue Service contemporaries that Healy was of mixed-race parentage until his funeral, when his sister attended and she clearly was of darker complexion. I can't remember if this was in a story about him or the biographical documentary. Activist (talk) 17:14, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Recollections don't count. I have reverted your edit of the article as the reference cited for the paragraph you modified in your edit does not support your edit. Find a reference that does support your viewpoint and then add it to the article. Then you may make your proposed change. Cuprum17 (talk) 17:42, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

@Cuprum17:, @Parkwells: Actually, the reference cited clearly supports my change. So you deleted my accurate edit for one that was facially invalid.

The nine Healy children who survived infancy displayed a range of complexions—some "looked" black, some white, others in between.

His brother (Alexander) Sherwood's patron, Bishop John Fitzpatrick of Boston, remarked ruefully, when Sherwood's candidacy as director of the largest seminary in the U.S. was rejected, that "He has African blood and it shows distinctly in his exterior. This, in a large number of American youths, might lessen the respect they ought to feel for the first superior in a house." Activist (talk) 18:38, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

@Activist:,@Parkwells: Activist, you characterized your edit as a recollection; something you had seen somewhere. I took it to mean you couldn't actually recall where you had seen the subject matter of your edit so I reverted. I feel the real question here is whether the subject of his siblings complexion or their life experiences has any real bearing on the article about Michael Healey. It is my opinion that his siblings life histories bear only tangentially to the article about Healey and perhaps the whole issue should be removed from the article except where it bears directly on Healey's life history. If his siblings lives were notable, perhaps they should have their own Wikipedia articles. If not, then why are their lives cluttering up this article? Just my opinion. Cuprum17 (talk) 19:15, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

@Cuprum17:, @Parkwells: Since you've shared your "opinion," in my own, if you had given more than a cursory look at Michael's article, or, if any, to the source you mistakenly claimed didn't support my edit, rather than just reverting my accurate edit to restore the inaccurate one, you might have noticed that three of his eight siblings who survived infancy, older brothers Patrick and James, and his sister Eliza, all have fleshed-out Wikipedia articles, and Sherwood, said to be the most brilliant of all, seems deserving of one as well, despite his ethnicity considerably hampering his career. Michael was a member of an extremely remarkable and prominent family with a unique history, and it's commonplace for articles here to contain such pertinent information. You've misspelled the family name here as well. In his mid-teens, Michael left Holy Cross to become a crew member of a foreign flagged vessel because his intended maritime career in the U.S. was hindered by his ethnicity. He became a captain in the segregated Revenue Cutter Service after returning to the U.S. as a petty officer only because his USRC superiors did not realize that he was of mixed race. (As late as the 1950s, Coast Guard "oilers" were referred to as "the black gang," and the only other classification open to blacks - such as Alex Haley, was in the mess crew - stewards.) His brother's presidency of Georgetown was notable because membership in its student body was prohibited to blacks until a century later, and when his ethnicity became known to the student body in the '50s, his campus portrait was defaced. Three sisters also left the U.S. because they could not realize their religious vocational aspirations without emigrating. Your original edit was in error and I feel you seem to be doubling down to justify it, rather than just letting it go. Had I more time to devote to this yesterday, I would have reviewed the citation immediately that supported my somewhat innocuous one-word edit of existing text that I knew to be wrong, but besides my usual work, I was involved in making extensive travel arrangements for my own widely dispersed and large family to be at the distant, for most of us, services for my brother who died on Saturday. Is there anything else with which I might be able to help you? Activist (talk) 20:53, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

First of all let me extend condolences to you on the death of your brother. Realize of course that I was unaware of this event; however it has nothing to do with the way this discussion has or will progress. Yes, I have misspelled the Healy name, thank you so much for pointing this out. I will remind you that we all make mistakes. There is an article on Wikipedia about the Healy family and it is my personal opinion that much of this information included in the Michael Healy article really belongs there. Only facts that directly relate to his personal history should be included in the Michael Healy article. Now as far as your claim that the "Black Gang" on Revenue Cutter Service and Coast Guard cutters only included those persons of color, you are mistaken. The nickname "Black Gang" was given to the members of the engineer division on steam powered cutters of the Revenue Cutter Service because the boilers were coal-fired and the firemen were covered with coal dust after coming off watch. It didn't matter your race, you were black. There have always been Caucasian engineering crewmembers since the days of steam power and race did not matter. On todays Coast Guard cutters, there is still a "Black Gang", although in this politically correct era, the term is less popular. Today's "Black Gang" clothing is likely to be covered with oil or grease rather than coal dust, but they are still engineers and are still occasionally referred to as the "Black Gang". How do I know this? I was stationed on a Coast Guard cutter as a member of the engineering division. I am a retired Coast Guard Chief Machinery Technician. I have given more than a "cursory look" to this article; I contributed many times to this very article, check the edit history. In my opinion, there is information in this article that is only tangentially relative to the life of Michael Healy. The information is in the Healy family article where it belongs and it should be linked to the Michael Healy article. I have no problem with linking. This would be, in my opinion, the only proper way to handle this. The information on the life of Healey's siblings only clutters up the Michael Healy article and needs to be removed.

Again, my condolences to you and your family on your brothers death. Cuprum17 (talk) 21:52, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Given no one has responded to the continuation of this Talk section, I have moved it, notifying those who have participated in this discussion. Activist (talk) 03:33, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Edits for style and brevity

@Cuprum17:, @Parkwells: As I've reread the article, it's clear that your similar critiques were both quite correct. As I did, I was reminded of the comment of an old former Alaska reporter/editor friend, describing the style of another accomplished writer: "He gets a nickel a word." I went through it and pared down some of the facts better relegated to the family page, but more importantly I think, a good deal of the bothersome verbosity, which you had both suggested be eliminated, Parkwells as long as six years ago. I appreciated your thoughts and hope these edits meet your expectations. Activist (talk) 11:11, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

@Activist:, @Parkwells: In my opinion, the article reads much better because of edits made by the both of you and I thank you both. I usually don't patrol the article Healy family, but much of what was removed from this article could be included in the Healy family article with no objection from me, if it isn't already there. Activist, thank you for your gracious and skillful editing of the article and Parkwells, your second eyes on the article have tuned the article up so that all of us can be proud of our contributions to making the article Michael Healy a better reference for Wikipedia readers. Cheers to you both! Cuprum17 (talk) 13:46, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Cheers to both of you, too. It's good to work with you. Activist, let me add my condolences for the loss of your brother. I am so sad for you. Thank you both for your edits on this article; and it's good to have both your perspective and that of Cuprum17. Parkwells (talk) 14:36, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

• I had done considerable work on the Healy family and other siblings' articles years ago, and obviously ran out of steam before getting back to this one. I agree that the overall discussion of the variety of the siblings' appearances belongs in the family article, plus some references where appropriate in individual articles. I tried to add more to that main article about various legal and social aspects of the time. I need to look again at the references - I recall seeing something that mentioned appearance particularly in regard to the sisters and yes, Sherwood, too, but not where it came from. Both this article and some of the others seem over the years to have editors who relied more and more on one book by O'Toole and his conclusions, and an article by someone else at Boston College, than on other sources. I think other sources on the complexity of race and ethnicity, which this family represents, are also appropriate; as well as keeping clear about laws and customs that affected race at the time. A source for the bishop's comment about Sherwood would be great.Parkwells (talk) 14:36, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Try this url: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/mcnamarasblog/2011/02/%E2%80%9Ci-no-longer-call-you-slaves%E2%80%9D-the-healy-brothers-1830-1910.html The search engine at Patheos is pretty good and you'll find maybe four other stories about the family be just using "Healy" as a search term. Activist (talk) 07:24, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

• A.D. Powell wrote about this family, too, in a provocative contemporary essay that you both may find interesting. She says that the Healys did not try to deny their mixed ancestry, but neither did they make their lives within African-American communities, so why are they since the late 20th century, being recognized/claimed primarily as African Americans? (she describes it as "kidnapped.") Here is a blog article from 2010 associated with Georgetown Univ's views of the racial identity of the president Patrick Francis Healy that also argues for considering the whole person, and how he might have thought of himself: [3] The fact that there is documentation about the Healys and others helps readers understand the many adjustments that mixed-race people made in making their way - and they did not all follow one path, and were not always labeled. What was also unusual about them, for the time, was that the Healys were raised as Irish Catholic, so they were traveling a different path than the Protestants of mixed race (outside French-influenced areas of the South).Parkwells (talk) 14:36, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
• The discussions about the Healys remind me too of the discussions about the NY Times literary critic Anatole Broyard, who was from a Louisiana Creole family that moved to Brooklyn. He wanted to be a writer, not a black writer, in the way that role was being shaped in the 1950s and 1960s. He felt his upbringing in New Orleans was not like that of blacks in Brooklyn. He identified with artists and writers who thought they had more in common with their strivings than identifying with their backgrounds. Jews who became secular and left Orthodox families were making similar decisions. Others have disagreed with Broyard's choice, especially in the wake of the civil rights struggle.Parkwells (talk) 14:36, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
• I think a sense of the historical times is important to the Healy family, as it is since the late 20th century that they have been claimed more widely as the first African American this and that. I'm reading online a 1954 biography of James A. Healy. It suggests that there were rumors in the Irish American community of Portland of his being African American (or Negro) when he made bishop, and it was known within the church hierarchy, but that he won people over with his excellence, education, and care. It also gives a sense of his world there, serving French Canadians, some of whom were new immigrants to the US (according to the bio, he spoke French and English, and made other priests learn French), Abenaki Catholics, and the growing numbers of Irish immigrants and their descendants. The Abenaki and French Canadians would have known Metis people, even if they were mostly Native American and European in background rather than African, but there were also African Americans of mixed ancestry throughout New England. (Likely mostly not Catholic at that point, given the history.) But these three groups, and the Catholic Church itself in Portland, were also at the time fundamentally still considered marginal by the traditional New England Congregational/Protestant mainstream, even as the demographics were changing.Parkwells (talk) 14:36, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
• In a sense, what we see is that in more frontier areas, such as Alaska, Maine, and Canada (in comparison to the US), the Healys may have had more freedom to make their ways. Also, Paris and France had been a place of educating some mixed-race men since its own colonial period in the Caribbean. Alexander Dumas' mixed-race father was brought to France by his own white father and educated to enter the military, which provided careers for other mixed-race men, free people of color. Paul Heinegg discussed the importance of the frontier for mixed-race people in the colonial era in the US; he contended that there people cared less (at least for a time) about others' backgrounds, and more for how they acted and conducted their lives. We have to keep revisiting these issues. The Healys made their way in the Catholic Church at a time when, as a 19th-century institution in the US, it had been built mostly by ethnic Irish. That was the cause most of the Healys appeared to identify with, and being educated as Catholics gave them a path for careers. Well, wanted to add some more thoughts.Parkwells (talk) 14:17, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

@Cuprum17:, @Parkwells: I made some additions to Michael Healy's article. In reading the history of other services, it seems as though Healy might have been the highest ranking officer ever of African American descent, in any branch of service, at the time of his promotion to captain in 1883. He was not considered a "Senior Captain." A Commodore was a higher rank, but normally honorary, and the leader of a joint command rather than a single vessel. The next higher Navy rank would be a two-star, a Rear Admiral. Civil war vet, Lt. Colonel Allen Allensworth may have had an equivalent rank but probably was promoted long after Healy and was said to be the highest ranking black officer in the U.S. Army. He was a chaplain, serving with the Buffalo Soldiers. I found a Lt. Colonel William N. Reed, who died on February 26, 1864, nine months after entering the service in the Civil War, and commanded the First North Carolina Colored Infantry Regiment which became the 35th US Colored Troops. I don't know if that was considered "Regular Army." There were at least two black majors who also served in the Civil War. There was one officer who had not been commissioned, but was elected as a colonel by his troops. Activist (talk) 10:50, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

@Activist:, @Parkwells: Activist, please see Footnote 1 in the Michael Healy article. It explains the difference between Navy rank structure and the rank structure of the Revenue Cutter Service. The Revenue Cutter Service and its successor service, the Coast Guard did not gain rank parity with the Navy until after World War I when the Coast Guard adopted the Navy's rank structure. The King reference, cited in Footnote 1 gives more detail on page 61. Although Healy was an RCS captain, the equivalent rank in the Navy was only that of lieutenant commander, two grades below that of a navy captain. Cuprum17 (talk) 14:41, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

@Cuprum17:, @Parkwells: Thanks for pointing me to that! Activist (talk) 06:31, 27 March 2017 (UTC)