akuchling | Entries tagged with wikipedia

The DC Wikimedia group presented an editathon at the DC Historical Society in their library. I asked a librarian for suggestions and he got me a 1932 collection of biographies of notable contemporary Washingtonians, volume III of John Clagett Proctor's "Washington Past And Present".

I looked through it for biographies of people who seemed notable enough for Wikipedia. Many of them were lawyers or business executive who didn't seem to be of interest today, but then I found Crosby Stuart Noyes, who founded a newspaper, the Evening Star, that ran until 1981. I also worked on the entries for his sons Theodore W. and Frank Brett, who also worked at the newspaper. It was quite a dynasty: two further generations worked at the paper, and some of them already had stub entries.

This afternoon I finished a first draft of an article on Grace Wilbur Trout, an Illinois suffragist. Writing a biography is hard! The eventual process was:

Google for her name and assemble a list of references and sources,
go through all of the sources drawing facts from each source that I hadn't previously found in other sources
write sentences or paragraphs based on these facts,
and then massage it into a coherent flow.

It's not a very detailed article -- I found little about Trout's biography other than her birthplace, a list of her children, and her burial place -- but it covers the clear high point of her career, getting voting rights for women passed by the Illinois legislature in 1913 and will do as a starting point.

I began pulling together web resources on the first biographical entry I want to write: Grace Wilbur Trout, who was an Illinois suffragist around 1913. There's a passing reference to her on one page, but no entry for her specifically.

Outlining a biography is hard! Right now I only have a scattered pile of facts, and they're largely tied to the 1910s suffrage struggle. I know nothing of her life beyond her birthplace, and her later life in Florida is also vague -- she was on the civic planning board for 14 years, but what she did is still unknown. I may only end up with a stub article, but that'll still be something.

Tonight while watching some low-effort sitcoms off Netflix, I poked through the Library of Congress's Flickr account, looking for photos that could usefully be added to Wikipedia Commons. There were a few worth adding, such as a portrait of writer Don Marquis (of "archy and mehitabel" fame), and a few of people who aren't in Wikipedia yet but probably meet the notability criterion. I've put those people on my to-do list.

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AMK's Journal

Entries tagged with wikipedia

DC History Editathon

First draft of Grace Wilbur Trout article

Wikipedia: Biography writing

Photo-hunting for Wikipedia commons

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September 2021

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