Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/James Bryant Conant/archive1

James Bryant Conant

James Bryant Conant (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

• Featured article candidates/James Bryant Conant/archive1

Nominator(s): Hawkeye7 (talk) 04:00, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Been years now since an article on a chemist has been nominated for FA, and not since Joseph Priestley in November 2007 has one succeeded. I present an article on a chemist who rose to become President of Harvard University. If promoted in time, I hope Conant can appear on the front page for his 120th birthday in March. Hawkeye7 (talk) 04:00, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Support on prose per standard disclaimer. I've looked at the changes made since I reviewed this for A-class, and I made some tweaks. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 18:04, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks for your review! Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:20, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Thanks for your general awesomeness with 20th-century military stuff. - Dank (push to talk) 20:44, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Comments (only a few at the moment, may have more time later). Carcharoth (talk) 02:51, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

• In the lead section, the date when he became an assistant professor of chemistry at Harvard is over-precise (September 1, 1919). You usually only need the year in a lead section (a good example of an exception is the Trinity nuclear test date later in the lead). The lead ends abruptly in 1957. You really need to summarise the next 21 years as well, even if only in a sentence or two.
  • Added a couple of sentences. Hawkeye7 (talk) 05:17, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
• In the 'Early life' section, is "LPC Laboratories' an initialism formed from the initials of the surnames of the three founders members?
  • Apparently. But I cannot say so, because my sources do not say. Hawkeye7 (talk) 05:17, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
• Skipping ahead slightly, in the external links, the 'National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir' link is the same as used in the sources, so can be removed, unless you intend the reader to refer to this for 'further reading', in which case it should be flagged up as such (and properly formatted). Of the other external links, the 'Participants: James Bryant Conant' one is interesting, but at the moment there is no indication why a reader would want to follow that link - there needs to be something explaining what the link is to, prompting the reader to follow the link. The 'Annotated bibliography for James Conant' sounds promising, but when you click on it, it is rather confusing. Is it really showing a bibliography? And on a general point, external links don't need retrieval dates (though web page source references do).
  • Removed two. Added explanation. Hawkeye7 (talk) 05:17, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
• Looking at the infobox and the categories, you have unsourced items on: 'Foreign Members of the Royal Society', 'Fellows of the Royal Society of Chemistry', 'Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science', 'President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science' (in one of the succession boxes), 'Grand Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany', 'Honorary Commanders of the Order of the British Empire' (the infobox omits the 'honorary' bit), and 'Commander of the Legion of Honour'. For some bizarre reason, he is also in the category 'Kentucky Colonels' (a basketball team??). His Sylvanus Thayer Award is mentioned only in one of the succession boxes. Finally, the 'Medal of Merit and Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster' is mentioned in a picture caption, and the Medal of Merit is mentioned in the infobox and categories, but nothing is said about this award in the main text of the article (e.g. what year he was awarded this, and ditto for adding dates for the other items mentioned in this bullet point). While on awards, it would be nice if the infobox could list his science awards as well as his military ones.
  • See the article on Kentucky colonel. Conant was awarded this in 1946. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:07, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
    • I'd just about worked that out, but you got there before me! [1] and [2]. I'd never heard of those honorary US state titles before. Do you have plans to source any of this (or the other stuff mentioned above) in the article text? Most of it seems to be listed by Bartlett. I tried finding the Gazetting of his honorary CBE, but failed (not sure how those honorary ones are announced or where). I did find the Foreign Member of the Royal Society bit here (that gives the year). The Clark Kerr Medal, which he was awarded, has a stubby article. We also have Benjamin Franklin Medal (American Philosophical Society), which he again was awarded. Details of his Arches of Science award are here. Are you aiming to only include some of his awards and honours, and how do you decide which to include and which to leave out? The American Education Awards are here for instance. I did find a news article on him receiving the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (it was at the end of his service as ambassador, I think). And it would be nice to know more about the Legion of Honour award and the Medal for Merit (not of Merit as in the picture caption). That was effectively recognition of his WW2 work as a civilian, right? If you think this would overwhelm the article text, can they be listed with year in bracket in chronological order in the infobox? Carcharoth (talk) 22:33, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Going back to the article itself, I'm only halfway through, but it looks good so far. Will try and add more comments later. Have you had the chemistry bits reviewed by someone who might be able to say more on that, e.g. from the Chemistry WikiProject? Carcharoth (talk) 02:51, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

• It was reviewed at GA. WikiProject Chemistry has no A class review, so I had this conducted by WikiProject Military History. I didn't do biochem at uni, so the article relies on my high school level understanding of the subject. I was hoping that another set of eyes might show up at FAC. Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:24, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
  • You could always ask at a suitable WikiProject. My brief reading of the 'Chemistry professor' section (which is what you'll want to get reviewed) is that oxyhemoglobin is a redirect to hemoglobin, which has a section on oxyhemoglobin. Whether you want to handle that link another way, I don't know. You may also, for instance, want to make the link with blood chemistry and oxygen transport more explicit (it depends on whether you think most people know what hemoglobin is or not). What appears to be missing is mention of who he worked with at Harvard as a chemist, or those he may have taught who later became famous. I see Max Tishler is mentioned in the bibliography, and A. H. Blatt appears to be Albert Harold Blatt (1903-1986), who at first glance seems fairly obscure. Does Bartlett not have anything to say on people Conant worked with before he became President of Harvard? You won't have much room for that, but if there is something it would be nice. Carcharoth (talk) 23:56, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
    • Seems notable to me. Someone could write an article on him. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hawkeye7 (talk • contribs) 08:07, 21 December 2012‎
      • Hopefully someone will at some point (Albert Harold Blatt). The other red-link (for George W. Wheland) looks interesting as well. I've been looking at the main sources on Conant that I have access to, and I do think more could be said about the research he carried out. I'll say more about that later or on the talk page. Carcharoth (talk) 22:00, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Additional comments

• Do you have a year for his Nichols Medal?
  • 1932. Added. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:43, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
• Do you have a year for when the Nieman Fellowship was introduced? Does that paragraph generally cover changes in the 1930s and 1940s?
  • In 1936; but the first was not awarded until 1939.
• When you mention Theodore H. White's opinion on Conant, why is his (White's) opinion relevant? Who is White? Add 'historian' at the start of that sentence?
  • Well, he is notable. If I left his name off, people would give it a who? tag. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:43, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
• "Lowell had imposed a 15 percent quota on Jewish students in 1922" - you could make it clearer here that Lowell was Conant's predecessor as President, not all readers will remember this from earlier. (in the same paragraph, no need to wikilink 'historian').
  • Changed this one myself. Hope that is OK. Carcharoth (talk) 22:08, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
• "In 1934, Ernst Hanfstaengl" -> "In 1934, Harvard-educated German businessman Ernst Hanfstaengl".
  • Done. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:43, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
• In the Roscoe Pound sentence, you need to add something like "American legal scholar and Dean of Harvard Law School", otherwise the connection with Conant is not clear without following the link.
  • Done. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:43, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
• Also, what year was Pound's honorary degree awarded?
  • In 1934. Hawkeye7 (talk) 23:09, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
• Similarly, you could say that Thomas Mann and Albert Einstein are examples of displaced German scholars. The bit about Roosevelt (FDR) is fascinating - should you not say that he was actually US President at the time? Not everyone will realise that (and it will help when you mention Roosevelt again later).
  • Added. Hawkeye7 (talk) 23:09, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
• Also, are there historians who have commented on the stance chosen by Harvard and Conant with regards to Germany and Hitler at this time?
  • Yes. There are two groups of these: education historians interested in the march to integration and acceptance of women and minorities, and political historians looking at the transition from the New Deal to the War Against Fascism and Militarism. Hawkeye7 (talk) 23:09, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
    • Can this be expanded on in the article? Carcharoth (talk) 22:00, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
• In the paragraph on the 1941 Harvard–Navy lacrosse game, the bit relevant to Conant is that he gave this apology (it would be nice to know if this was something he felt forced to issue, or whether it was something he personally agreed or disagreed with, but I can understand that sources may be silent on this). Have historians commented on this subsequently? You gave quotes from historians in the antisemitism paragraph. This racial integration paragraph doesn't seem to come to any conclusions. Clearly it shows what things were like then, but to round it off, do you not need something such as saying when racial integration was achieved and (bringing it back on topic) whether Conant's presidency of Harvard aided or hindered this?
  • Racial integration was underway at Harvard already, but point is the greater weight Conant accorded to good relations with other institutions over standing on principle. I should add that Conant saw this as a class issue rather than a race issue, which racial issues usually are in the U.S. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:09, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
    • As above, is this covered adequately in the article at the moment? Carcharoth (talk) 22:00, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
• Just noticed that in the infobox the details of his Presidency of Harvard includes 'President: Harry S Truman'. Why is the US President for part of his time in office at Harvard at all relevant (it is not a government position, is it)? And if the details of his Harvard Presidency are in the infobox, is it not possible to include his scientific awards and positions as well? He clearly had different strands to his life and career: military, science and science and university administration; so the infobox should be adapted to cover them all, if that is possible. Ugh, and the infobox fails to mention his WW2 work at all. People like Conant with diverse and complex careers are one reason why infoboxes just don't work! After reading the article, I really feel the infobox doesn't do the man justice.
  • Conant called these his "lives". Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:09, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
    • Yeah. It does seem a bit silly that the infobox covers his WWI work but not his WW2 work. It's not the most pressing thing, but would you object to anyone trying to make the infobox a bit more balanced and representative of his 'Several Lives'? Carcharoth (talk) 22:00, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
      • That's because the infobox covers military service, which in Conant's case was during the Great War. It covers three of his lives. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:20, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
        • Sure, it covers his diplomat 'life', his 'educator' life, and his (WW1) 'military' life. But as I said, it still fails to say anything about his WW2 work. That still seems wrong to me. And the 'awards' bit seems to come under the 'Military service' header, but includes more than just military awards (and is a real hodge-podge at the moment). Is there a way to visually offset the awards bit, or handle this differently somehow? I'm not going to press this, but it just frustrates me slightly. The infobox on J. Robert Oppenheimer is different, but frankly not much better. This is why I really try not to get involved with infoboxes. The next thing you know, someone will pop up and suggest more than one infobox is used... Anyway, dropping this now, as I want to say a bit below about the sources I've looked at, and then step back a bit. Carcharoth (talk) 22:52, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
• I know the ending of the previous paragraph did mention World War II, but the 'National Defense Research Committee' section might be improved by including the dates of the outbreak of World War II and when the USA entered the war.
  • Done. Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:07, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
• Similarly, saying who Vannevar Bush is and what the National Defense Research Committee is would help as well. Not all those reading this article will be familiar with the topic.
  • Done. Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:07, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
• Also, if Conant remained a civilian, but working on military committees, that would be a point worth making. Other than that, the explanation is good here of the NDRC and OSRD and the role Conant played. Very minor point: the rubber shortage-national scandal sentence has too many commas and the construction is a bit clumsy. The section does introduce a lot of people without really saying who they are. Would be nice to say that Baruch was a businessman(?), that Hovde was a chemist and that Carroll L. Wilson was whatever he was (that's the problem with redlinks!), that Lindemann was a physicist and advisor to Churchill, and that Churchill was Britain's wartime leader and Prime Minister. I'm generally of the view that the first time you mention someone, you should really say who they are, though I accept Churchill may be too obvious. (Your second use of Lindemann mis-spells his name). Is it possible to link 'the British program' to something (surely we have an article on that)? And it would be nice to know what the honorary degree was that Churchill conferred on Conant. Bizarre, though, that that sort of thing (the awarding of honorary degrees) continued in the middle of a major world war (you may want to mention the year, 1943, of the Quebec Conference). I wonder if both sets of honorary degrees were merely part of the cover for the secret military meetings? In the last paragraph of this section, maybe make clearer that it is "growing criticism in the USA"? i.e. US public opinion, not international opinion.
  • Think I got all of that Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:07, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
• In the 'Cold War' section, make clearer who Robert Oppenheimer is? Most of those reading this review will know, but not all readers of the article will. The bit about Conant and his views on public education is fascinating. One bit that wasn't quite clear to me was where you say his influence was declining after he was passed over for President of the National Academy of Sciences, but then at the end of that paragraph you say he was appointed to the National Science Board (do you have a year for that?) and was appointed to the Science Advisory Committee - were those not influential posts, or was his influence now being redirected to other areas?
  • Those were not influential posts. Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:07, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
    • fair enough. Carcharoth (talk) 22:00, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
• The connection with Kuhn is, again, fascinating - this really puts things in context.
  • I wound up reading Kuhn. I really enjoyed his book. Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:07, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
• In the 'High Commissioner' section, should the 'USIA' acronym be expanded?
  • Done. Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:07, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
• For the Adenauer bit, "re-election as Chancellor of West Germany"? (or whatever it was called then)? It might help here to explain the relationship between the High Commissioner and the Chancellor - the Chancellor was democratically elected, but his (partitioned) country was occupied by the Allies so he had to negotiate with three occupying powers? That must have been complicated. Maybe in the previous paragraph, where you explain this, say what the role of Chancellor was?
• 'Death and legacy section': "nursing home [in] Hanover, New Hampshire" (missing word).
  • Corrected. Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:07, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
• One final point: ending on the sealed note he wrote to the future is nice, but maybe gives too much weight to his views and something that is, at the end of the day, a bit dramatic. To round off the article, are there no historians who have given an overall view on Conant that could be quoted?
  • I thought it would be nice to let him have the last say. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:07, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

OK, that is enough for now. Hope all the above is OK and can be addressed in some way. Apologies for the length of the review. Overall, I really enjoyed the article, and once I've dug around in the sources (that I have access to) to get a feel for what has and hasn't been covered, I'll almost certainly be supporting. I'd be happy to continue on the article talk page if more discussion is needed on any specific points. Carcharoth (talk) 00:58, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Comments

• No alt text for infobox pic (there is a parameter for alt= )
• No alt text for signature image in infobox
  • That's a surprise. I didn't think there was any alt text anywhere. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:40, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
• FN31 links to an error page, not the desired pdf file
  • Repaired link rot. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:40, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I'll try to look at some more later, but overall the article is in real good shape. GregJackP Boomer! 16:40, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Images

• It is a shame, but the copyright tag for File:Oppenheimer Marshall Conant Bradley and others at Harvard.jpg notes that "Please note that national laboratories operate under varying licences and some are not free. Check the site policies of any national lab before crediting it with this tag." The site policy in question says "Unless otherwise indicated... the public may copy and use this information without charge, provided that this Notice and any statement of authorship are reproduced on all copies. Neither the Government nor LANS makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any liability or responsibility for the use of this information." which is not the public domain. I'd check first and foremost whether they are merely reproducing the image from somewhere else.
  • No, it's definitely in their files. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:05, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
• The source for File:Lawrence Compton Bush Conant Compton Loomis 83d40m March 1940 meeting UCB.JPG is broken. An alternative is provided although you might be able to fix that one.
  • I was hoping that DOE would put it back up again. Switched to alternate. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:05, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
• File:Truman, Bush and Conant.jpg - is the file online that we can link to? (advisory only)
  • Yes. Added a link. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:05, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
• File:Dr. James B Conant 1953 Berlin .jpeg do we have a more specific template? I don't doubt this is an official photograph from a federal employee, however, so that's just advisory as well.
  • There is a more specific temp[late, so I have used it. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:05, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 23:25, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Comment on sources: I've been looking over the sources used (and not used) for this article and am jotting down a few thoughts here.

• The major source used is Hershberg (1993): James B. Conant: Harvard to Hiroshima and the Making of the Nuclear Age. This is an extensive book-length source by an academic historian (James Hershberg). Earlier sources on Conant include Bartlett (1983): 'James Bryant Conant, 1893–1978: A Biographical Memoir'. This is a biographical article by US chemist Paul Doughty Bartlett for the National Academy of Sciences journal Biographical Memoirs. There is another similar article that was published in 1979 by George Kistiakowsky and Frank Westheimer: 'James Bryant Conant' in Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 25, 209–232 (1979). There is an entry for Conant in the Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography: 'Conant, James Bryant', Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. 2008. There are also two journal articles, one from 2003 and one from 2011: Saltzman, Martin D. (2003). "James Bryant Conant: The Making of an Iconoclastic Chemist". Bulletin for the History of Chemistry 28 (2); Biddle, Justin (December 2011). "Putting Pragmatism to Work in the Cold War: Science, Technology, and Politics in the Writings of James B. Conant". Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 42 (4): 552–561.
• Two of these sources are not used in the article when possibly they should be: Kistiakowsky and Westheimer (1979) and the DSB entry. Have these sources been consulted, or are there reasons not to use them?
• Possibly the Bartlett (1983) and Saltzman (2003) sources should be used more than they are. They seem to have been used mainly for factual information, not for their opinions. Bartlett has a list of awards that seems to have been neglected so far. Saltzman's opinions seem to have been left out entirely. I can't remember if I read it in Saltzman or Bartlett, but there were two points I was surprised not to see in the Wikipedia article: that Conant thought his work on chlorophyll was his major contribution to science (I'm paraphrasing from memory) and the story that he said to his wife that he wanted to achieve a certain number of things in his career (which he did). On the most recent source, Biddle (2011) has been used only once. I don't have access to the Biddle article: is there not more that could be said from what Biddle had to say in that article?
• On a technical point, the source "Conant (1970)" should appear in the references. The links in the notes currently redirect the reader to the list of works by Conant in the main body of the article, rather than to a listing of his autobiography in the references section.

Overall on sources, the article is great on the military history, but I'm puzzled as to why sources like the DSB aren't being consulted. I raised this issue on the FAC for Robert Oppenheimer (also nominated by Hawkeye7), linked to the DSB articles there, but nothing ever happened with that. Is this a case of not using those sources because other sources cover the same material? If so, I do think a note somewhere on the article talk page on sources not used (and why) helps prevent people later asking the same question. One more thing I want to point out, is how difficult it is to write comprehensive and balanced articles on people like Oppenheimer and Conant who had diverse strands to their lives and careers. It is because it is so difficult to write such articles that I've been so critical. There is a really good article on this (which gives both Conant and Oppenheimer as examples), see Scientific Biography: History of Science by Another Means? (2006, Mary Jo Nye). She refers to them as having "multivalent" lives. A new biography was published recently on Oppenheimer (as noted on the article talk page), and I suspect there is more that remains to be written about Conant as well. Anyway, apologies again for writing at such length on the sources used here, but hopefully the overview will help in assessing the article. Carcharoth (talk) 00:09, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

• Was it Ralph Waldo Emerson who said that "There is properly no history; only biography?" Scientists tend to be "multivalent" because they usually do their most brilliant work while young, and then drift to non-scientific work in later life. Every scientist that I have written up follows this pattern. I think I could tell Mary Jo a bit more about writing biographies. I am a techno-military historian, but write a lot of biographical articles on Wikipedia. It is not really a matter of consulting every possible source, but of assembling a comprehensive article. And I rarely seek opinions from secondary sources, since if I need a historian's opinion, I can write one myself. So I only use them for facts. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:12, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Additional comment on sources: I've had another look, and there are a couple of other sources on his science research. From the DSB entry, two "brief but solid interpretations of his chemical career" are mentioned at the end: an earlier article by Saltzman from 1972 in Journal of Chemical Education, and a 1978 article by Westheimer from the journal Organic Syntheses. The later articles by Saltzman and Westheimer may be sufficient. More important (and not yet used) are a set of sources on Conant's educational work, which can be seen in James Bryant Conant, Encyclopedia of World Biography (2004). That article gives a good summary, and also points the reader towards: Paul Franklin Douglass, Six upon the World: Toward an American Culture for an Industrial Age (1954). There are four other sources listed there, which I won't reproduce here, but something on this needs to go in the article, particularly Friedenberg (1965) which, according to that encyclopedia article "has a chapter critical of Conant". Are these the 'education historians' you mentioned above? Do you indirectly draw on them through Hershberg, or does something need to go in the article? At the moment, there is a lot on his time at Harvard, but very little (only a sentence or two) on his work in the 1960s on his writings and studies related to educational reform. There is more on this work from the 1960s here. At the moment, in the absence of some solid text in the article drawing on the secondary literature that covers this aspect of his life and career, this article is not really comprehensive enough (1b concerns). Carcharoth (talk) 13:52, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

• I've added some more material on Conant's life as a chemist, and on his one as an education critic. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:12, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Source formatting

• Several footnotes use hyphens where they should use endashes
  • An automated search found only one. Hawkeye7 (talk) 04:44, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
• FN33: formatting
  • Corrected. Hawkeye7 (talk) 04:44, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
• Don't mix templated and untemplated full citations
  • Removed. Hawkeye7 (talk) 04:44, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
• FN59: formatting
  • Think this has been corrected
• Use a consistent date format
  • Cannot run the bot, but think that it is okay now. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:05, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
• Compare FNs 51 and 108.
  • Harmonized. Hawkeye7 (talk) 04:44, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Nikkimaria (talk) 03:22, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks Nikki! Hawkeye7 (talk) 04:44, 23 December 2012 (UTC)