Talk:Ludlow Massacre/Merge debate 1

Merge tagging

I suggest the merger to the Ludlow Monument article back into this one, most of the text and all of the images are already duplicated here. Chris 01:38, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I vote not just no, but emphatically no. There is a significant history to the monument itself, including the dive-bombing of strikers by Colorado National Guard aircraft in a later, 1927 strike at the Ludlow Monument, that doesn't easily fit into the Ludlow Massacre history — it was a different union, different period. There are the annual commemorations, many aspects of which may not be directly relevant to the history of the massacre. There should be some history about the ghost town of Ludlow, which may fit more appropriately in one article than the other. There is the recent destruction of the statues, and their rebuilding, which arguably have much more to do with the monument than with the massacre, and some coverage of which you may find on my website:

http://www.rebelgraphics.org/ludlow.html

and

http://www.rebelgraphics.org/ludlow_second_century.html

Concerning the massacre itself — the incident became known internationally, and on my website you may discover it is still being written about in Mexico. It contributed greatly to the political climate of the period in which it occurred. It has inspired annual commemorations which continue long after all the participants have passed on. The Ludlow Massacre helped greatly to inspire an international awareness of the need for legislation to protect workers' rights.

Two historian friends of mine are about to have new books released on new aspects of the Ludlow Massacre. The subject of the Ludlow Massacre is so complex, and so great in scope, that it will eventually be necessary to separate out aspects of the history, in my view. For example, issues relating to the strike will include the Ten Days War, the company union that resulted from the strike, and other related subjects. Merging the massacre article and the monument article is going in the wrong direction, i believe.

Add to that the fact that the Bessemer Historical Society has about nineteen thousand boxes of documents released from CF&I that haven't yet been catalogged. We don't yet know how much new information will become available about the Ludlow strike that will add to the history, perhaps offering new material from a company perspective.

Now, i haven't spent much time on the Ludlow articles lately, for there are other historically significant strikes that have no articles. But i hope to see these articles grow and provide a much richer view of the Ludlow history in the coming year. When i find the time, if no one else has done so, i will insure that each of the two articles maintains its own focus, so any current overlap will no longer be a concern. (In the meantime, of course, others are welcome to make such improvements...) Richard Myers 03:57, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Merge proposal

I am suggesting that the Ludlow Monument article be merged into (or back into, as seems to be the case) this article. The monument article is very short, and contains repetitions of the same images that are already in this article. If one removes all the repetitive information and images from that article, there would not be enough left to justify its continued existence. It can all be covered here. I realize that a similar suggestion was made some time back, but there was very little discussion of the matter, and then it was dropped. I think this merger is justified and logical. I would like to hear some other opinions. ---RepublicanJacobite_{The'FortyFive'} 18:21, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

If it is merged, then it is likely that it will be separated again at some point in the future. In fact, i anticipate that i would be among those who will do exactly that. The reason is very simple. The Ludlow Monument has a history that has, for the most part, not yet been included, which is separate from the Ludlow Massacre. I plan to introduce some of this material, although my timeframe for editing is still months away. Richard Myers (talk) 01:00, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

You will, I hope, pardon me, but what you are saying does not make sense. The monument is already discussed in the article about the massacre; both articles, in fact, share much of the same text, and the same images. How can a monument have a history separate from the event the monument was erected to memorialize? Anything about the monument, its history, defacement, etc., can be handled in the legacy section of the main article. I see no need for a separate article. You say you have new material, but are months away from adding it? Why? This is a rather paltry argument against remerging the material. ---RepublicanJacobite_{The'FortyFive'} 02:29, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

In 1927 and 1928, the monument was the location of rallies held by an entirely different union, the Industrial Workers of the World (ahhh, but you probably know about this, F.W.! ;-), who were conducting a strike that culminated in an entirely different massacre.

There is a photo of one of these rallies (spread across pages 1 and 2) in the published article at this link, although little content about the events that transpired there... (the photographer's back was to the monument):

http://www.rebelgraphics.org/CFandI_labor_spies.pdf

The separate history of the monument is important because there were some fairly significant incidents, such as the dive-bombing of rallies that were held there by Douglass bomber aircraft belonging to the Colorado Air National Guard. These actions were intended as a tactic to disperse and intimidate the strikers.

If this information was introduced into the article about the Ludlow Massacre that occurred during the UMWA strike, it would prove confusing for a number of reasons:

• This was no longer the UMWA.
• Aircraft capable of this type of dive bombing didn't exist in 1914 — the horrors of U.S. involvement in World War I intervened, and the people's reactions reflected their awareness of the danger.
• Referring to a second massacre during the 1927 strike and explaining how it related to (or, did not relate to) the original massacre, all in the same article, would prove awkward.

The information on this history is available. One dedicated book has been published about the 1927 strike, plus there are a few chapters on the subject in several other books. A couple of other, more comprehensive histories are expected to go to press soon, or at the least become available as dissertations. I could add the details today on the dive-bombing at the Ludlow Monument during this separate strike, because i covered the material in a book that i co-wrote and edited, but i'd prefer to have access to the research of others before beginning such an undertaking. Sure, i could explain all of this with greater precision and detail, but i'm hoping that won't be necessary until i (or someone else) is ready to actually contribute this other history to the article.

In summary, i believe the merger is unnecessary and pointless. I won't fight it, but if it goes ahead, i believe that within a year or so it will make sense to undo it. OBU, Richard Myers (talk) 10:28, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the merger is unnecessary, likely to confuse, and likely to be separated in the future. IvoShandor (talk) 06:42, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose Merger Besides the reasons stated above, there are a group (small - but dedicated) of monument history folks who would like to see all significant monuments have their own articles. PS the photo here of the monument is included in Howard Zinn, Mike Konopacki and Paul Buhle's new book A People's History of American Empire and garnered me a complimentary copy. Life is good. Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 23:34, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

• Srongly oppose merger The place is different than an event that happened there. I work mostly on articles about historic sites, and it seems almost always better to have an article about the place preserved as a battlefield or massacre site separated from the article about a battle or a massacre event. At least for properties or historic districts listed on the National Register of Historic Places, for which there is considerable information about the area covered, facts about buildings and structures on the property, current use as a museum, etc., which is available in plentiful documentation, but which is too much to be appropriate for inclusion in article about the event itself. There are dozens or hundreds of paired NRHP sites and corresponding event articles that i could give you. New information for you: The "Ludlow Tent Colony Site" has been designated a National Historic Landmark on January 16, 2009 and hence also listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It may well be best to have one article about the Monument and whatever is any different area covered by the new NHL, but there certainly needs to be a separate article about the place or places. I'll provide more info about the NHL at Talk:Ludlow Monument. doncram (talk) 04:19, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Merger proposal closure Further, I created a separate article (for now at least) on Ludlow Tent Colony Site and removed the merger proposal tags for the merger of this massacre article with the monument article, to close this merger proposal. Please see Talk:Ludlow Tent Colony Site for discussion about merging that with the monument article. By the way, IvoShandor and Richard Myers' comments, above, were spot on. doncram (talk) 05:01, 19 January 2009 (UTC)