Talk:Frederick Douglass

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 16 January 2019 and 8 May 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Erin.s.hall, ESutt (article contribs).

Native American ancestry

The cited source doesn't back up its claim to Douglass' mother having Native American ancestry, not going much beyond conjecture based on his physical appearance. I think a better source is needed. Totorotroll (talk) 20:21, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 November 2019

Add to Bibliography: Fought, Leigh. Women in the World of Frederick Douglass. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. 67.249.32.187 (talk) 17:56, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

 Not done. There's plenty there already. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 20:09, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Is this a good article?

I've done a modest amount of editing on this article (mostly the lede and his life under slavery). It really bothers me that the article has not achieved good article status. If I didn't have a full-time job, I would take on the (somewhat daunting) task of getting it there. Unfortunately, I just don't have the time, and I don't know how much trouble it might stir up to make the changes needed to get to Good Article status. I'd like to hear what other editors think about this. Paulmlieberman (talk) 14:29, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Paulmlieberman#top I have just come across this article and thank you for your work. In my experience, the Good Article status comes from the accumulation of small changes, not a massive, one time investment. You would be doing a great service to begin the process. ch (talk) 05:47, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Douglass (and the users) surely deserves a good article. But, he was a true giant, fascinating and complex. So it will be a challenging task to improve this article. I just started a new section with some ideas. --Rsk6400 (talk) 08:41, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Ottilie Assing

I removed the detail that Assing "fell passionately in love" with Douglass, taken from The New Yorker. There are surely better sources about Douglass than The New Yorker. From David Blight's biography, I got the impression that while Assing perhaps was "passionately in love", Douglass wasn't, and that they possibly never had a sexual relationship. So the words "passionately in love" might not be exactly wrong, but misleading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rsk6400 (talk • contribs) 09:47, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

I agree that the New Yorker is not a reliable source, but Blight says she found him as her "Siegfried," & was "utterly infatuated" with him, [p.318] and stayed at the Douglass house as his "intellectual and emotional companion." "Assing and her host were probably lovers." [p. 387]. So "passionately in love" may be a fair paraphrase.ch (talk) 05:37, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. I read the book some time ago, but have been vainly searching for that page for some time. --Rsk6400 (talk) 20:17, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it's interesting that Blight makes this comment only in passing, not in one of the featured passages on Assing/ Douglass in the index. Don't know what this means! ch (talk) 22:36, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

To become a good article

I think the article still has some issues:

At the end of the lede, it says, "Douglass was a firm believer in the equality of all peoples." Maybe he said that about himself, but in Blight's book there are some remarks on his position on the "Indian question" that call for a more profound elaboration of that point.

The section "Religious views" should be re-considered. Much space is given to his youth and to his opposition against "slaveholder religion", while his positive views on religion as an adult are to be found only in the last paragraph. That last paragraph is mainly based on an article from "Religion News", which probably is no scholarly source. It is also misleading to present Strauss as the author of "The Life of Jesus" and Feuerbach as the author of "The Essence of Christianity", because the titles of both books give the wrong impression that they are written by pious churchmen, while in fact Feuerbach was an atheist and Strauss was an outspoken critic of Christian doctrine.

In general, journalistic sources should be replaced by scholarly ones. --Rsk6400 (talk) 08:33, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Birth year, again

Over the years, there have been a number of edit wars over when Douglass was born, 1817 or 1818. He stated in his first autobiography that he, like most slaves, didn't know his birth date, or his age, not exactly. Many sources state 1818. On page 2 of his third and final autobiography, he gives his best guess as 1817: "I suppose myself to have been born in February, 1817." Based on this, his own statement, I have changed the dates to 1817. In the Infobox, I show both years; this time, they both have cited refs. I hope this doesn't start another edit war.Paulmlieberman (talk) 15:43, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

There should be a space after the reference in -> "and Lucretia Mott.[72]Douglass stood"

Gentle Feather (talk) 16:45, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Done. Thank you! Paulmlieberman (talk) 22:14, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

American Orator versus Abolitionist

I see that Google returns Douglass as an American orator in their knowledge panel rather than as an abolitionist, which I presume they pull from the Wikipage. I came to check. The content of Douglass's oration was centered unequivocally on abolition. It seems a disservice to his legacy to prioritize his oratory skills above the message of his content. Harriet Tubman, for instance, is listed as an American abolitionist. I argue Douglass should be seen as the same - American abolitionist who was also a great orator. Petepetey (talk) 12:38, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

@Petepetey, I would like to see Douglass' google panel show him as an abolitionist as well as an orator, but, your statement about his oration is not true. If you read the entire article (or one of his autobiographies) you will see that his activism went much further. He was involved in women's rights and other causes. He was surely the greatest African-American orator alive from 1845 to his death in 1895, and, arguably, the greatest American orator of that time, period. Also, I've looked at the source of the Wikipedia article text, and I do NOT see anywhere in it that calls him an orator without also mentioning his abolitionism, so Google must have gotten that from someplace else. Paulmlieberman (talk) 14:18, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Not disagreeing with any of this. Just was trying to determine the source of listing him solely as an orator. I have alerted Google to my concerns. Thanks. Petepetey (talk) 12:45, 13 June 2020 (UTC)