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Henry Hoʻolulu Pitman

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch peer review


I've listed this article for peer review because… I'd like to nominate this for Wikipedia:Featured article candidates and I'd like the most critical peer review possible to work it up to FAC presentation.

Thanks, KAVEBEAR (talk) 02:58, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments: Hi, Kavebear, I recall your name from discussions about Hawaiian stuff. You're in the right place, but several of the dedicated reviewers (including me) are currently on a break. I've got this watchlisted, and I'm sure I'll get to it before the PR is closed. - Dank (push to talk) 19:25, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • Continuing. "The Pitman family returned to Massachusetts in 1860–1861": I don't think readers will know what that means ... 1860 and 1861? 1860 or 1861? The winter of 1861? I see that, according to one of your sources, Benjamin Pitman wrote a manuscript called "Reminiscences of My Early Life and Sojourn in Hawaii from 1836 to 1861", so I changed it to just 1861. - Dank (push to talk) 19:17, 10 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "all other schools in Hilo were instructed in the Hawaiian language": classes can be conducted in a language; children can be instructed in a language.

Comments

  • Given the length of the article, I would suggest expanding the lead slightly - the Legacy section, for example, is not covered at all
  • Why link Hawaiian twice in the first sentence?
  • "The school was located at the Wetmore's residence on Church Street" - should be Wetmores'
  • "Hawaiian participants in American wars during the kingdom's period of independence was not an unheard phenomenon" - this is a bit hard to follow as written, could it be reworded?
  • Generally some attention needed throughout to minor grammatical and MOS issues
  • Find a Grave is generally not considered a reliable source

Commments

Kavebear, you were after some thoughts from me. Here goes; I've just done the lead for now.

  • "Timothy Henry Hoʻolulu Pitman (March 18, 1845 – February 27, 1863) was a Hawaiian American Union Army soldier, who was among a group of more than one hundred documented Hawaiian and Hawaii-born combatants who fought in the American Civil War while the Kingdom of Hawaii was still an independent nation." - quite a long opening sentence. Worth breaking after soldier?
  • "Pitman also had distinction of being a descendant of Hawaiian nobility through his mother." > "Pitman was also a descendent..."? (simpler)
  • "Born and raised in Hilo, Hawaii, he was the eldest son of a Hawaiian high chiefess..." A long paragraph, worth breaking in two. The chiefess bit repeats the nobility point that comes immediately before it, btw.
  • " and an American pioneer settler and businessman" - you could lose "businessman", as you introduce the business bit in the next sentence
  • "whaling and sugar and coffee plantation industries" -the "and... and..." is a bit clumsy here
  • "the Pitmans' were considered quite prosperous" - just to check, did the nobility links really make the Pitmans seem prosperous, or did they actually make them prosperous?
  • Removed "considered" from intro but left in first section. Since prosperity is also a measure of community perceptions and opinion as well. Noble rank and links helped but did not necessarily create prosperous families. --KAVEBEAR (talk) 21:22, 31 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Following the deaths of his first and second wife" - I'm guessing this should be "wives"? Worth breaking in two after "with his family"
  • "He served briefly as a private in the Union Army" - I wasn't sure where the "briefly" was going - I'd cut the word out
  • "On the march to Fredericksburg," - worth giving a date here, as I'd lost track of when this was
  • The date is uncertain around November of 1862; his active service only spanned less than three months so it may be odd to go into specifics of months and dates of that one year..--KAVEBEAR (talk) 21:22, 31 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "He was forced to march to the Richmond " "the Richmond" sounds odd; is the "the" correct?
  • "Modern historians consider Henry Hoʻolulu Pitman to be the only known Hawaiian or Pacific Islander to die as a prisoner of war in the Civil War." - the "considered" seemed odd here. Could this just read: "Henry Hoʻolulu Pitman is the only known Hawaiian or Pacific Islander to die as a prisoner of war in the Civil War."? I thought this fact would live better in the last paragraph, btw.
  • I think it served better following the sentence after his death and in my opinion it doesn't work well as a opening for the next paragraph. Also I used considered because it is the opinion of two modern historians. One can also debate that he didn't really die a prisoner of war since he was released and merely die from illness which is what his regiment records say in the Parker and Carter source. --KAVEBEAR (talk) 21:22, 31 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "For a period of time after the end of the war, the legacy and contributions of Pitman and other documented Hawaiian participants in the American Civil War were largely forgotten except in the private circles of descendants and historians until a revival of interest in recent years in the Hawaiian community." - Quite a long sentence, possibly worth restructuring.
  • On the images...
  • "File:Old Pitman House at Hilo.jpg" - possibly out of copyright now, but worth checking against the guidance at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Copyrightterm.pdf if the image was published with copyright notice, whether it was renewed etc., and updating the file accordingly.
  • I really have no idea. The 1931 book itself is pretty obscure and the date of creation for the photographs in it are not specifically known except that it must have predates the publication year and possibly made during his brother's revisit to Hawaii in 1917. It may just be easier to just remove it entirely.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 22:07, 31 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "File:Pitman family marker, Mount Auburn Cemetery (4402353191).jpg" - there's no right of panorama in the US for statues, etc., so it's worth checking when the family marker was made, and by who, to confirm that it doesn't carry copyright from the original artist/sculpture. Hchc2009 (talk) 11:07, 31 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is beyond my ability to research since I don't think the information is accessible. What does the panorama law say about works with no known age of creation or creator/copyright owner?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 21:22, 31 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Comment from Maile regarding the family marker

Here's :Commons Freedom of panorama United States. any publication of an image of a copyrighted artwork thus is subject to the approval of the copyright holder of the artwork. In addition, any public artwork installed before 1978 without a copyright notice is also in the public domain (unless the copyright owner actively prevented anyone from copying or photographing the work until 1978). In these situations, document the date of installation and the creator (sculptor) of the pictured work as much as possible. (A good resource for finding information about U.S. sculptures is the Smithsonian Art Inventories Catalog.) So, @Hchc2009: and @KAVEBEAR: I see the latest date on the family marker is 1951. That might be an indication that it was installed pre-1978. Short of that, you could shoot an email to whoever administers that cemetery. Here's a link to the Pitman family tomb — Maile (talk) 15:30, 20 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Emailed them, but I don't expect much of answer. We will have to assume for now that the artwork was created after 1951 when Christiana S. Pitman died.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 01:14, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Final comments

@Nikkimaria:@Hchc2009:@Maile66: Let me know if there any other final comments or concerns. Thanks.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 05:59, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Nikkimaria:@Hchc2009:@Maile66: Post on my talk page if you have any final comments or concerns. Thanks.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 16:55, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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