# Talk:Maria E. Beasley

The article appears to have been written very subjectively, like a youngster's vague college essay. It would benefit from being written by a more competent author in order to give the article more credibility and weight. 
Maria Beasley, if a genunine entrepenurial inventer in her own right and not just a suffrogette pet icon, deserves a much better description of her life and endevours in her honour.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.27.7.218 (talk) 09:29, 24 June 2020 (UTC) 

Rewrite complete. I think the article is much stronger now (and should give readers a clearer/more accurate picture of Beasley's life and work). Alanna the Brave (talk) 02:08, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

...and collapsible boats go back to before she was born. Qwirkle (talk) 20:35, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

There are plenty of websites claiming that Beasley's liferaft design was used on the Titanic, but I haven't been able to find a credible source for this claim. The Titanic apparently used lifeboats, not liferafts, and while there were four collapsible lifeboats, it's not clear how closely they were based on Beasley's design (and those four boats probably would not have been large enough to save "the hundreds of passengers" mentioned in Titanic/Beasley stories)[1]. I also did a scan of digitized American newspaper archives from 1910-2020, and Beasley is not mentioned once in connection with the Titanic. While Beasley did indeed patent significant improvements to the design of liferafts, I think the Titanic story is likely just an Internet rumour -- if I find a good source that supports this, I'll add it into the article. Alanna the Brave (talk) 22:32, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

This review is transcluded from Talk:Maria E. Beasley/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: Mujinga (talk · contribs) 14:17, 3 January 2022 (UTC)


### Overview
I'll take this on as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/GAN Backlog Drives/January 2022. Looking forward to reading into Maria E. Beasley's life! Mujinga (talk) 14:17, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Nice article, thanks for nominating it! I think it should be quite easy to bring this up to GA standard. Please see my comments below and let me know when you are done / if anything needs clarifying. I'll put the article on hold for a week, if more time is needed let's discuss. Cheers, Mujinga (talk) 14:59, 3 January 2022 (UTC)
@Mujinga: Thanks for the review! I've made copy edits and have responded to your queries below. Let me know if you have any other questions or recommendations. Best, Alanna the Brave (talk) 17:46, 3 January 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for the fast answers, that's all looking good now so happy to pass this, nice one! Mujinga (talk) 22:33, 3 January 2022 (UTC)


#### Copyvio check
No problems suggested by earwig check


#### Infobox
will come back to last
seems good, just a question on her activity times below


#### Images
File:Maria E. Beasley.png - license ok, no need for circa on date?
Circa removed. -A
File:Wall Paper Printing Press, Machinery Hall at the centennial, 1876, Philadelphia LCCN2006677406.jpg - license ok, wallpaper for wall paper in caption?
Done. -A
File:Maria_Beasley_Life_Raft_patent_1880.png - license ok


#### Lead
will come back to last
i was going to say this needs expanding but everything is summarised well and for a faitly short article one paragraph is ok
suggest add the "equivalent to $40,325,185 in 2020" to $1.4 million
Done. -A
suggest make Hauser bold and make the redirect
Done. -A


#### Early life
Maria Hauser - no need to be in bold and can be made as a redirect to this page
Done. -A
I'm sure you checked, but no mention of the mother?
I found her mother's name (added), but none of my sources tell me anything else about her, unfortunately. -A
When she was thirteen, suggest at the age of thirteen, just because there's another "when" in the following sentence
Done. -A
Hauser married - when?
Couldn't find a date for this. Author Autumn Stanley thought that Maria married an Andrew Beasley in 1865, but I don't think that date works for John Q. Beasley, as Maria and John were apparently already married when the Civil War started in 1861. There could be a source out there that clarifies the marriage date, but nothing accessible to me right now. -A
Beasley decided - suggest Beasley then decided
Done. -A


#### Career
Really interesting stuff!
couldn't abuse - suggest could not abuse
Done. -A
[13]: 263  As she continued to patent her inventions, she secured funding assistance by transferring partial rights to business partners.[14]: 187 - you could add these page refs to the citation itself which would fit the overall referencing style better
Done. -A


#### Footwarmer
The present tense is a bit discombobulating, but it is used consistently
I agree it feels a little odd, but I think it makes sense to talk about the mechanics of her inventions in present tense (similar to how we talk about literary plots). Just like the plot of a book, the workings of this patented invention aren't fixed in the past. -A


#### Barrel-hooping machine
ok


#### Life raft design
ok


#### Anti-derailment device for trains
well explained!
Thank you! :-) I'm not a mechanic, but I tried really hard to make this explanation clear. -A
maybe it's good to say here, if there's a source for it that it was her last patent? this would then legitimate the claim in the infobox that she was active between 1878 and 1898
I'm not sure any sources explicitly confirm this. This patent is chronologically the last one mentioned in the sources I've found, but it's always possible that she patented other things afterwards and we just don't know about them. I've added "circa" to her years active in the infobox. Does that work? -A


#### Death
Not wild about such a small section, but then I can see the response being where else to put it...
I know -- usually I try to combine death info with later life/legacy info, but I just couldn't find anything for Beasley. -A


#### See also
ok


#### Notes
ok


#### References
ok