Talk:Elijah Parish Lovejoy

message: I've again removed the photo. It is not Elijah Lovejoy.
For the last couple of years, I've been using the fact that I was able to delete Lovejoy's photo here immediately while the vetting process meant that Britannica had it on their online site for two or three months before correcting it (after I brought it to their attention), not to mention the fact that of course our 2003 print edition *still* has it, as an example of how Wikipedia can be better than Encyclopedia Britannica. I find it very discouraging to discover that had been re-linked without even an addition to the discussion page giving a reason for it. 
THE PHOTO LABELED "ELIJAH LOVEJOY" IS NOT ELIJAH LOVEJOY. It is probably a photo of Owen Lovejoy. There are no photos of Elijah, and if one were discovered it would be a photo of tremendous importance to the history of photography, as he died several years before the first known photo of a living human being. Original discussion below under "Fake Photo" but I'm putting this up top to help keep it from happening again. Steve Bolhafner 19:30, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre invented the first practical process for making photographs, from which all modern photography follows. He announced his invention to the world in 1839.
There cannot possibly be a photograph of Elijah P. Lovejoy, who died in 1837.
I'm a news librarian at a newspaper that ran a correction today because someone here pulled this photo off the article and ran it in the paper.
I'm removing the photo from the article so this doesn't happen to anyone else.
: How did you discover that this is via Spartacus Educational?  Sj 23:49, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Wow. A reporter used an unsourced low-res image from the Wikipedia for an article? How sloppy. Note to reporters - never, ever use the Wikipedia as a source. Dan Lovejoy 22:57, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Wow.  A Wikipedian who doesn't know not to use the direct article with the "Wikipedia" title.  Don't use Wikipedia as a final source, or as a cite; surely.  But as a guide to further investigation... Sj 23:49, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Will do. Sorry for not signing my comment -- my first time here as a contributor, and I didn't know the etiquette. On the other points: I don't know for sure that it came from Spartacus Educational, but the person who first put it up in 2003 also linked to that site, and it does have the same photo. I'm trying to get in touch with them, but in order to send John Simkin e-mail you first have to sign up for an account there and be approved. And the mistake was made by a page designer, I believe. Or someone at the picture desk. Not a reporter in any case. We've already sent a memo around to the newsroom about how to properly use Wikipedia. Sbolhafner 16:24, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Later add: Here's what I put on the image talk page: Encyclopaedia Britannica (print edition - 2003) has same photo in their Elijah Lovejoy entry and credits it to Library of Congress; no such photo in online archive there but it may be from some offline source. A fellow librarian discovered this photo is used on the cover of a book about Owen Lovejoy, Elijah's brother who took up his work after he was killed. Local group called Lovejoy Society cannot positively confirm but does agree that this is probably a photo of Owen Lovejoy. Sbolhafner 21:13, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fake photograph 

message: This article was automatically  assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 11:26, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject class rating

message: I see the article is under recent editing, so I won't jump in and make the changes. Not to pick nits, but: (1) perhaps a different word might be used to describe his killing, rather than "murdered", which is a legal term, and isn't accurate without a legal provenance ... using a legal term inaccurately (even if it's colloquially correct) degrades the quality of an encyclopedia article; and (2) regarding the phrase "lynching of a free black man", inclusion of the word "free" is irrelevant to the point and is (without intent) obnoxiously superfluous. Regards, Notuncurious (talk) 02:27, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead paragraph, 2 items 

message: You are nitpicking.  1. "Murder" is a perfectly accurate term to describe terminal violence executed without legal justification or authority.  The mob doubtlessly embodied the town's majority sentiment when they murdered him, but they did not do so under any legal justification or civil authority.  You could say the word "murder" is NPOV, as it has implies a moral value judgment.  But I think most sensible people would be comfortable with that, since by all accounts he was murdered defending his own property.  2. The phrase "lynching of a free black man" is in fact a useful description.  The word "free" describes him as not being a slave.  If they had lynched a slave they could be held legally and/or financially liable for destruction of private property unless the owner consented.  But a "free" black man lived soley on the surrounding community's good intentions, which were lost when he was accused of murder.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.138.41.10 (talk) 13:35, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead paragraph, 2 items - Comment

message: The lede is quite long and detailed considering the overall length of this article. It also contains content that is not in the body of the article - will edit to make it conform to Wiki standards. Parkwells (talk) 20:58, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Lede is too detailed

message: You should put more information about Lovejoys marriage in the marriage column. I personally think that one or two sentences could NEVER be good for a section unless absolutely necessary. If not, please put it inside another section somewhere instead of making a separate section.
BillySM64 ([[User talk:BillySM64[talk]]) 6:05, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Too Small

message: In the Wikipedia article on John Brown, there is this sentence: In 1837, in response to the murder of Elijah P. Lovejoy, Brown publicly vowed: “Here, before God, in the presence of these witnesses, from this time, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery!” 
This is significant. I do not know if Brown knew Lovejoy, or if he simply found this to be the straw that broke the camel's back. Since many historians seem to think that Brown's radical acts and Harper's Ferry, in particular, had much to do with the Civil War, given the fear by Southerners that his raid was merely the first of many insurrections to come, I think this stimulus of Lovejoy's death is worth noting in the article.  
Jeffrey M. FischerFisje01 (talk) 15:13, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article should mention the connection between Lovejoy's death and John Brown's radical declaration  

message: The lede seems to me to summarise the article very adequately. I assume that other people have edited the lede since the request was posted. Valetude (talk) 16:30, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removing lede-rewrite request 

message: "The family continues to be active in social justice issues, especially modern abolition: Martha Lovejoy is a supervisor in the U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, which coordinates the United States Government's efforts to combat modern forms of slavery."
What are we selling here? 194.230.214.119 (talk) 06:18, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sounds like a fundraiser 

message: , Thanks very much for the recent copy edits, the article looks really good now.
There is one sentence without a citation: "Gilman and some other supporters were prosecuted for riot, but charges were dismissed."
Is there a source for this?–CaroleHenson (talk) 22:56, 9 June 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, you're so good - I put that in as a marker - had come across a case file for Gilman, Henry Tanner and others and now have to find it again. Will follow up. Was reading further about Gilman and Tanner, and have not finished. Also, I agree with your not adding back the material about the attack on the warehouse. After looking at the article now, I find it more interesting to think about how Lovejoy developed. How did he go from hobnobbing with the top lawyers (Bates and Gamble brothers) and ACS supporters to being so strongly anti-slavery? There was so much going on in the city, a relatively a small place. At one time I did more research on the freedom suits (and some related individual articles) and the attorneys who participated in defending petitioners. Parkwells (talk) 16:06, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Cool. I am so glad that you are working on this article based upon your areas of interest and focus. Great points and great question. The varying motivations of those supporting the colonization movement are interesting and sad.–CaroleHenson (talk) 18:18, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent copy edits 

message: There was an edit that removed the wikilink from the St. Louis Times - with the edit summary of "This link goes to a different newspaper than the one described in the sentence, so I deleted it."
:I think that there was confusion between the times when he was affiliated with the Times and the Observer. This link helps clarify it.–CaroleHenson (talk) 01:22, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''St. Louis Times'' 

message: — Assignment last updated by Gmtz81902 (talk) 19:22, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Wiki Education assignment: Content Area Literacy

message: I see that the following information was added and deleted:
:The Alton campaign to end free speech (1836–1838) culminated on November 7, 1837 with the mob murder of abolitionist Elijah Parish Lovejoy, Founder/ Editor of The Alton Observer. Lovejoy’s murder was covered in newspapers nationwide[1] leading to a rise in membership in abolitionist societies. By 1840 more than 15,000 people were members of abolitionist societies in the United States.[2]
with the comment "Removed badly worded information with malformed sources"
* Regarding the sources, did you mean to use the 1st and 2nd sources in the Reference section? If no, what do [1] and [2] mean?
* I see that you have a link to a non-existent page Alton campaign to end free speech (1836–1838), but there is a page Alton Campaign vs. Free Speech (1836-38) which is being considered for deletion
* Now the key item, the actual verbiage. Once the sources are identified/confirmed, I think that the wording could be updated to something like:
::The press coverage of Lovejoy being killed by a mob led to a rise in membership in abolitionist societies. By 1840, more than 15,000 people were members of abolitionist societies in the United States.
What do you think?–CaroleHenson (talk) 21:05, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: If the AfD decision is to "Keep" Alton Campaign vs. Free Speech (1836-38), it could be added as a  at the bottom of one of the sections, perhaps the "Mob attack and death" section.–CaroleHenson (talk) 21:08, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I would definitely support a sentence like that being added to the article, my main concern was that the information had been merged from Alton Campaign vs. Free Speech (1836-38) but that the sources hadn't been added to this page's references, meaning the info for a pretty grand claim wasn't verifiable. The source on that page for the relevant info is the The Young People's Encyclopedia of the United States from 1993. Devonian Wombat (talk) 00:06, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, , that's the way I feel about it, too. I found something at the Library of Congress here - and I will scout around for membership statistics.–CaroleHenson (talk) 01:05, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:  here. Please feel free to edit.–CaroleHenson (talk) 18:04, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent edit to legacy section