Talk:Lawrence Massacre

message: :The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 
Battle of Lawrence → Lawrence Massacre — Another alternative is "Quantrill's raid", though that seems to also refer to the larger campaign. "Battle of Lawrence" appears to be the least-used term for this event, both in sourced literature  and and on a Google search. (BoL = 39, LM = 882, QR = 1190).  There've been several complaints from editors that it was not a real "battle". Will Beback · † · 19:53, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Add  * Preferred name  on a new line in the appropriate section followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion using ~~~~.  Please remember that this is not a vote; comments must include reasons to carry weight.
*Lawrence Massacre For the reasons given above. -Will Beback · † · 19:57, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Add any additional comments:
Is there an article on Quantrill's Raid as a whole? Wrad 20:11, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

text: There are redirects Quantrill's raid and Quantrill's raid on Lawrence ... could be turned into a full article. AND I think the diff of QR, BoL, and LM is descriptive somewhat historically of where the author sided back in the day over the conflict. May still be ... J. D. Redding 22:38, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There's already a :Category:Battles of Quantrill's Raid into Kansas of the American Civil War  waiting to be filled. Quantrill's Raiders doesn't have much either. -Will Beback · † · 23:00, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Not sure if there were full out "batttles" (eg., something which happens between two armies leading to the moral then physical disintegration of one or the other of them ...). But I believe there were several confrontations when they went toward Lawarence. Maybe the cat could be changed to something else like ... :Category:Incidents in Quantrill's Raid ... or  :Category:Attacks in Quantrill's Raid ... or something ... J. D. Redding 23:13, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

text:   site:www.kancoll.org William G. Cutler lawrence Quantrill ... Cutler also spells it Quantrell ... just a note ... J. D. Redding 23:21, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

text:  Cutler's THE LAWRENCE MASSACRE. J. D. Redding 23:27, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

text: The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal.  Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
This article has been renamed  as the result of a move request. --Stemonitis 19:42, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested move 

message: :Add  * Preferred name  on a new line in the appropriate section followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion using ~~~~.  Please remember that this is not a vote; comments must include reasons to carry weight.
*Lawrence Massacre For the reasons given above. -Will Beback · † · 19:57, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Survey

message: :Add any additional comments:
Is there an article on Quantrill's Raid as a whole? Wrad 20:11, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There are redirects Quantrill's raid and Quantrill's raid on Lawrence ... could be turned into a full article. AND I think the diff of QR, BoL, and LM is descriptive somewhat historically of where the author sided back in the day over the conflict. May still be ... J. D. Redding 22:38, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There's already a :Category:Battles of Quantrill's Raid into Kansas of the American Civil War  waiting to be filled. Quantrill's Raiders doesn't have much either. -Will Beback · † · 23:00, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Not sure if there were full out "batttles" (eg., something which happens between two armies leading to the moral then physical disintegration of one or the other of them ...). But I believe there were several confrontations when they went toward Lawarence. Maybe the cat could be changed to something else like ... :Category:Incidents in Quantrill's Raid ... or  :Category:Attacks in Quantrill's Raid ... or something ... J. D. Redding 23:13, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

text:   site:www.kancoll.org William G. Cutler lawrence Quantrill ... Cutler also spells it Quantrell ... just a note ... J. D. Redding 23:21, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

text:  Cutler's THE LAWRENCE MASSACRE. J. D. Redding 23:27, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

text: The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal.  Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.</div>
This article has been renamed  as the result of a move request. --Stemonitis 19:42, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion

message: Where the hell did the "6 (at most)" come from? J. D. Redding 23:50, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Radiers : number of?

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thread_title: Image copyright problem with File:Lawrence city seal.png

message: I'm really disappointed in both of you. Did you bother to read the edits you reverted? You, especially, RJensen. This is an article about a particular event--and a well-documented one at that. I removed weasel-worded, revisionist, ahistorical edits referencing a vanity-published and pointy anecdotal short story collection. I reviewed your credentials, RJensen, years ago, in the course of examining some ongoing conflict or another, and I perceive you to be a serious historian--which is why your revision here confuses me so very much. Read the article before the missouri historian weighed in. Read it after. Which is more historical, well-referenced, lacking in POV?
I understand (though despise) the ongoing attempt to rehabilitate Quantrill's image. It's part and parcel of southern revisionist history. But I will not abide it here. I am a serious scholar. I am a historian. And I, unlike the 'academic' of the vanity press, can marshal serious weight behind my interpretations. 
Find me one reputable source that draws a clear and direct connection between the Lawrence Massacre and the events you reverted to include. 
: It wasn't a popular opinion at the time, but the first governor of the State of Kansas drew such a connection.  This is from Blackmar's 1902 biography of Robinson: "The town was burned and sacked, and honored citizens lay dead or dying in every direction. Without any opportunity' for defense, citizens were murdered on sight, their homes plundered and burned. There can be no estimate placed upon the atrocious work of those brief three hours, except to say that it was worse than the deeds of savages, and that it could not have been done except through a spirit of revenge. It was the result of years of raiding; and invasion by un-military bands of men who committed un-military deeds. Without doubt remote causes could be detected prior to 1861, but the immediate occasion was the raiding in Missouri of “Jayhawkers." On Sunday, August 21st, 1892, the anniversary of the Quantrell Raid, after the publication of “The Kansas Conflict," Governor Robinson gave an address at the services held in Central Park in commemoration of the most atrocious massacre on record in modem times and among civilized people. In this address Governor Robinson gave his personal recollections of the event, and then proceeded to show that the Quantrell raid was but a sequel to other events; that it was nothing more than an attempt to retaliate for the terrorism practiced by desperadoes on the border hailing from Kansas. Governor Robinson received severe criticism for his bold assertions respecting the Quantrell raid…"70.250.48.134 (talk) 18:23, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a very confusing statement coming from a "serious scholar".  Quantrill's raid was conducted in August 1863.  Why would you state that an event in the middle of the war helped engender it?  Is it possible you are confusing Quantrill's raid with the pre-war sack of Lawrence?  Please explain.  MOhistorybuff (talk) 16:19, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: well that's quite a statement of POV goals, which are not in line with Wikipedia rules. In any case I rewrote the section and added cites to two major studies (published by university presses and well reviewed). Rjensen (talk) 13:40, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Recent Revisions

message: Shouldn't the article mention that the CSA was angered and appalled over the attacks?--74.167.7.205 (talk) 04:54, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confederate Reaction? 

message: There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Watts Riots which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you.  —RMCD bot 04:43, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Move discussion in progress

message: The regrettable moving back and forth of the page that is now happening (and I'm not involved in moving it) is why this should have been discussed first.  I was hoping to prevent this cycle from happening.
One of the problems is that folks are being told to ignore the standard "reliable sources" model and common usage for a "manual of style" that doesn't directly address historical events.  This sets Wikipedia at odds with itself and it takes some smoothing/explanation.  As I've said before, it would be best to address this natural conflict in the MOS--put the best argument in there rather than quoting something that doesn't address it in any specific way. Red Harvest (talk) 06:29, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Nobody is suggesting ignoring reliable sources.  Dicklyon (talk) 07:13, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: On the contrary, the "specialist style fallacy" essay that is suggested in these discussions does just that.  Rejecting the capitalization because the most reliable source is a specialist runs counter to the normal sourcing basis. It doesn't matter whether one agrees or disagrees with the basis of the essay to see the inherent conflict. Red Harvest (talk) 07:52, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:SSF just cautions not to give exceptional weight to specialists over other reliable sources, and use wikipedia style rather than the style of selected specialists.  Since we are writing for a general audience, a general and uniform style makes more sense than having reach topic area adopt the style their favorite specialists. Dicklyon (talk) 07:00, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure why you can't see how this puts Wikipedia's guidelines at odds with one another allowing multiple interpretations.  North Shoreman did an even better job of analyzing the conflict and the need for a policy to address it.  At any rate, we are at an impasse as a result. Red Harvest (talk) 08:48, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  ...and this is why discussing it first would have been a better idea 

message: Google books n-grams show about half capitalization of massacre.  What can we tell by looking more closely?
First 10 google book search hits for query "the Lawrence Massacre":
#  Bloody Dawn: The Story of the Lawrence Massacre, 1992, where it's lower case on the copyright page, uppercase on every page heading, and apparently not used in a sentence in the text.  Also uppercase on the back cover blurb.
# The Devil Knows How to Ride: The True Story of William Clark Quantrill and His Confederate Raiders, 1991, lowercase in text, upper in many page headings "Prelude to the Lawrence Massacre"
# Quantrill and the Border Wars, 1909, uppercase throughout (plus all-caps headings)
# Cyrus Leland, Jr., and the Lawrence Massacre: A Note and Document, 1987, no preview or snippets; uppercase in title
# Cavaliers of the Brush: Quantrill and His Men, 2003, appears only in citations to titles that contain "Lawrence Massacre", in title case
# Lincoln and Citizens' Rights in Civil War Missouri: Balancing Freedom and Security, 2011, lowercase in text, 4 places including index
# Quantrill's Raid: The Lawrence Massacre, 1997,no preview or snippets; uppercase in  title
# duplicate of #2 with "The" missing from book title 
# Desperate Men: The James Gang and the Wild Bunch, 1962, uppercase chapter title and headings; no occurrence in text; but lowercase "rape of Lawerence, Kansas" and "Quantrill's raid".
# True Crime in the Civil War: Cases of Murder, Treason, Counterfeiting, Massacre, Plunder & Abuse, 2014, uppercase throughout. (this book credits "wikipedia commons" for one image, so is probably not unaffected by wikipedia)
Of these, the ones providing evidence of generic treatment are 1, 2, and 6 (and weakly, 9).  The ones providing evidence of treatment as a proper name are 3 and 10 (though #3 is old, from 1909, so not representative of "modern" usage).  So I'll probably want to look at more, though it's clear that it is not consistently capitalized.
Here's the next page of 10:
# Hunter Jones Joins the Civil War (Missouri), 2007, uppercase throughout
# Lawrence: Survivors of Quantrill's Raid, 2010, uppercase (except one occurrence lower in an old news quote as Red Harvest suggested we might find)
# Encyclopedia of Death and the Human Experience, 2009, lowercase in text
# The Civil War: The Third Year Told By Those Who Lived It, 2013, lowercase in text (and some upper in titles and headings)
# Quantrill in Texas: The Forgotten Campaign, 2007, uppercase in text (in quotes)
# Napoleon Hill's Golden Rules: The Lost Writings, 2008, lowercase in text
# Black Flag: Guerrilla Warfare on the Western Border, 1861-1865, 1999, lowercase in text
# Civil War on the Missouri-Kansas Border, 2005, only in citation titles
# Gold-Mining Boomtown: People of White Oaks, Lincoln County, New Mexico Territory, 2013, uppercase in text
# The 'Real' Wild West, 2009, lowercase in text
Of these, the ones providing evidence of generic lowercase treatment are 3, 4, 6, 7, 19.  The ones providing evidence of treatment as a proper name are 1, 2, 5, 9.   Still more lower than upper, not nearly approaching "consistently capitalized".
Should we keep going?  Since Google tends to rank capitalized hits higher, I expect to see the percentage of lowercase holding or going up on subsequent pages.
Summary: by far the majority of capitalized occurrences are in titles and headings, and hence have no bearing on whether the term is treated as a proper name, yet are counted in the n-gram stats that come out near 50/50.  
Dicklyon (talk) 02:48, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: It should be left capitalized.  The most reliable sources I have use capital letters.  It's Christmas, not Groundhog Day, so leave it alone.  If I see some scholarly discussion that addresses it, then that would be another matter.  In general, these "styles" seem to go back and forth over the decades, much like management fads...  Since there has been refusal to address the concerns raised by multiple editors, I remain opposed to the move. Red Harvest (talk) 03:40, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: What are those "most reliable sources I have"?  Dicklyon (talk) 03:43, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I provided them when the discussion first began some time ago.   I'm not surprised that you wouldn't remember. Red Harvest (talk) 07:33, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capitalization in reliable sources 

message: It wasn't a battle, it was a massacre. One side was doing all the killing, the other side had no combatants. ScienceApe (talk) 17:10, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why is there a battle box on this article? 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: A very small thing, but perhaps correctable.
In the middle of the second paragraph at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_massacre#Collapse_of_the_Women's_Prison_in_Kansas_City, we have the phrase "Elizabeth Harris (later married to Deal)". Standard style indicates this is a "second reference" to a man named Deal, but no one of that name is mentioned anywhere else in the article, and my Net searches find no one named Deal connected to Quantrill's raiders, or to Elizabeth Harris Deal.
I am hoping someone will supply the information. Failing that, a phrasing to avoid the problem would be
Elizabeth Harris (later Elizabeth Harris Deal)
given that http://www.pscwrt.org/PDF/Forty%20Shirts.pdf discusses the "recollection" by "Elizabeth Harris Deal, who was Eliza Harris in 1863". GeorgeTSLC (talk) 20:53, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Who was Harris's husband "Deal"? 

message: An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Quantrill's raid. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so.  Hog Farm (talk) 23:46, 15 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Quantrill's raid" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]] 

message: This is likely inconsequential, but I thought it was worth a note here: In the Lawrence area, this event is almost always refereed to as "Quantrill's Raid," whereas non-Kansas sources usually call it something like the "Lawrence massacre."--Gen. Quon (Talk) 16:35, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  A note about the name 

message: Almost every scholarly source I could find refers to this event as the "Lawrence Massacre", with both words capitalized. The sources I checked with were all fairly recent (with a few notable exceptions, like Quantrill's bio), and are as follows:
* The Guerrilla Hunters (2017 LSU Press), 
* The War Went On (2020 LSU Press), 
* Bleeding Kansas (2016 Routledge),
* William Clarke Quantrill: His Life and Times (1999 University of Oklahoma Press), 
* Rebel Guerrillas: Mosby, Quantrill and Anderson (2018 McFarland & Company)
* Quantrill in Texas (2007 Cumberland House)
* Gold-Mining Boomtown (2013  University of Oklahoma Press)
Additionally, since this was, effectively, a battle (albeit, a lopsided one), wouldn't that make it a proper noun? I think that this fact, plus the way it's listed in the most recent sources, suggests the title of this page should really be the "Lawrence Massacre". Any thoughts or comments on this?--Gen. Quon (Talk) 14:50, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capitalization of title