Talk:Elizabeth Freeman

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A great book to read about all this information in a story form is Second Daughter: The Story of a Slave Girl By: Mildred Pitts Walter — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.81.29.240 (talk • contribs) 22:28, 28 May 2009

Relation to W. E. B. Du Bois
Freeman was the great-grandmother ( by marriage her daughter Betsy was 2nd wife to his mother's the blood great- grandfather) of the historian W. E. B. Du Bois. Du Bois claimed Freeman as his great-grandmother (without fully disclosing the relationship) and she likely had an influence on his life through his parents and grandparents. It is not clear to me that this is important enough to include in this article, but if we do, we should be clear that it is not a blood relationship. Joja lozzo  19:13, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * What exactly is the relationship? Was she the stepmother of one of Du Bois's grandparents?  Unless that's it (in which case I'm not sure "great-grandmother [by marriage]" is an accurate term), I'm not sure how one can be someone's mother, grandmother, or great-grandmother without being a blood relation. Monkeyzpop (talk) 06:54, 19 January 2011 (UTC)


 * You're right. Freeman was the second wife to his blood great-grandfather and stepmother to one of Du Bois' grandparents. A little research would tell us which one and how old the grandparent was when she married into the family. I agree that "(by marriage)" is a poor choice of words and would usually be interpreted to mean Freeman was his spouse's blood relative. It was not a blood relationship but Du Bois brought it up often, sometimes explaining it and sometimes not. Joja  lozzo  15:58, 19 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Piper and Lewinson clarified this for me. Freeman's marriage to Du Bois's great-grandfather is highly unlikely. Perhaps her daughter Betsy married into his family and was step-mother to his mother's father. No record of any marriage between members of the two families has been located. Joja  lozzo  16:33, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Possessive form for Du Bois
The MOS for possessives has several options all of which are acceptable. The only MOS requirement is consistency. Given that W.E.B. Du Bois pronounced his last name to rhyme with "voice" I am ok with the proposed Du Bois's form. Joja lozzo  17:35, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Hannah/Bett/shovel event
I reverted an edit that puts the target of Hannah's aggression as sister Lizzie instead of daughter Betsy. The main source of this being Lizzie is Sedgewick which is a second hand report, reworked as an illustrative story in a magazine article. Piper and Levinson's research on this topic is authoritative: no such person as Lizzie has been shown to have existed. Sedgewick's report likely reflects the social norms of the her time where a daughter out of wedlock was better framed as a younger sister. Joja lozzo  18:22, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Name change

 * 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. 

The result of the proposal was moved. --BDD (talk) 00:17, 8 February 2014 (UTC)


 * The article was renamed recently to Elizabeth Freeman (slave) without discussion (as far as I know). I think is problematic because, 1) she is notable because she was not a slave for her whole life, and 2) Elizabeth Freeman was her name after she became free. I'm not advocating for the old article name but I'm not sure the new one is an improvement. Joja  lozzo  05:10, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
 * See Category:American slaves for other ways this has been handled with others in this category. Note that the great majority have no disambiguation. Some alternatives:
 * Elizabeth Freeman, as far as I can tell we have no other pages with this spelling. If we used this option we'd change the current page with this title back to Elizabeth Freeman (disambiguation) as it was before the recent changes.
 * Elizabeth Freemen (ex-slave), probably the most accurate if we think we need to disambiguate.
 * Elizabeth Freeman (abolitionist), also somewhat inaccurate since she worked for her own freedom (and brought about that of many others as a consequence) but she did not actively oppose the institution of slavery.
 * Joja lozzo  14:48, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't object to any of these options. If I had noticed that the civil rights activist was Elisabeth, I may have moved to the base title myself. I just didn't like the old name, which included a nickname as a disambiguator. --BDD (talk) 17:00, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I think you were correct to drop the old disambiguator. I'll move it to the base title and follow up with the redirects. Cheers. Joja  lozzo  04:43, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

START: Move from WP:RMTR END: Move from WP:RMTR
 * No need to disambiguate, per talk page discussion. Joja  lozzo  04:48, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Object to speedy this is why WP:RM exists. The disambiguation page should be restored. This is a multimove, and should have just been done through the regular process. If you had enough support, then you could just have asked for a WP:SNOW. But as it is, it is a replacement of one page by another, without informing that other page's watchers about the state of affairs. Quite frankly, 1 day of discussion isn't very much, considering may editors may be out until the weekend. -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 07:11, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Survey

 * Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with  or  , then sign your comment with  . Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.


 * Support this is likely the primary topic. (I objected to the speedy move because I think any primary topic change should have a full discussion; the disambiguation page appears to have been in place since 2005) -- 70.50.148.248 (talk) 22:51, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Support as the only subject in the encyclopedia to have this precise title. bd2412  T 01:20, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Support per nom. Joja  lozzo  03:58, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

 * Any additional comments:
 * 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.

Assessment comment
Substituted at 14:21, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Organization
It seems that the page should be reorganized to improve clarity. Would breaking up the Biography section into smaller subsections on Early Years, Freedom Lawsuit, Later Years, etc. be useful in improving the structure of the article? Reshmijpatel6 (talk) 01:04, 2 February 2020 (UTC)