Talk:James A. Baker (born 1857)

Attended Texas Military Institute in San Antonio???
TMI in San Antonio was not founded until 1893 (when Baker was 36). The Handbook of Texas reference says he attended TMI in Austin. This reference indicates the presence of TMI in Austin 1870-1880: http://www.dupontcastle.com/castles/tmi.htm and says the school moved from Bastrop to Austin. Possibly the Austin school moved to San Antonio? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.154.8.94 (talk) 21:46, 12 March 2010 (UTC) Likewise, Trinity University was not located in San Antonio when Baker was of college age. In Baker's time, it was located in Tehuacana, TX and moved to Waxahachie in 1902. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.154.8.94 (talk) 21:58, 12 March 2010 (UTC)


 * IP person: Great points. It only took eight years to address them. James A. Baker (born 1857), aka Captain Baker, attended another TMI located at the time in Austin. When he attended, enrollment had dwindled to fifty-five students and a few years after he graduated, the faculty quit en masse and accepted positions at the precursor to Texas A & M. But another sign that the school was failing: TMI granted a degree to Baker even though he was a full year short of completing the curriculum. Baker himself questioned the standards at TMI (see the article for references on his college days). I don't have a source to confirm this, but it looked like the TMI in Austin probably shut down. TMI in San Antonio did not adopt its current name until 1926, IIRC.Oldsanfelipe (talk) 16:06, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

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Requested move 17 July 2018

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Withdrawn by nominator; see followup discussion below the RM. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:22, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

James A. Baker Sr. → Captain James A. Baker – James Addison Baker (1857–1941) never used “James A. Baker, Senior” as a legal name or common name. James Addison Baker (1857–1941) was the son of James Addison Baker (1821–1897) and Rowena Crawford Baker (1826–1889), as indicated in the Life and career section of the current article. There is no evidence that James A. Baker (1857–1941) was ever known as “James A. Baker, Sr.” His biographer writes, “Not quite seven months later James Addison Baker junior was born on January 10, 1857. The second Baker child, called Jimmie by family members throughout his life, would drop junior from his signature after his father’s death and be known to contemporaries and posterity as Captain James A. Baker.” James Addison Baker (1821–1897) was known as “James A. Baker,” “James A. Baker, Senior,” and “Judge James A. Baker.” He is also notable by Wikipedia standards, so it possible that someone might write an article about him, in which case, the article should be named “Judge James A. Baker” or “James A. Baker, Sr.” I recommend following the biographer of James Addison Baker (1857–1941) in referring to him as Captain James A. Baker. Of course there is another notable James Addison Baker, known as James A. Baker, III. He is the fourth James A. Baker, not the third. The family chose an unorthodox naming convention for the line of men named James A. Baker. The best way to clarify this is to move the article “James A. Baker, Sr.” to “Captain James A. Baker” and include explanations of their non-standard names in each Baker article. Oldsanfelipe (talk) 10:41, 17 July 2018 (UTC) Strikethrough by Oldsanfelipe (talk) 11:00, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Please note that there is an article for James Addison Baker (1821–1897): James Addison Baker the elder. Oldsanfelipe (talk) 10:58, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Oppose MOS In ictu oculi (talk) 12:32, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
 * What in the MOS? Oldsanfelipe (talk) 12:37, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
 * From MoS, "A title should be a recognizable name or description of the topic that is natural, sufficiently precise, concise, and consistent with those of related articles. If these criteria are in conflict, they should be balanced against one another." The current title is not recognizable as it identifies the subject by a name he did not use, either legally or informally, and it fails in precision for the same reason. This part of the MoS does not favor the status quo on this name. Oldsanfelipe (talk) 16:45, 17 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Oppose Military titles are not included in articles for individuals. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.71.249.229 (talk) 18:59, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Oppose per MOS:JOBTITLES. We just don't do this.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:39, 18 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Question Thanks for the feedback on my proposal. Two specific reasons have been offered against moving to "Captain James A. Baker." Does this imply that the status quo is acceptable: the name of the article for a person was never used as that person's legal or common name? Is there a move that would be more appropriate? Oldsanfelipe (talk) 11:31, 18 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Withdraw I am withdrawing my nomination for the move to "Captain James A. Baker" since MOS:JOBTITLES is unambiguous. Oldsanfelipe (talk) 19:51, 18 July 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Why the current article title is untenable
There are four persons in a familial succession who share the name James Addison Baker (unqualified);
 * James Addison Baker the elder (18211895)
 * James A. Baker, Sr. (18571941)
 * James A. Baker, Jr.
 * James Baker, III, former US Secretary of Treasury, living

The fourth James A. Baker is James A. Baker, III, the product of an unorthodox choice of naming by the family. As I have noted above, quoting from a full length biography of the second James A. Baker, his given name was James A. Baker, Jr., and name he used until he was about 40 years old, after which he signed his name as and was commonly known as "Captain James A. Baker." Never was he known legally or commonly as "James A. Baker, Sr."

The MOS:JOBTITLES policy makes clear that a move to "Captain James A. Baker" is not an option.

The current title is not tenable. MoS states, "A title should be a recognizable name or description of the topic that is natural, sufficiently precise, concise, and consistent with those of related articles. If these criteria are in conflict, they should be balanced against one another." The name "James A. Baker, Sr" is not recognizable for this second Baker, it is imprecise. It creates a consistency with the related article, but with the consequence of giving him the wrong name.

Wikipedia uses fictions for article names, and rarely with a problem. "John Doe (Texas lawyer)" distinguishes the subject from other persons named John Doe. It works because people who understand conventions for naming persons also understand that the person is named "John Doe" and not "John Doe (Texas lawyer). We lack this clarity in the James A. Baker, Sr. article. The name of the article takes the format of an Anglo name, so the reader expects James A. Baker, Sr to be his name. So whatever the title of the article, it should not be "James A. Baker, Sr" any more than it should be "Ralph Baker." They look like names for a person, but neither is the name for this person.

Having rejected the possibility of "Captain James A. Baker," I offer some other options. Are any of these tenable?
 * James A. Baker (18571941)
 * James A. Baker the younger - Pliny and Hans Holbein have this attached, but were these their names, or something historians did later to keep them straight? In any case it doesn't look like a person's name.
 * James Addison Baker the younger - This is consistent with the naming of the article for the first James A. Baker.
 * James A. Baker (second generation)

Are there any other suggestions which would conform to WP policies? Oldsanfelipe (talk) 20:41, 18 July 2018 (UTC) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:46, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
 * First off, we would not be using all these commas, per MOS:JR, and a comma is never used before "III", even in a style which would do ", Jr." Secondly, this is a weird situation because two men used "James A. Baker[,] Jr." during their own lifetimes, and III should really be IV.  The purpose of "Sr." and "Jr." isn't really as part of an "official name" but to indicate a generational succession; the suffixes exist independently of the name. It's normal for someone named "Foo X. Bar Jr." to simply be known as "Foo X. Bar" after his father's death, unless both the father and the son are famous.  So, what the subject used when alive (and, when they were alive) is basically irrelevant.  "The elder/younger" and "the great[er]/lesser" (Latin major/minor) are similar. Thirdly, we avoid disambiguating by date.  We would typically do it by occupation, but they were all lawyer-politicians.  We shouldn't be applying "the elder/younger" any further than sources actually do it, because it's an archaism that's normally only applied to medieval and earlier persons. And "(second generation)" is long-winded, nor does it resolve the confusion; it would strongly imply that the third gen. is James A. Baker "III" who's really the fourth. I suspect that the current set of names is actually the best we're going to get, because James Baker III calls himself that and so do sources. So we can't just retitle them all I–IV the way we normally would.  I added a clarifying footnote at James A. Baker III. One faint possibility is renaming them all "James A. Baker (b. YYYY)", a solution that has occasionally been applied to other articles (mostly sportspeople who can't be disambiguated by sport, team, or position because of additional collisions, which suggests we need to raise the notability bar for athletes). But this is often resisted (birthdate is usually information someone is looing for, not already possessing).

First, I would like to apologize for requesting a move without a discussion. I would have learned something without creating work for administrators. Second, I need to do a better job of explaining what I want to do here.


 * I only see the need to move one of the four articles: James A. Baker Sr. Explanatory notes would be sufficient for the other three.
 * The James A. Baker Sr. article needs to be renamed because it attributes to him a name that was not his. My source says that he never called himself "Sr" and nobody else did either.
 * I am not trying to reform the Baker family's naming practices, just trying to clarify them. Cheers, Oldsanfelipe (talk) 02:36, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I already addressed this; it doesn't matter whether the subject used the term in life; the Jr/Sr stuff is mostly about how sources treat the subject. It's unlikely that anyone is still alive who knew  James A. Baker; we're dealing with reader expectations based on modern reading material.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:55, 19 July 2018 (UTC) Most sources uses the "Captain" disambiguator, but it's not a style WP uses. The Texas State Historical Association is going with "Sr."    [wrong bio!] , and most others use birth dates, also a style that WP avoids, though we have used it sometimes (mostly in "b. 1821" not "1821–1897" style).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:00, 19 July 2018 (UTC); corrected: 13:14, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
 * The sources are following the conventions that the Bakers used. Captain Baker was born in 1857. Captain Baker was known as ....Jr. before the age of forty and Captain Baker afterward. He was never known as ....Sr and the sources refer to him as Captain Baker. I understand we cannot used "Captain Baker." Oldsanfelipe (talk) 03:49, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
 * The TSHA article you linked to was the article for the first James A. Baker (b.1821) and the only one who was named ...Sr. The TSHA article uses the first James A. Baker's adult legal name. Oldsanfelipe (talk) 03:49, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, I don't know what to tell you. Maybe try proposing "James A. Baker (b. 1857)". I'm not terribly opposed to it, I just know that such disambiguations have been resisted before, but that that we also do have some pages with such names (mostly in sports). So the resistance is not utterly overwhelming. Given what a weird case this is, an WP:IAR argument can be made.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:12, 19 July 2018 (UTC)


 * The current article names for JAB1 and JAB2 do not conform to policy. I am making tables for this ball of rubber bands! Oldsanfelipe (talk) 14:03, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 22 July 2018

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: move the page to James A. Baker (born 1857) at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasu よ! 08:33, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

James A. Baker Sr. → James Addison Baker (b. 1857) – There are four persons named “James Addison Baker” in successive generations, whom I will refer to as JAB1 for James Addison Baker the elder, JAB2 for James A. Baker Sr., JAB3 James A. Baker Jr., and JAB4 for James Baker. JAB1 was an attorney and judge, and the other three are also attorneys. JAB4 is uncontroversial: he is James Addison Baker III and appropriately treated as the primary topic in the article, James Baker. Further complicating matters are two articles about unrelated persons: James A. Baker (justice) and James A. Baker (government attorney). Given that all six James A. Bakers are legal practitioners, these last two articles seem to be poorly disambiguated. There is also a previous move discussion above for those who desire context.

The names for JAB1 and JAB2 are poorly aligned with Wikipedia policy on the naming of articles. WP:MOS states, "A title should be a recognizable name or description of the topic that is natural, sufficiently precise, concise, and consistent with those of related articles. If these criteria are in conflict, they should be balanced against one another." Guidance on recognizability is offered at WP:NAMINGCRITERIA, “The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize.” This is further qualified at WP:COMMONNAME, “Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title; it generally prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable English-language sources) as such names will usually best fit the five criteria listed above.”

The main sources about JAB1 and JAB2 are:
 * Lipartito, Kenneth J. and Joseph A. Pratt (1991). Baker & Botts in the Development of Modern Houston. Austin: University of Texas.
 * Kirkland, Kate Sayan (2012). Captain James A. Baker, 1857–1941. College Station: Texas A&M University Press.
 * Texas Handbook Online, “Baker, James Addison, Sr.”
 * Texas Handbook Online, “Baker, James Addison, Jr.”
 * Texas Handbook Online, “Baker & Botts.”

Lipartito and Pratt (1991) and Kirkland (2012) disambiguate JAB1 and JAB2 as “Judge Baker” and “Captain Baker,” respectively. They disambiguate JAB3 and JAB4 as James A. Baker Jr. and James A. Baker III, respectively. However, following this usage for Wikipedia article names would be an unambiguous violation of WP:JOBTITLES. The incoherence the current Wikipedia article name for JAB sets in when we consider the Texas Handbook Online articles. Their article for James Addison Baker, Sr. refers to JAB1 and their article for James Addison Baker, Jr. refers to JAB2. Thus a main source for James A. Baker Sr. is an article which recognizes the same person as “James Addison Baker, Jr.” Clearly the status quo is untenable since the title is not recognizable and it is very misleading. The Texas Handbook online mentions “James A. Baker III” (JAB4) in the Baker & Botts article, and do not mention JAB3 in any of the three articles cited. I have presented some of these arguments in table-format in my sandbox: User:Oldsanfelipe/sandbox/Move argument.

The article for James A. Baker III (JAB4) is James Baker. As a former Presidential Chief of Staff and US Secretary of Treasury, he is clearly the primary topic. This is as it should be. Given there are six persons named James A. Baker—and they are all in the legal profession—using the full names for the other three James Addison Bakers would be an improvement. Given the unorthodox naming convention started by JAB2, distinguishing JAB1 and JAB2 by year of birth would be in order. JAB3 can be distinguished as James Addison Baker Jr. While this is not the most concise option, it is the most internally consistent. (See MOS: when there are conflicts the criteria should be balanced; and WP:NAMINGCRITERIA for a definition of consistency.)

At least one of these articles needs to be renamed, and I have proposed that three of these articles should be moved. Please keep your readers in mind as you choose. As the article names stand, this is very confusing. If you do not like this proposal, please make your own proposal for renaming at least James A. Baker Sr. Thank you for reading. Oldsanfelipe (talk) 11:02, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Reluctant support, though as James A. Baker (b. 1857) James A. Baker (born 1857) per WP:CONCISE, on personal names, and per WP:CONSISTENCY with other "(born YYYY)" disambiguations . This case is so hopelessly confused (in the real world, by this family's weird naming practices) that this really does seem to be the best solution, even though we'd normally avoid a birthdate disambiguation.  We hashed this out in great detail above, and I'm now convinced. If you don't get why this move should happen, see the above discussions. Anyway, we don't add middle names as a disambiguator unless also commonly used in RS, and in this case the birthdate disambiguator obviates any need to do so. For other James A. Bakers who are not of this family, a geographical disambiguator might be considered.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:46, 22 July 2018 (UTC); revised: 22:10, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
 * SMcCandlish, do you mean James A. Baker (born 1857)? I don't recall where or whether "b." is explicitly discussed in the naming conventions. Dekimasu よ! 21:46, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Argh. We disambiguate so infrequently by birth date, I forgot. It does seem to be "born" not "b."  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:10, 24 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Defer to proposal by SMcCandlish. I stand by my criticism of the current scheme of naming articles on these persons named James Addison Baker. My proposal to fix the problem, however, does not take into account Wikipedia precedents, so I am deferring to those who are knowledgeable. Oldsanfelipe (talk) 15:01, 26 July 2018 (UTC)


 * It just gets better and better. I am getting to the part of the book about JAB3. As you may recall JAB2 is commonly known as "Captain James A. Baker" by dint of his position in a local militia. His son JAB3, I am just know finding out, was promoted to Captain after serving for three months on the western front in WWI. That was an infantry division. So the Baker with the best claim of being known as "Captain" was not known as Captain. No wonder I have been confused by the story of the Bakers! Oldsanfelipe (talk) 21:27, 27 July 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Unhelpful citations
"After the Wall Street Crash of 1929 he was instrumental in avoiding the collapse of banks that were sweeping the nation. The president of South Texas Bank wanted to let two weaker Houston banks fail (Public National Bank and Trust Company of Houston run by Jules Henri Tallichet; and Houston National Bank run by C. S. E. Holland),[19][20] saying that they deserved to do so because management was incompetent."

Inline citations 19 and 20 refer to two Handbook of Texas Online article which only support that these banks were run by Tallichet and Holland, respectively. There are sources which support this bank crash narrative without reference to the two bank presidents. I am inclined to remove these two citations and the references to Tallichet and Holland as they are not helpful in telling the story, and the same sources fail at verifying the story about how Houston leaders reacted to the crash. Thoughts? Cheers, Oldsanfelipe (talk) 14:13, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:James Addison Baker the elder which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 12:32, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Citation style
I made several changes to existing citations to the article and adding many new ones. I should have asked about this before I made changes. I do not understand the existing citations as shown in this diff:. As you can see, there were several bare references, and not understanding the existing system for the established citations, I just used the template. Is there anyone who would like to revert to the previous format? If so, please tell me the name of this citation system so I can learn it. Is there support for allowing me to use a template to make these citations consistent? Thanks, Oldsanfelipe (talk) 16:07, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Tallichet and Holland
I am evaluating the following statement in James A. Baker (born 1857): "After the Wall Street Crash of 1929 he was instrumental in avoiding the collapse of banks that were sweeping the nation. The president of South Texas Bank wanted to let two weaker Houston banks fail (Public National Bank and Trust Company of Houston run by Jules Henri Tallichet; and Houston National Bank run by C. S. E. Holland)...." At the end of this graft are inline citations to articles from the Handbook of Texas Online: and. Each of these articles supports that Tallichet and Holland ran these respective banks, but does not support any of these other claims. Knowing who ran these banks does not help to explain the story, but if I delete these details, per WP:UNDUE, I need to delete the references as well. I am unclear about when it is permissible to delete sourced content. Is this just a problem of obtaining consensus on the talk page? And how long is an acceptable period to wait if there are no comments? Thanks, Oldsanfelipe (talk) 18:07, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Requested images
Two images would improve the article: a better portrait of Baker and a photo of one of the Baker College buildings at Rice. Thanks, Oldsanfelipe (talk) 19:37, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Sally Brown
There's a captain Baker in the sea shanty "Sally Brown", at least in some versions of the song. Any connection?  PizzaMan  ♨♨♨  19:53, 20 February 2022 (UTC)