Talk:Mary C. Seward

Help needed

 * 1) Details about death - Exact date was excluded from the September 3, 1919 NYT obit and have been unable to find it from other sources. She was still very active at 80, so would also be nice to know if she was headed to Buffalo for a public engagement.  Also looking for burial place.  Suspect one of the Woman's Club publications had these details.  Rostdo (talk) 17:59, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Review feedback
Source of bullets available at June, 2009 request:

1. Would be more useful to have stubs than red links. (revised 25 July 2009)
 * Agree, but is a tradeoff on time.   Can either leave out the red links until articles are done or add them as article invitations for other editors as described on the Wikipedia linking page and in The Missing Manual help document.   Just different approaches, of which I've used the second here on the chance that someone else will add a missing article before it reaches the top of my backlog.  Will look into which of these may already have enough info for a decent stub. Rostdo (talk) 20:42, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

2. Early Years - Maybe try to expand this a bit - Maybe give some more background info on the period and area - Is it possible to have a bit more on the New London Female Academy?
 * Can add more dates and locations to the early time line, but there's not much else available.  New London Female Academy was the second state chartered female academy in New London. It was founded in 1834, the year the previous one closed, and absorbed into the public school system during the 1850s.  While the school itself does not appear sufficiently notable, one founder and the two principals probably do merit articles.   I've added a red link for the principal that Seward would have studied under - after New London, he went on to play significant roles in Kansas statehood. Rostdo (talk) 19:48, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

3. Poet and composer - Again, maybe try and expand this section a bit - What are the names of some the magazines, she was published in?
 * The fact that she was published in magazine and journals of her day is one cited in her National Society of NE Women and other brief bios. Unfortunately the specifics are lost and tough to track down for a couple of reasons: 1. likely were printed in defunct and now obscure religious, music, education, and club publications, 2. many of her works were used anonymously because her "Agnes Burney" pseudonym was not known well enough to be tracked back to her or her late move from her Calvinist roots to Christian Science made some Protestant publishers cautious of assigning her credit, especially after Theodore's death when she appeared to become less active in their publishing affairs.  One anonymous magazine citation is included in the associated Wikisource entry.  The majority of her known works are preserved in music, mostly hymn books, published prior to 1930.  Would be nice if others would add here as works surface. Rostdo (talk) 20:37, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

4. Maybe add some commentary on her poetry, lyrics, and music, if possible. Are there any recordings that feature her compositions? Maybe try to go into her relationship with her husband a bit more. 5. Club woman and parliamentarian - Maybe try to include more dates in this section, if possible - In what year did she join such and such club, until when, etc... 6. Philanthrophy and later years - Good job at integrating background information here. Maybe include something about when her husband died. 7. Overall, I think the information is presented with good encyclopedic quality. Maybe the sentences are a little short and staccato in some areas. Consider improving transitional passages and elaborations to improve readability.

Rostdo (talk) 15:26, 15 July 2009 (UTC)