Talk:William McAndrew

Ethan Allen malaprop
Friends, We are told in the section on McAndrew's trial that one of his questioners was laughed at for taking issue with the exclusion from Chicago's history curriculum of Ethan Allen, to whom the questioner attributes Nathan Hale's great last words. I think it plain that the ridicule spoken of resulted from the malapropism by one supposedly invested in historical education, not from the obscurity of Ethan Allen; I suppose Allen is more of a local figure, but whether or not McAndrew's questioners knew of him, one doubts that the suggestion of his inclusion would have elicited laughter more than the obvious confusion of the names. I take this to the discussion, because I do not have the book cited by the writer of this fact, and I do not wish to change the content of the assessment to reflect my observation if the author of the source actually believes & states that the ridicule came from Allen's minor status. I have added a link to the article on Hale, specifically to the section on his death, but I humbly ask you what is to be done with the remaining wording. "The malapropism for Nathan Hale caused ridicule . . . Some unfamiliar with Hale but familiar with Allen laughed because they thought Allen too minor a figure . . . " But again, I rather doubt this second point. Would anyone happen to have the book? Twozenhauer (talk) 03:52, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Good catch. Found a contemporary newspaper article that indeed confirms that part of the reason for amusement in the gallery was apparently the fact that the quote was Nathan Hale's, not Allen's. SecretName101 (talk) 22:20, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Excellent find, my friend. The article has been well edited by the addition of the other gentleman's correction. Thank you so much for your attention to my quibble! Twozenhauer (talk) 01:10, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 5 February 2022

 * 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 after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Colin M (talk) 21:07, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

William McAndrew (educator) → William McAndrew – He is the primary topic and has the most long term significance in a ONEOTHER situation due to serving as Superintendent of Chicago Public Schools. The page was moved from Draft:William McAndrew (educator) to the mainspace in August 2021 and has gotten more page views since then. Sahaib3005 (talk) 10:35, 5 February 2022 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Support Even when taking out the month of August, where the educator was on the main page and therefore page views were skewed, page views seem to show a ONEOTHER situation with the editor as primary topic.--Yaksar (let's chat) 21:25, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Support as primary topic. Given that the name William or Bill McAndrew is quite common, it’s unusual that we have only two articles. This may have to be revisited in the future. Viriditas (talk) 04:09, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

In search of featured article mentor(s)
I am looking to elevate this article to a featured article. All of you are listed at Mentoring for FAC as mentors, and each had listed areas of interest overlapping with this article (for instance history and bios) or had otherwise indicated a willingness to consider helping on articles any topic area.

Even if you cannot fully mentor, if you'd be possibly willing to be the next peer reviewer (after I finish implementing edits suggested by the current user peer reviewing) please let me know. I could ping you once the article is ready to be reviewed by a second peer reviewer.

This article is about an American educator whose greatest notability came from his tenure as superintendent of the Chicago Public Schools system. The most fascinating aspect of his biography is how (during a mayoral campaign) the demagoguing Chicago mayor William Hale Thompson made outlandish accusations against McAndrew, including that he was an agent sent by the King of England to brainwash the youth with anti-American propaganda as part of a nefarious conspiracy for the United Kingdom to repossess the United States. This appears to have been part of the pattern of an anti-British textbook hysteria of the era, as well as a means to pander to and energize anti-British sentiments that imaginably would have been prevalent in the many Irish diaspora voters and German diaspora voters (with this being not too long after both the Irish War of Independence and World War I there were definitely heated tensions). Not too long after Thomspon was elected, he had his school board suspend McAndrew pending the result of an administrative hearing, with the accusations against McAndrew being both insubordination and what amounted to charges of un-patriotism regarding the supposed British propaganda conspiracy. The administrative hearing (detailed at administrative hearing of William McAndrew) saw further outlandish allegations about this supposed conspiracy. The administrative hearing took place over many months, McAndrew's superintendency expired before they delivered their guilty verdict). The hearing result was later voided by a court. The hearing was widely-publicized and seen as a curiosity akin to the contemporary Scopes Monkey Trial.

There are some other interesting aspects of his bio, but none as bizarre and eye-catching as that chapter.

This article is currently undergoing a peer review. I am currently implementing changes helpfully suggested by a user in that peer review among other improvements my eye catches along the way. This hopefully will be wrapped up in the coming days if my personal life does not get more demanding than anticipated in that time.

This article previously obtained "good article status", and I have made a good number of improvements since in order to better present the information contained within it.

I am new to navigating featured article process, so mentor or mentors would be greatly appreciated.

I was previously the co-primary contributor to the featured article 1927 Chicago mayoral election. However, the application and other aspects of formally making it a featured article were handled by the other primary contributor (who also handled a lot of the needed minutiae-related edits, such as improving the formatting style of citations so that book sources cited specific pages). Therefore, I did not learn many of the ins-and-outs unique to the featured article process through that endeavor. I am however familiar with the "good article" assessment process through this article and a number of others.

This article has a number of related and semi-related articles. The most heavily-related article is Administrative hearing of William McAndrew, which was spun-off of this article. Other articles that have areas of relation to the subject include the aforementioned 1927 Chicago mayoral election as well as William Hale Thompson 1927 mayoral campaign. Mentioning this just in case you find it helpful to know that.

Again, the help of a featured article mentor would be greatly appreciated! Thank you for whatever help you can offer. SecretName101 (talk) 03:24, 28 August 2022 (UTC)


 * I have done some copyediting, and strongly suggest that you take this to the Guild of Copyediting for a refactor before taking this to FAC; among other things for future reference be a bit more cautious about linking common terms unless directly relevant, and don't forget geocommas and datecommas. That said, I have these other questions, although I don't intend for this to become a formal peer review in place of other comments.
 * How did McAndrew first come to New York? His move from St. Paul to New York is never explained. It's fine if you don't know.
 * [Irving] was regarded as a leading institution among all-girls schools in the United States. Irving is not explained to be an all-girls school in its introduction.
 * However, McAndrew declined the position. Any reason why?
 * Be wary of duplicate links in an article.
 * making him, perhaps, the highest-paid educators in the United States at the time. "One of" the highest-paid, or "the" highest-paid?
 * I notice some book sources are not fully in short form; this should be rectified for consistency


 * This is not exhaustive, but should help. This is a good article, but not quite up to FA standards at this point. On my end, I have an FAC of my own right now for the "L"'s Lake Street Transfer station that I think you would like and that would need more participation. Thanks! – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 23:33, 3 November 2022 (UTC)