Talk:William Shurtleff

Other name?
is he also known as "Bill Shurtleff"? Psychologist Guy (talk) 02:52, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes - Same person. MaynardClark (talk) 02:55, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks you are right, I will update the article. Psychologist Guy (talk) 02:56, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Family of William Roy (Bill) Shurtleff
The 2012 passing of Bill Shurtleff's father, Lawton Shurtleff, yielded a 'family tree' of the Shurtleffs. There are various online genealogical references to the genealogies of Shurtleff, Akiko Aoyagi, and their son. MaynardClark (talk) 03:01, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Role of Healdsburg, California in vegetarian history
What role has Healdsburg, California played in vegetarian history, both for Adventist vegetarians and for natural foods vegetarians, as well as for medical doctors who practiced both medicine and vegan diets there? Bill Shurtleff's father settled there for his second family. Farming, especially orchards and truck farms, was common within the present city limits from at least the 1890s to 1940s. Seventh Day Adventism and the American health reform movement have connections there.


 * "One of the most important personages to reside in Healdsburg was Ellen G. (Harmon) White, one of the founders of the Seventh Day Adventist Church and its prophetess. The Adventist movement was officially organized in 1863, the same year that Ellen White began to advocate the benefits of a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet and abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, and other harmful drugs. She and her husband James, an Adventist minister, were leaders in the health reform movement, teachings that remain central to the belief of the Seventh Day Adventists today. She was the author of over 5,000 articles and 40 books, the most translated woman in literature.


 * "First establishing the Health Reform Movement in Battle Creek Michigan, the Adventists soon decided to create an Adventist school in California. By 1869 a meeting house was constructed in Santa Rosa, and in 1871 a Seventh-Day Adventist Church was built in Healdsburg. In 1877, with James in ill health, the Whites purchased the former William Melton two-story vernacular Georgian style home at 1950 West Dry Creek Road, hoping that rural semi-retirement in the mild climate would restore his health. James, however, died in 1881 and Ellen and her son William became involved in establishing a Seventh Day Adventist college in Healdsburg.


 * "In 1882, the Healdsburg Academy, a name later changed to Healdsburg College, was opened in the former Healdsburg Institute site on Plaza Street. That same year Ellen White purchased a home nearby at 201 Powell Avenue, her west coast home until she went to Australia in 1891. Here she completed some of her most important books. She returned to reside in St. Helena in 1900, where she died in 1915. In 1907 the school moved to a larger site in Angwin, Napa County, and the name changed to Pacific Union College (Hoods 2004:80-81; White 2000)." MaynardClark (talk) 03:28, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Structure of this article needs work
This page is set up as the biography of William Shurtleff. However, it is really about the history of The Book of Tofu, The Book of Miso, and The Book of Tempeh, which were entirely co-authored with Akiko Aoyagi. Every reference refers to her as well, but she does not have a biography on the Wikipedia.

We can either make a biography for her, which would effectively replicate most of the information on this page, or we can convert this page into a joint page for the two of them that discusses their joint works. As far as I can see, all of their publications were co-authored as part of this series.-Classicfilms (talk) 14:53, 25 March 2023 (UTC)


 * I will wait a week. If no one responds, I will reorganize the article under a new title: "Books by William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi" (and I'm open to suggestions). No doubt "The Book of Tofu" was an important work (as were its sequels), so an overview would fulfill WP:N - as well as fulfill WP:NPOV by giving equal time to both authors.-Classicfilms (talk) 17:36, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
 * P.S. I will keep the bio information for Shurtleff and add a brief bio for Aoyagi.-Classicfilms (talk) 17:37, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I created this page. The problem I see with your proposal is that it seems to imply that at some point, a separate page with biographies would be created. I found very little published material with which to create a biography for either WS/AA. Their notability is entirely from their publications.
 * I think that Wikipedia is biography-centric, and most readers who look for information on WS/AA or one of their publications will look up the main author, WS.
 * I'm not opposed to your proposal, but I don't see that it will be an improvement. Downtowngal (talk) 20:39, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi Downtowngal- Thanks for the feedback, it was helpful. Let's see if we can find a middle ground...Shurtleff and Aoyagi's "Book of Tofu" is an important book, and it, along with its sequels is where I think WP:N is best served. That being said, they are books that were co-authored and this point needs to somehow be reflected in articles. Another possibility would be to keep this article (William Shurtleff) as is - and then I could create two more pages: A page called "Books by William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi" (in the vein of a pages such as Literary works of Satyajit Ray) that would draw upon material here, and then another biography for Akiko Aoyagi, as both authors need to be reflected (again borrowing from material here). Jonathan Kauffman discusses both and their books in Hippie Food, which I could add. In this way, there would be both the books page and biographies. Let me know what you think.-Classicfilms (talk) 00:22, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
 * A few more sources in addition to Kauffman's book that discuss the two authors in tandem - Rynn Berry's Famous Vegetarians and Their Favorite Recipes: Lives and Lore from Buddha to the Beatles, Pythagorean Publishers has a chapter called "William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi." North Carolina State University's library has a copy of Berry's interview in its archives along with an original illustration (see: https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/news/special-collections/discovering-treasures-while-processing-the-rynn-berry-jr-papers). Not sure if this article is WP:RS, but it places both Shurtleff and Aoyagi as co-authors, and important advocates for the use of Soy in the West.-Classicfilms (talk) 02:20, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Using material from this bio, the new page should reflect that it is a non-fiction series of books (book series). However it is an article, not a list as it is the main source at the moment. Book series:
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Series_of_non-fiction_books
 * It should follow the format from
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Books
 * The title could be "William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi (soy book series)" or "Soy books of William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi." Another possibility would be something like William Blake's prophetic books - perhaps "William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi's soy books."

-Classicfilms (talk) 15:59, 27 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the details. I think the best solution is two pages: "Works by William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi" and "William Shurtleff" with a subsection for "Akiko Aoyagi." I doubt AA has enough material for her own page. This simple solution doesn't require the reader to guess that "soy books" is the main tag--in any case, all of their books are soy books.
 * I choose "works" rather than "books" for three reasons. First, most of their recent books have been bibliographies, which to my mind marginally qualifies as a book. Second, "works" allows for outside artwork by Aoyagi, if there is any. Third, I think that the three main books were important more as instructional manuals to food makers, and as introductions to cooking methods/ingredients for the general public, than as long-term, long-time used cookbooks. As far as I know, they were outdated as *cookbooks* for soy products, very quickly. (I haven't seen any survey of the early purchasers of these books, about how they used them and for how long. It would certainly be an interesting survey.) All of which means I think they're not very notable *as cookbooks* and are mostly notable as cultural phenomena. So the downgrading from "Books" to "Works" is I think appropriate. Again, I would like to have this theory tested. Downtowngal (talk) 19:50, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I will agree with some of your points and respectfully disagree with others. I'm fine with "Works by William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi." I absolutely disagree with the idea of putting a subsection for "Akiko Aoyagi" on "William Shurtleff"'s page. All of the information I've come across offer information for both. So, I can work on creating both the works article and the bio for Akiko Aoyagi over the next few days. Thanks for the feedback.-Classicfilms (talk) 21:02, 27 March 2023 (UTC)