Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2015 August 12

= August 12 =

33, Chambers Street, Boston, Massachusetts
Where today is the spot that had this address in 1883? See the final two text pages of this book for the context; it was a church "on Chambers street, between Green and Cambridge streets". I can't find Chambers or Green on Google Maps, and Cambridge today is just a short connector between City Hall and the bridge to Cambridge. Or what about "Ferdinand and Isabella Streets", mentioned in the next-to-last entry of the book? Isabella today is just a few hundred feet long, and Ferdinand doesn't appear to exist. I can't check Sanborns for this period. Nyttend (talk) 03:48, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * What's the name of the specific church? I'll see if I can find it in the city directories at ancestry.com (a pay site). ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:11, 12 August 2015 (UTC)


 * The 1883 directory lays it out like this, including indentions as shown. I'm not very familiar with Boston streets, but I hope this will make some sense to you:

Chamber, from 26 City Sq. to Water, Ward 5.

Chambers, from 68 Cambridge to 24 Spring, Ward 8. 2 1 Cambridge 14 Cotting Place
 * Ch. Chambers-St. Church

26 Chambers-St. Court 54 Eaton
 * 55 Green

66 McLean Ch. Catholic Church 0 Allen
 * 79 Winslow Place

98 Poplar
 * 91 Marston Place
 * 123 Hammond Av.
 * 155 Ashland

178 177 Spring

Chambers-St. Court, from 26 Chambers, Ward 8.


 * ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:21, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Second Reformed Presbyterian, as noted in the source. But the problem is that the street doesn't even exist anymore, at least under its 1883 name.  Does the city directory have a map showing the location?  I didn't bother looking for city directories, since the ones I've used are text-only and don't include maps.  Nyttend (talk) 06:07, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * No map in the city directory that I can see, but File:1883 Walker map Boston.png looks like it has it, or part of it. The part of Chambers south of Cambridge was and is called Joy Street, and it still exists. Several of the streets no longer exist, having been swallowed by development of a shopping center, etc. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:56, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for finding that. Looks like the Catholic Church mentioned in the directory is St. Joseph Catholic Church, and according to their website, the neighborhood was clear-cut for one of the many highly destructive mid-century urban renewal projects, perhaps worse than the mess that produced Allegheny Center in Pittsburgh.  Meanwhile, the source for your image also showed me that Isabella's in the same place, Ferdinand having been renamed to Arlington some time after the Swedish Methodist Church bought the church that I was asking about there.  Nyttend (talk) 12:12, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Baron Genet, French minister


Who was Baron Genet, and what was his official diplomatic position? I can't figure out who the guy was; a Google search for these terms returns little except for the US National Archives and derivative sites. He doesn't appear to have been the French ambassador to the US; the 1860-1864 ambassador, Henri Mercier, doesn't appear to have been Baron Genet (the only Genet in this source was someone who came in 1793), and Mercier's successor was a marquis whose appearance was radically different when he met Mathew Brady. Nyttend (talk) 06:18, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * An other Ambassador to the United States whose name begins with "Ge" was the Prussian Ambassador Friedrich Karl Joseph Freiherr von Gerolt. Someone at USNA will have a very old story to tell, if they ever kept traces of their archivists. --Askedonty (talk) 07:35, 12 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Here's an image of Mercier. Does it look like the same man? 184.147.128.46 (talk) 15:25, 12 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I suspect an archiving error. The date is likely wrong (this photo, from the same set and definitely from 1871 since it was taken at the Treaty of Washington, is also marked "circa 1860 to circa 1865" in NARA). No-one in the French government at that time had the name "Genet". Interestingly, there is a very similar image from the same collection of "Baron Gederer, Mexican Minister", who also doesn't seem to exist. On the other hand, Chevalier Marcello Cerrutti, Italian Minister did exist, as did Alexandros Rizos Rangavis (pictured here). All of these were taken with the same props, and interestingly, Cerruti and Rangabe were only in Washington together briefly (Cerruti arrived in August 1867, while Rizos Rangavis left the same year). This leads me to suspect that whoever Genet and Gederer really are, they were in Washington DC some time at the end of 1867. One more detail that may be helpful - near the top of the image, there is some faint handwriting (backwards, because the image is flipped). To me, it looks like "Barron Desolt", but I'm no expert at reading the handwriting of the era. Smurrayinchester 15:33, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I must admit, the initial looks also like a 'D' to me. Regarding "Baron Gederer", the initial this time looks rather like a L to me. Could it be perhaps, Carlos Barrón Letechipía ? Governor of Aguascalientes 1871-72. Regarding the date of 1867, I would not be so certain. Mercier was photographed by Brady in 1862 Henri Mercier and the American Civil War, by David Carroll .--Askedonty (talk) 16:39, 12 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Fantastic detective work. Library of Congress goes with "Baron Gerolt" who google has much on: . Possibly a German ambassador, not French? 184.147.128.46 (talk) 16:51, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * And on Wikipedia: Friedrich von Gerolt. 184.147.128.46 (talk) 16:53, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh, just realized image is not the same. It must be from the set. Odd that yours should have a name written on it that looks so much like this man's name, though. 184.147.128.46 (talk) 16:56, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I think they're the same person, from the same session. If you look closely at the photos, they have the same exact same flyaway tufts of hair and lumpy tie knot - even the same undone trouser fly. The folds in the curtain are identical too. Good job! Smurrayinchester 17:23, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Found the "Mexican" too - he's Baron Charles Lederer (or, in his non-Anglicised form, Carl Ramon Soter von Lederer), ambassador from Austria (see here)! My guess on the year seems reasonably accurate - von Gerolt was in Washington for ages, but von Lederer seems to have arrived at the end of 1867/start of 1868. Bizarre the German and Austrian ambassadors should be mixed up with the French and Mexican ones. Smurrayinchester 17:42, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Inserted a gallery for comparison. Why are there tiffs and jpgs? --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 10:58, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Joyce Bennett OBE, Anglican priest, Hong Kong
I am trying to find a reliable date for Joyce Bennett's OBE. I have seen I given variously as 1971, 1978, and 1979. DuncanHill (talk) 15:08, 12 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Found the Gazette notice, 1978. DuncanHill (talk) 15:24, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Why hasn't the U.S. enacted an oil import tariff?
By all accounts, substantial progress toward United States energy independence has come to a screeching halt as OPEC, and in particular Saudi Arabia, floods the market with cheap oil. Some say it won't work but I don't know how reliable that claim is. There are some negative impacts in the U.S. on producers, and the intent seems to be that in the long run the OPEC countries will end up with more money from the U.S. rather than less, due to reduced production and similar effects on renewable energy, etc.

So why hasn't the U.S. embraced a heavy tariff on imported oil, both as a revenue source and as a protectionist measure? Whatever people think about free trade, OPEC certainly is not that, so I'm sort of stumped as to why they haven't. There was a proposal along this line in 1982, when domestic production was not nearly as viable of an option. Is there any similar thought out there now, aside from a few bloggers? Wnt (talk) 21:58, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Americans drive way more than most people; Americans seem to dislike taxes or anything resembling taxes; Americans seem to be pro-free trade when it's to their advantage; and there are hundreds of wise ideas never addressed by governments worldwide. 76.70.6.43 (talk) 22:07, 12 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Try "international treaties and compacts."  Collect (talk) 22:12, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Notably Saudi Arabia joined the WTO in 2005 . I believe some other OPEC members are part of the WTO as well. Nil Einne (talk) 23:46, 12 August 2015 (UTC)


 * If the US Congress decided to impose a tariff, with the expectation of gas prices shooting up again, there would be hell to pay at the next elections. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:27, 12 August 2015 (UTC)


 * It's worth noting that while OPEC may be a cartel, their current practices are actually less cartel like. In the sense that they're continuing to keep (or even raise in some cases) high production with little real cooperation. Production that's profitable for most members, even if not necessarily at the level they need to balance their budget. If they were conspiring to raise prices by limiting production, that would be the more anti free trade activity. For similar reasons, it seems difficult to call the current activities Dumping (pricing policy). Nil Einne (talk) 23:46, 12 August 2015 (UTC)


 * The U.S. fossil fuel industry has exploded in the past decade with the rise of hydraulic fracturing ("fracking"). The decline of oil prices is a response to this glut of new supply. Notably, the U.S. has a significant supply of natural gas (Obama has bragged that the U.S. is "the Saudi Arabia of natural gas"), which can substitute for petroleum in many applications. U.S. tariffs would likely be responded to by other countries slapping tariffs on U.S. oil and gas. This whole retaliatory cycle of tariffs responding to tariffs is one of the central arguments free trade proponents often cite. I don't know the exact details, but as mentioned above, many international trade organizations such as the WTO place significant restrictions on the trade measures their members can impose, so I wouldn't be surprised if this affected what the U.S. could do. A protectionist trade regime on fossil fuels would significantly impact overall global trade and travel, which mostly runs on fossil fuels. Would this result in heavy tariffs being leveled on ships and planes incoming to the U.S. that fueled up in another country? In any case, messing around with the structure of the fossil fuel trade is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. They're going to run out eventually no matter what, and we're wrecking our environment by burning them. A better rhetorical question to analyze is, "Why are people so resistant to a national/global strategy towards sustainable energy?" --108.38.204.15 (talk) 00:53, 13 August 2015 (UTC)


 * It seems like a pretty unequal treaty if the WTO would prohibit tariffs by the U.S. but not the OPEC cartel. And what about Dumping (pricing policy) claims and countervailing duties?  As for tariffs on U.S. oil and gas, these only matter if the U.S. is a net exporter, which it can't be until Saudi Arabia turns off the taps and jacks up the prices again... Wnt (talk) 01:14, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The US has been held hostage by oil interests for quite a few years now. It's payback time. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:15, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Payback to who and how? Above you say that import tariffs are unfeasible. If the US is "held hostage",  it's the citizens of the USA, and the oil and automobile lobbies that are responsible. Reap what you sow and all that. Maybe you are asking for payback against the influence of the oil industry in American politics, by the citizens? If so I'm all in agreement :) SemanticMantis (talk) 14:22, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes. The US oil industry sucked much of the life out of the rest of the US economy over the last 15 years or more. Now that the prices have dropped, everyone in the US is happy about it except the US oil industry, who are now the ones "suffering". Hence, payback. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:34, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Not sure why you're bringing the OPEC cartel in to it. What is relevant is individual member states, not OPEC. Iran for example is not a full member of the WTO, see Iran and the World Trade Organization, nor is Iraq although both are trying to become so, so may already have requirements in place. Nigeria , Venezuela , the United Arab Emirates , and Saudi Arabia  are full members of the WTO. The WTO is complicated, so I don't claim to know if the US could impose import tariffs on oil for countries who are part of the WTO. I'm fairly sure it will depend significantly on the reasons etc for such tariffs, as well as any agreements or promises the US has made with respect to tariffs. Notably, I'm fairly sure one of the key aspects of the WTO (and the predecessor GATT), is to bind and reduce tariffs , so new tariffs are likely to come under far more scrutiny than existing ones. And as with many such agreements, there's generally a difference between developing and developed countries (Nigeria at least would be the former). See for example  and particularly  for more info on tariffs in the WTO. Anyway, the obvious question is what import tariffs when to other countries are you even referring to? The UAE for example already has very few tariffs  . It perhaps worth noting that ultimately the main thing that will happen if the uses does violate their agreements is someone will complain to the WTO and if they win the dispute, the US will be ordered to fix this, but they may simply ignore such rulings and carry on, as they've done before . The countries will be given permission to take retaliatory action when the US doesn't properly response. (Which ultimately without any agreements, they could do anyway if they wanted to. The WTO just gives more justification, a forum to attempt to resolve such disputes without that happening, and the possibility that the initial tariffs could be seen as acceptable for some reason.) Meanwhile, the US government who tried this will likely be voted out because they pissed everyone off by raising petrol prices (as BB more or less mentioned). Remember also we aren't simply talking about WTO members who are part of OPEC, but anyone who produces what your tariffs cover probably including places like Canada, UK and Norway. There's a reason why the US is far more willing to subsidise random crap, than impose tariffs, and it isn't because these countries have some super power over the US, but simply because many Americans are fine with the idea of protecting local industry until it actually means higher prices. (Unfortunately they also aren't willing to pay the taxes for all these corporate subsidies.) And it's not like the US hasn't complained about WTO members who also happen to be OPEC members, I found at least one  albeit unrelated to tariffs and it doesn't look like anything came from it. BTW, somewhat akin to SemanticMantis and other people's points, it's not really clear how much an import tariff will actually change stuff other than making things more expensive for Americans. In particular, a tariff if 30% will often be consider a high tariff for many other goods and services, but how much is it actually going to help US producers even in the best case? Nil Einne (talk) 16:33, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I forgot to link to which is about Saudi Arabia joining the WTO and what it entailed. A bilateral agreement with the US was actually the final stumbling block to Saudi Arabia joining the WTO. I also probably should link  which is about the WTO and natural resources including some comments about oil (although these may not be so applicable to the current case, I think you'll find they are more applicable than you think for the reasons I mentioned earlier). Nil Einne (talk) 16:57, 13 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes, prices would most likely go up, but in some value systems, that might be considered a good thing, e.g. pushing retail price closer to the true cost in terms of environmental damage (sort of like carbon price). I think it's reasonable to think that such a tariff might result in less oil usage, and create more demand for renewable energy. I can't speak for Wnt the angle that came to my mind, and these all also relevant to the energy independence mentioned in the OP. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:01, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Trying to force the market to do certain things it doesn't want to do sounds Communistic. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:20, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Well Wnt did mention renewable energy, but I think the main point is, even though there are obviously some people who wouldn't mind (although I suspect most approaching it from an environmental POV would argue for a universal tax any way), the evidence strongly suggests it's far from the majority in the US, and in fact the majority would be majorly annoyed by it, enough so that's it's likely to significantly influence their voting patterns. Nil Einne (talk) 14:31, 17 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Borderline WP:CRYSTAL. For refs, here's a blog post on exactly this topic, Here's another piece from the CS Monitor with a similar analysis . But straight from the horses mouth, here is what the Congressional budget office has to say about oil import tariffs (note it is from 1982). SemanticMantis (talk) 14:29, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Your last link seems to be what Wnt linked to above Nil Einne (talk) 15:36, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Oops, thanks, sorry. We also might wonder why there isn't (or at least I can't find) a similar report that's under 10 years old... Here's a 1991 scholarly article | "OPEC and the US oil tariff", which also seems to have some nice analysis. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:53, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Regarding crystal ball, the core question should be, "Who would be asking for such a tariff?" ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:19, 13 August 2015 (UTC)