Talk:Elijah Parish Lovejoy

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I've again removed the photo. It is not Elijah Lovejoy.

For the last couple of years, I've been using the fact that I was able to delete Lovejoy's photo here immediately while the vetting process meant that Britannica had it on their online site for two or three months before correcting it (after I brought it to their attention), not to mention the fact that of course our 2003 print edition *still* has it, as an example of how Wikipedia can be better than Encyclopedia Britannica. I find it very discouraging to discover that had been re-linked without even an addition to the discussion page giving a reason for it.

THE PHOTO LABELED "ELIJAH LOVEJOY" IS NOT ELIJAH LOVEJOY. It is probably a photo of Owen Lovejoy. There are no photos of Elijah, and if one were discovered it would be a photo of tremendous importance to the history of photography, as he died several years before the first known photo of a living human being. Original discussion below under "Fake Photo" but I'm putting this up top to help keep it from happening again. Steve Bolhafner 19:30, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

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I am uncertain about that picture. I have also seen it as a picture of Lovejoy's brother, Owen. And it looks like a photograph, which is effectively out of the question for someone who died in 1837.

I came across an interesting detail in an old Finnish anti-slavery book that I don't consider a source reputable enough to add straight away: His gravesite went unmarked for a long time, and when he got a monument it had the words "jam parce sepulto" (spare these remains), a fitting thing on the grave of someone who was mobbed to death. A Google search gives good-looking references, but a very small number of them. --Kizor 18:43, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Fake photograph

Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre invented the first practical process for making photographs, from which all modern photography follows. He announced his invention to the world in 1839.

There cannot possibly be a photograph of Elijah P. Lovejoy, who died in 1837.

I'm a news librarian at a newspaper that ran a correction today because someone here pulled this photo off the article and ran it in the paper.

I'm removing the photo from the article so this doesn't happen to anyone else.

How did you discover that this is via Spartacus Educational? Sj 23:49, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
Wow. A reporter used an unsourced low-res image from the Wikipedia for an article? How sloppy. Note to reporters - never, ever use the Wikipedia as a source. Dan Lovejoy 22:57, 29 December 2005 (UTC)


Wow. A Wikipedian who doesn't know not to use the direct article with the "Wikipedia" title. Don't use Wikipedia as a final source, or as a cite; surely. But as a guide to further investigation... Sj 23:49, 29 December 2005 (UTC) Also, please update the talk page of the image itself if you discover the true origins or subject of that image.
Will do. Sorry for not signing my comment -- my first time here as a contributor, and I didn't know the etiquette. On the other points: I don't know for sure that it came from Spartacus Educational, but the person who first put it up in 2003 also linked to that site, and it does have the same photo. I'm trying to get in touch with them, but in order to send John Simkin e-mail you first have to sign up for an account there and be approved. And the mistake was made by a page designer, I believe. Or someone at the picture desk. Not a reporter in any case. We've already sent a memo around to the newsroom about how to properly use Wikipedia. Sbolhafner 16:24, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
Later add: Here's what I put on the image talk page: Encyclopaedia Britannica (print edition - 2003) has same photo in their Elijah Lovejoy entry and credits it to Library of Congress; no such photo in online archive there but it may be from some offline source. A fellow librarian discovered this photo is used on the cover of a book about Owen Lovejoy, Elijah's brother who took up his work after he was killed. Local group called Lovejoy Society cannot positively confirm but does agree that this is probably a photo of Owen Lovejoy. Sbolhafner 21:13, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 11:26, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This article is in desperate need of citations

It links to some sketchy-looking sites and a "The article requested can not be found" page. The only Google results I can find on this "French-American General Girin" character are about his relationship with Lovejoy and are copied from this page. Can anyone prove this guy actually existed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.195.151.84 (talk) 21:23, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

nevermind.. fixed itself

[edit] Lead paragraph, 2 items

I see the article is under recent editing, so I won't jump in and make the changes. Not to pick nits, but: (1) perhaps a different word might be used to describe his killing, rather than "murdered", which is a legal term, and isn't accurate without a legal provenance ... using a legal term inaccurately (even if it's colloquially correct) degrades the quality of an encyclopedia article; and (2) regarding the phrase "lynching of a free black man", inclusion of the word "free" is irrelevant to the point and is (without intent) obnoxiously superfluous. Regards, Notuncurious (talk) 02:27, 2 April 2008 (UTC)