Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Samuel Francis du Pont

Samuel Francis du Pont edit

An often-ignored yet important figure in American naval history; I started writing about him on a tangential lark from Dupont Circle and went from a stub to a full-fledged biography. Postdlf 00:47, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

A few questions:

The lead speaks of US involvement in China and Japan in the mid-19th century. Involvement in what?
How did his family get their close connections to Thomas Jefferson? Did he live in the area; was he somehow related?
And as an extension of that: "...whom he believed were incompetent and had only received their commands through political influence." Didn't he receive his post in the same way? - Mgm|^(talk) 10:57, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The intro says "U.S. involvement with China and Japan."
See the reference to T.J. in Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (S.F.'s grandfather). Also, though the article on Eleuthère Irénée du Pont doesn't mention it yet, du Pont started his gunpowder factory in 1802 (which grew into the Dupont corporate empire) at the urging of Thomas Jefferson, who also put in the factory's first order. I don't think this needs to be mentioned in S.F.'s article. Postdlf 17:18, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
From what I found, Du Pont got aboard a ship through political influence, but he earned his command by rising through the ranks and proving his merit. Maybe there was political influence in his promotions as well (add it to the article if you find it); it wasn't impossible for S.F. to simply be a hypocrite on this count. I don't think you'll find a historian that will say that du Pont "only received [his] commands through political influence," however. Postdlf 17:18, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]