Talk:18th century glassmaking in the United States/GA1

GA Review

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Nominator: TwoScars (talk · contribs) 19:45, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Reconrabbit (talk · contribs) 16:07, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Hello! I'm starting in on the GA review for this article. Writing my comments as the review progresses. I did a quick copy edit beforehand on some things I considered uncontroversial but let me know if anything was out of line.

Thank you for looking at this. Copy edit is all good. TwoScars (talk) 18:39, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Prose

• Is there a reason for Cylinder to be used as a proper noun?

I think Cylinder and Crown are names of methods, so they should be capitalized. However, the Louw source does not capitalize these methods, so I have changed them to not be capitalized (unless they are part of a company name). TwoScars (talk) 18:53, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Glassmaking

• Glassmaking methods and recipes were kept secret, and most European countries forbid immigration to the United States by glassworkers. Should it be past tense, "forbade"?

Yes. Made change. TwoScars (talk) 19:03, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

• Some of the skilled glassworkers were smuggled from Europe to the United States. "Some of the skilled glassworkers" needs to be qualified, what is this group of skilled glassworkers? People who started works in the US industry?

Changed sentence to "Master glassmakers, including glassblowers and glass cutters, that had the secret glassmaking knowledge were smuggled from Europe to the United States to provide glassmaking expertise at American factories." TwoScars (talk) 19:11, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

• Transportation for glass may be better moved under "background" rather than "glsasmaking" section as the latter heading refers more to the general process.

Moved the two transportation sentences to the end of the first paragraph in the Background section. TwoScars (talk) 19:19, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Background

• it is possible that one continued producing into the 1760s. "That one" could be written ("that one of them"/"one of these glass factories"/"at least one") to clarify either one or both continued working.

Changed sentence to "Very little is known about the New Amsterdam glass factories, but it is possible that at least one of them continued producing into the 1760s." TwoScars (talk) 19:22, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

18th century

• The plant, known at the time as Whitney Glass, was purchased by one of Michael Owens' companies in 1918. May be less ambiguous if "known at the time as Whitney Glass" is moved to be after the time period it is referring to (1918), maybe at the end of the sentence or in a separate statement.

Changed to "The Whitney brothers became sole owners of the plant in 1839. The Whitney Glass Works was purchased by one of Michael Owens' companies in 1918." TwoScars (talk) 19:39, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Other 18th century glass works

• The preamble here could be reworked to be less self-referential. Ideally it would state that various glass works did not survive to the 19th century and the list is in order of production start dates, with information on sourcing kept to notes.

Redid to "Some glass works existed during the 18th century but did not survive into the 19th century. The lists below for each region are in order of when the company started producing.[Note 7] The Schuylkill glass works, listed below, may have been the first glass factory to use coal to power its furnaces.[50][Note 8]" TwoScars (talk) 19:59, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

• Why is the note on the earlier 18th century glass works in Maryland hidden?

If you are talking about Jacob Frederick Dannwolf and Peter Engel's small business, I could not find a good enough source to justify using it. Some hobby web sites (Peachridge Glass, The Bottle Den, and Antique-Bottles.net) mention them. Their glass business was evidently so small that reliable sources did not bother to mention them. TwoScars (talk) 19:47, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Future glassmaking

• American glassmaking experienced strong competition from English producers—but then growth and innovation. Is the intended meaning that growth and innovation from English producers followed strong competition from same?

Changed the beginning to "Near the start of the 19th century, glassmaking in the United States experienced strong competition from English producers that caused some of the American companies to fail. Innovations and a protective tariff eventually lead to American growth."

Changed it again to drop these summary sentences. Now the first paragraph discusses the British dumping and red lead. The second paragraph discusses the protective tariff and pressed glass innovation. The third paragraph discusses the shift of glass plants from the east to Pittsburgh. The first paragraph now begins "Glassmaking became difficult in the United States at the beginning of the 19th century. Red lead was a key additive for high–quality glassware and England controlled much of the supply.[1] The United States Embargo Act of 1807, and the War of 1812, made red lead extremely difficult for American companies to acquire.[2] After the War of 1812, English glass manufacturers began dumping low–priced glass products in the United States, which drove many American glass companies into bankruptcy.[1]" TwoScars (talk) 20:14, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Broadness

• A broad overview of the typical glassmaking processes and surrounding context is given, as well as a view of glassmaking as it was relevant to the whole of the United States. Y

Focus

• As much detail as can be expected is expanded upon in regards to individual locations and areas without repeating sources verbatim, going into the minutiae of transactions, etc. Y

Stability

• No history of edit wars here. Y
• Language written from a neutral point of view. Y

References

• I only have one note, which is that [31] and [41] stick out as reference footnotes that include two distinct sources. Source checks to follow...

Not sure what you mean. I have been told in the past that having multiple citations for something looks bad, and it is better to combine multiple sources into a single citation. TwoScars (talk) 20:28, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

See "I've always thought that this was kinda ugly: [25][232][233][26]" in the GA review for Battle of Shiloh. TwoScars (talk) 20:32, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree that the latter looks bad. I have been told that you can enclose the references with {{multiref | Reference 1 | Reference 2}} to seperate them out in an easily machine readable fashion that breaks the references into new lines. I attempted to do that in the article just now. Reconrabbit 21:48, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Looks good to me. There are 10 or 11 more citations that have multiple sources, although these sources are books or journals listed in the Reference section instead of something on the web. (An example is citation 13.) Are they OK as-is (they have been in other GAs) or do you prefer that they be changed too? TwoScars (talk) 15:55, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I think that ideally they would be formatted with multiref but they are not as obvious as the others. I don't count them against the GA review regardless. Reconrabbit 16:44, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Checking sources

I tried creating an account on the Corning Museum of Glass to view their articles but it just didn't work, they sent me an email with no text in it, so I can't read anything from there. Similar situation with those articles on the Corning JSTOR collection, and though many appear relevant to the linked passages from the preview alone I can't include them on the list of sources I was able to verify personally.

• For the Corning JSTOR (and other JSTORs), open a second tab and log into the Wikipedia Library. Then in the (other tab) article, click the JSTOR number. TwoScars (talk) 15:02, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

  I couldn't get that method to work, but I happen to have JSTOR access through my university's library. Reconrabbit 17:13, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

• I don't know what happened with citations 35 and 36 (they are the same thing), but I will combine 36 into 35 after you are done checking sources. TwoScars (talk) 16:52, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
• New Hampshire is considered part of New England. TwoScars (talk) 14:53, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
• If it makes you feel more comfortable, I could change the text with citation 51 to say: The lead glass of this time period, commonly known as crystal because it was colorless and transparent, was typically used for fine tableware.<same Shotwell p.112 citation> Then I would add another sentence that says: According to the American Philosophical Society, Stiegel's lead glass was "equal in beauty and quality to the generality of Flint Glass, imported from England."<insert cite for p.17 of Lanmon and Palmer 1976> This has not been done yet since it will change the citation numbers (increase by 1) following citation 51—and I wanted to hear your opinion on the change. TwoScars (talk) 16:52, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
  • It would be an improvement in my opinion if only to apply attribution to the statement of quality. Reconrabbit 19:53, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

  I would recommend you make these changes, I will just note here that the below citation numbers refer to the following revision of the page: Link. Reconrabbit 17:04, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

• Added the extra sentence (and modified sentence prior to it) about Stiegel. TwoScars (talk) 19:58, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

• Looking at the code for citation 36, it is actually a "multiref" that is not showing the first 3 sources, only the 4th. this makes it appear that citation 35 and 36 are the same thing. The multiref needs to be fixed. TwoScars (talk) 19:31, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

• Fixed it, although I'm not sure what I did. It now shows all four sources instead of only the first. This will not "mess up" the citation numbering. Hopefully, there are not other less-noticeable problems like this one. TwoScars (talk) 19:49, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

• I am seeing 36 as four references with this structure:

  "1989 The Wistars and their Glass 1739 – 1777". Wheaton Arts and Cultural Center. Archived from the original on November 13, 2023. Retrieved November 13, 2023.

  Shotwell 2002, p. 617

  Zerwick 1990, p. 71

  Knittle 1927, p. 86

  And 35 as just this:

  "1989 The Wistars and their Glass 1739 – 1777". Wheaton Arts and Cultural Center. Archived from the original on November 13, 2023. Retrieved November 13, 2023.

  Uncertain what the issue is. Reconrabbit 19:45, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

• [2] Y
• [5] Y
• [7] Y
• [15] Y
• [33] Y
• [51] Y Shotwell states that crystal refers loosely to fine glassware, but not that it was "the finest glassware available".
• [52] Y
• [77] Y
• [85] Y
• [108] Y
• [112] Y
• [131] Y
• [139] Y
• [141] Y but shouldn't the list of glassmaking colonies include New Hampshire?

Copyrighted text

• Can't check Earwig to see potential copyright violations from search engine but I don't expect to find any. Currently all I find are from the referenced Maryland Historical Society document, which are anticipated due to use of full quotations.

Images

• All images properly tagged with licenses / public domain. Y
• Images used appropriately and are illustrative of accompanying text. Y

Good Article review progress box Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed