Template:Did you know nominations/Mary F. Hoyt

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Jolly Ω Janner 00:05, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Mary F. Hoyt edit

Created by Doug Coldwell (talk). Self-nominated at 20:14, 23 January 2016 (UTC).

  • New article. Long enough. Sourced neutral biography. QPQ done. DYK posted by due date. Earwig's Copyvio detector: violation unlikely. Hooks verified in The Book of Women's Firsts page 219. The main and ALT1 hooks are similar, but I feel she "attained" it by competing and attaining the highest scores. Good to go. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 03:38, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment to Promoter - you have my permission to move it to the special holding area for International Women's Day (8 March) -> if it is considered a candidate.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 18:09, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
  • You're right, @Ms Sarah Welch:, some more detail would make this hook a lot more hooky. How about:
  • ALT2: ... that while Mary F. Hoyt got the highest score on the first United States federal civil service examination in 1883, she earned 25% less than a man working at the same job? Yoninah (talk) 20:22, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
  • @Yoninah:: I love it, but I am not able to verify the new part in either of the two sources. I must be missing the section where it states 25% less or $900 for Mary F Hoyt / $1200 for man working at the same job. Will Doug Coldwell or you or someone double check, and confirm that the source is reliable and uncontroversial? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 20:59, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
  • @Ms Sarah Welch: Yes, I can verify that. Will this Treasury Dept link work for you - 3/4 down page --Doug Coldwell (talk) 21:13, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
  • @Ms Sarah Welch: Also I have an obit that says she received the highest score on the exam and the second appointment "... a $900-a-year clerkship in the Bank Redemption Agency of the Tresaury Department."
  • I see "At the time, male clerks had a salary of $1,200 annually while women were paid $900 for doing the same work", and treasury.gov is a reliable source. But [1] that link is giving 1861-1865 civil war-related data, and Hoyt joined the civil service in 1883. [2] There is no Mary F. Hoyt on that treasury.gov page link. [3] An equal pay principle was recommended in a Congressional report back then (see the same link). [4] If Hoyt worked at the Treasury, please note that the treasury link you attached states, "The Division of Printing at Treasury was the only agency to come close to applying an equal pay principle in a Congressional report in 1869". Any OR-Synthesis concerns? Does the obit state men working with her on the same job earned $1200? Is the obit in a WP:Reliable source? Sorry for giving you a hard time, just doing what a reviewer ought to. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 21:37, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
  • @Doug Coldwell: I don't see anywhere in those images that $1200 was paid for the same job to men who worked with her. I suggest we get a direct RS to verify such a significant claim. @Yoninah: your thoughts? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 21:59, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
  • O.K. I'm working on it, to see if I can come up with a solution. Maybe we may have to revert back to the original hook -OR- come up with another ALT hook. Let me sleep on it.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 22:10, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
  • I see other hook possibilities, but not enough inline citations. So maybe we should go back to:
  • ALT3: ... that after scoring the highest mark on the first US federal civil service exam in 1883, Mary F. Hoyt became the first woman appointed to a federal position? Yoninah (talk) 22:19, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Looks like you'll be busy for a while! :) But here I came to say something other than "she was the first", and I ended up saying she was the first TWICE! If you could add an inline cite to the part about hundreds of thousands of women following in her footsteps, or that 25% of the civil service was female by 1958, we could tweak the hook. Yoninah (talk) 23:39, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
Great, thanks. Here is an alt:
  • ALT4. @Doug Coldwell: Thank you for posting the scans for WP:V. @Yoninah: Amazing you are at making hooks more hooky!! Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 20:35, 7 February 2016 (UTC)