Talk:Chauncey Yellow Robe

A fact from Chauncey Yellow Robe appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 2 March 2023 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that in 1927, Native American activist Chauncey Yellow Robe (pictured) and the Lakota Sioux tribe "adopted" President Calvin Coolidge to thank him for supporting the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2023/March. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Chauncey Yellow Robe.

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Did you know nomination[edit]

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 Theleekycauldron (talk) 07:03, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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Comment or view
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Yellow Robe (center) starring as Chief Chetoga in The Silent Enemy

... ~~that Native American activist Chauncey Yellow Robe (pictured) denounced Wild West shows, and later starred in a 1930 film consisting solely of Native American actors?~~ Source: Source for denouncing Wild West shows: [1]
ALT1: ~~... that Rosebud Yellow Robe convinced her father, Native American activist Chauncey Yellow Robe (both pictured), to star in 1930 historical drama The Silent Enemy?~~ Source: Page 264 [2]
ALT2: ... ~~that Native American activist Chauncey Yellow Robe (pictured) was forced into a Pennsylvanian boarding school at 16, wearing "full Indian costume" and not knowing a word of English?~~ Source: In his own words: [3]
Same thing written on a form given to the school (Carlisle Indian Academy in PA): [4]
ALT3: ~~... that in 1927, Native American activist Chauncey Yellow Robe (pictured) "adopted" President Calvin Coolidge into the Sioux tribe?~~ Source [5] [6]
- Reviewed:
- Comment: Hello and thank you for reviewing.

I am still quite new at submitting DYKs so I would appreciate constructive feedback.

I hope that the article has received enough expansion to qualify, and if not, I will happily research more to expand the article.

Yellow Robe's life is quite long and contains many anecdotes so I am also able to rephrase sentences or alter as needed. Created by Evedawn99 (talk). Self-nominated at 02:45, 22 December 2022 (UTC).[reply]

Initial review. Hello and thank you for your hard work on an interesting article! Article is new enough and long enough (per DYK tool confirming 5x expansion since December 19). Reads well, neutral in tone, looks well sourced. QPQ is not required. Taking some extra time now to review each ALT hook. Cielquiparle (talk) 16:12, 23 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Evedawn99: My questions and comments about the hooks are as follows:

Re: ALT0, I think the article needs to explain a bit more (could be as little as 1–2 sentences) about why CYR denounced Wild West shows. (It's well explained in his essay, the full text of which I wasn't able to access through your link, but easily found elsewhere online.)
Re: ALT1, it's ok but probably the weakest in the set (and it will likely drive more traffic to Rosebud rather than Chauncey).
Re: ALT2, I'm not so sure about the use of the word "forced" – is that the right word? Also, could you add one or two reliable secondary sources to back up the claim, in addition to the primary source?
Re: ALT3, I see that there's a "clarification needed" tag on this claim within the article. But it's definitely interesting, so would it be possible to add another source and/or fix this in the article as needed...?

Hope that all makes sense. Very excited to see this article, so really it's just a matter of fine-tuning the hooks (as well as how the information appears in the article). Cielquiparle (talk) 23:13, 23 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Cielquiparle:! Thank you so much for your thorough and constructive review as well as the kind words! I am glad the article is of interest, is neutral, and has more than enough sources. Here are the revisions that I hope reflect your requests. Apologies for my possibly clunky editing as I have grown used to the visual editing tool. Thanks again! The Fonz (talk) 18:28, 25 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

ALT0a: ... ~~that Native American activist Chauncey Yellow Robe (pictured) denounced Native American stereotypes in Wild West shows, and later starred in a 1930 film consisting solely of Native actors?~~ Source: Source for denouncing Wild West shows: [7] There is also an image that would work for this.
ALT1: ~~Deleted; I agree, it seems to put Rosebud in the spotlight.~~
ALT2a: ... ~~that Native American activist Chauncey Yellow Robe (pictured) was abducted into a Pennsylvanian boarding school at 16, wearing "full Indian costume" and not knowing a word of English?~~ Source: In his own words: [8]
Same thing written on a form given to the school (Carlisle Indian Academy in PA): [9] ^[1] ^[2] *Added two secondary sources.*

Yellow Robe with daughter Rosebud (center) and President Coolidge (left) in 1927

ALT3a: ...~~that in 1927, Native American activist Chauncey Yellow Robe (pictured) "adopted" President Calvin Coolidge into the Lakota Sioux tribe to thank him for the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act?~~ Source [10] [11] "Calvin Coolidge and Native Americans". WHHA (en-US). Retrieved 2022-12-25. *I have read more about this and finally understood why this ceremony occurred! It's more multifaceted than I thought and seems to be one of the most fast-moving times of Yellow Robe's life and an interesting illustration of how he expressed his activism.*

@Evedawn99: Thanks for your response. ALT3a is better; personally I think it would be even better with the word "supporting" so it reads "thank him for supporting the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act" (or perhaps "thank him for signing the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act into law").

Unfortunately, I doubt the new image for ALT0/ALT0a is clear enough to run on the main page. Other issues related to ALT0/ALT0a: Article lacks a citation for casting "solely Native actors" and the Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance controversy; this is now tagged within the article and needs to be fixed. If it's important to attribute Atalie Unkalunt, where did she say it? (Or maybe it's not important to attribute the indirect quote to her, and you could modify the claim and choose another source.) ALT0a also repeats "Native/Native American" too much. What do you think of this:

ALT0b: ... that Lakota Sioux activist Chauncey Yellow Robe (pictured) denounced Wild West shows, but later starred in a 1930 film playing an Ojibwe chief?

Further comment is that regarding his objection to Wild West shows, my advice is to cite at least one or two secondary sources within the article that interpret "The Menace of the Wild West Show", rather than trying to interpret brief excerpts of the primary source yourself; the speech/essay is so famous, you have a lot of solid sources to choose from. A quick scan of other sources suggests that his objections had to do with the "demeaning portrayal" of Native Americans (e.g. "portrayal as savages" etc.), but also the fact that he was blaming the "Wild West schemes" themselves for perpetuating "drunkenness" (e.g., see Popular Culture Review).

Regarding ALT2/2a, I still think the hooks are not quite right. Just so we're clear, Chauncey Yellow Robe's father gave his permission to have his two sons sent to Carlisle, even if it was against young Chauncey's will. (See the NYT obituary already cited within the article, or page 12 of this biography of Rosebud.) This is quite different from abduction, and in any case, in his writings as an adult, Chauncey was actually positive about the education he received. Looking at this fresh, maybe you could make a case for keeping the word "forced" as you had it in ALT2, but the way it is phrased it also sounds like someone forced him to wear the full Indian dress, whereas if you read the sources it sounds like he just didn't have any other clothes *at first*. Anyway, regardless of whether or not we use this hook, this still needs to be fixed within the article and I also think you should go ahead and delete one of the two block quotes about his schooling, because they are redundant (and a lot of Wikipedia editors frown on too much blockquoting).

Hope this is clear enough. If you don't want to bother too much with the other hooks, we could probably go with ALT3a (or an ALT3b with minor tweaks), but regardless, there are still 3–4 issues that need to be resolved within the article, per my comments above. Cielquiparle (talk) 12:51, 26 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Update. Proposing slight tweak to ALT3a hook below:

ALT3b: ... that in 1927, Native American activist Chauncey Yellow Robe (pictured) "adopted" President Calvin Coolidge into the Lakota Sioux tribe to thank him for supporting the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act?

I've struck the hooks that don't work (because they aren't accurate), and have made further edits to the article to address at least one of my own previous comments as the initial reviewer (about the repetitive block quotes and the mischaracterization of the reason he went to Carlisle).

Could someone else now review the remaining hooks (ALT0b and ALT3b), as I have proposed some hook modifications and have edited the article? Thanks! Cielquiparle (talk) 18:40, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take a look. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 19:03, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Alt3b verifies on Page 262 of Lakota Portraits: Lives of the Legendary Plains People. The hook is contained in the body of the article, and it is cited in the body of the article. More broadly, the article now appears to meet all of the DYK criteria after my reading through it, and random spot-checks verified as well. The source for the image on Commons is a broken link, but I'm not able to find a renewal record for the movie in which that frame was first published, so it looks good copyright-wise. Looks good to me! — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 19:10, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Schunk, Harold W. (January 1985). Masonry Among South Dakota Indians - Chauncey Yellow Robe's Story (PDF). Vol. XXXI. Knight Templar.
^ Agonito, Joseph (2011-08-02). Lakota Portraits: Lives of the Legendary Plains People. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 255. ISBN 978-0-7627-6829-5.

New York Times reference[edit]

Thank you Evedawn99, that was a very enjoyable read about a very interesting fellow! There is a fix needed. The (current) Ref 3 appears to link to The New York Times but it is not a NYT work. Per WP:SAYWHERE the citation needs to be reformatted to clarify the publisher (is that a blog?), or preferably, directly cite the article in NYT. I can see that the NYT article is at this URL but without having access to the contents we cannot be sure that what appears in the actual URL is a true facsimile of the NYT article - and it may be a copyright breach which we cannot link to. If you don't have access to the NYT archives, you could try via a request at Resource Exchange or Wikipedia Library. Once accessed we can further explain in the Note re sources' differing dates for birth, death and age and then give the note references.

Hope that makes sense! Thanks again, JennyOz (talk) 06:52, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

[:6-1] Schunk, Harold W. (January 1985). Masonry Among South Dakota Indians - Chauncey Yellow Robe's Story (PDF). Vol. XXXI. Knight Templar.

[:8-2] Agonito, Joseph (2011-08-02). Lakota Portraits: Lives of the Legendary Plains People. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 255. ISBN 978-0-7627-6829-5.

[1]

[2]