Talk:Woman Suffrage Procession

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Good articleWoman Suffrage Procession has been listed as one of the History good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
October 16, 2019Good article nomineeListed
On this day...Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on March 3, 2013, March 3, 2017, and March 3, 2024.

Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Official program - Woman suffrage procession March 3, 1913 - crop.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on March 3, 2015. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2015-03-03. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. Thanks! — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:46, 13 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913
The Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913, held in Washington, D.C., was a suffragist parade organized by Alice Paul for the National American Woman Suffrage Association. On March 3, 1913, the day before President Woodrow Wilson's inauguration, thousands of suffragists marched down Pennsylvania Avenue "in a spirit of protest against the present political organization of society, from which women are excluded". The march and the attention it attracted were important in advancing women's suffrage in the United States.Illustration: Benjamin Moran Dale; restoration: Adam Cuerden

Parade or Procession?[edit]

The article is titled "Woman Suffrage Parade", and until I edited it just now, it called the event only by that name. However, the official program, shown in the illustratation that will shortly be a Picture of the Day, calls it the Woman Suffrage Procession. I've edited the lead sentence to give that name and describe it as the "official" name of the event. But possibly there is a more precise way to put this. For example, maybe both names were used by the organizers in different documents, in which case we might say "Woman Suffrage Parade (or Procession) of 1913". Or maybe people only started calling it a parade retrospectively, in which case "Woman Suffrage Procession (now often called the Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913) would be appropriate. I have no idea; I'm hoping someone will be interested until to research this.

I also wondered whether the article should be renamed. Wikipedia policy is that the article title should use the name that, in reliable sources, the thing is most commonly called by. But a simple google searche for non-Wikipedia uses of the phrase:

  "woman suffrage parade" 1913 -wikipedia
  "woman suffrage procession" 1913 -wikipedia

showed a higher count for "parade". And when I changed -wikipedia to site:edu, which limits the search to the .edu domain (consisting mostly of US colleges and universities), the count for "parade" was markedly higher. Therefore I think it's correct not to rename it. --70.49.169.244 (talk) 08:48, 13 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi 70.49.169.244. Thank you for adding the other name. I've redirected Woman Suffrage Procession to this article. It seems that's how NAWSA referred to it. I've also seen it referred to as the 'Woman Suffrage Procession and Pageant'. gobonobo + c 00:04, 14 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 20 April 2016[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus to move. SSTflyer 02:05, 3 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]



Woman suffrage parade of 1913Woman Suffrage Procession – The original name of the event was Woman Suffrage Procession, and with the upcoming honoring of Alice Paul (along with other suffragists) on the U.S. ten-dollar bill, it seems a good time to make this page historically accurate. In addition to the section above, this move was suggested by Dicklyon. Thanks. Randy Kryn 23:20, 20 April 2016 (UTC) Relisted. Jenks24 (talk) 17:22, 3 May 2016 (UTC) -- Relisted (2nd). Anarchyte (work | talk) 06:47, 22 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment – My suggestion was that if Randy wanted a capitalized title, that official name would be more defensible. I'm OK with either way, the current or new proposed title. Dicklyon (talk) 05:22, 21 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support – When a common proper name is available, it should be preferred to WP:NDESC titles. RGloucester 16:39, 21 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - I don't think there's a universally agreed upon proper name for this, so the descriptive title seems better. A simple Google search shows that if anything "Woman Suffrage Parade" is the favoured form, but there are plenty of sources that call it a "procession" or de-caps. On the ngram, most of the forms don't even show up, but between "Woman Suffrage Parade" and "woman suffrage parade", which do show up, the lower case form has the edge. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amakuru (talkcontribs) 06:24, 28 April 2016
  • Oppose - Today's sources do not use the proposed title very much. Also, they use "parade" lowercased instead. George Ho (talk) 11:04, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Several other events have been termed "woman suffrage parade" including a small one in 1907 organized by Bettina Borman Wells,[1] at least one in 1908, and a fairly big one in 1910 organized by Harriot Eaton Stanton Blatch. Another one in 1910 was held in San Francisco. [2] Blatch put another "woman suffrage parade" together in 1912, with 10,000 marchers in NYC. So the word "procession" helps to disambiguate this topic in a manner preferable to listing the year. Binksternet (talk) 15:20, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment for the closer, hopefully this will be moved, but if not please put back the capitalization of the title which was lower-cased without discussion. Thanks. Randy Kryn 14:07, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Now you're just being silly. The choice here is between an official proper name and a common descriptive name. I'm OK either way, but don't muddy the waters with capping a descriptive name. Dicklyon (talk) 03:12, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, as nominator and per RGloucester (WP:NDESC) and Binksternet. The original name of the event has more prominence since the film Iron Jawed Angels, and Alice Paul's "elevation" to the U.S. ten-dollar bill. Also per the various sources and related data on the page itself. At a minimum, recap this original title (wrongly lower-cased), yet the right move is to bring the page back to Paul's and the other suffragists original name for it. And can we relists for another week to ping Wikipedia projects? Thanks.Randy Kryn 23:17, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • No harm in giving this a relist. Randy Kryn feel free to notify any relevant projects. Jenks24 (talk) 17:22, 3 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Jenks24, can this be left open another week? Totally my fault, I just forgot this and didn't give out notifications, and ask that my oversight not punish awareness and access to this RM of feminist and women project members. Thanks, and my apologies. Randy Kryn 11:13, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Randy Kryn: I'm not Jenks24 but I've relisted it. Discussions can only be relisted twice, so try to sum everything up within the next week or so. Anarchyte (work | talk) 06:47, 22 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I'm late on this, can't recall doing a project notification before and haven't focused on it, my fault. I've notified the three projects who have headers on this talk page, Women's history, United States, and District of Columbia, should be in time for anyone who follows those pages. Randy Kryn 22:46, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. Agreed that the capitalization is wrong, per MOS:CAPS, for the common-noun phrase "woman suffrage parade", but permissible for the WP:OFFICIALNAME form. That said, "woman suffrage" looks very awkward to me, and I'm skeptical that the common name isn't actually "women's suffrage parade", per basic English grammar. Writing "woman suffrage parade" is like writing "man rights movement" instead of "men's rights movement".  — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  10:10, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Links to the page will take care of your unease and present-day presentation of the official name of the event. As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia is an information source and a major site-of-record of historic events. Your brain reads-out the official name as awkward, so you want to keep that official name in the shadow of an incorrect rendition. Let's go back to being an encyclopedia and not a self-styled-style-book, because as others have said, if an official name is available then that should be preferred. Randy Kryn 11:11, 13 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just thought up a good reason for 'Woman Suffrage Procession' - it's the name that the event is known under in popular culture. The most publicity that this demonstration ever had, and continues to have, is in the 2004 Hilary Swank film Iron Jawed Angels. The event is prominently featured in this film, which uses the original name by showing the poster shown in the first image in the article - an image which was Wikipedia's inaccurately-captioned Picture of the day on March 3, 2015 The name is seen on a daily basis, although probably not remembered consciously, by the viewers of this very good film (which will be seen much more, I'd guess, as 2020, the 100 year anniversary of women's suffrage in the U.S., approaches) . Randy Kryn 22:54, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Please reopen and have an administrator close this[edit]

The very awkward lower-cased name 'woman suffrage parade' seems a bad choice when the official and dignified name, 'Woman Suffrage Procession' - a name used in the movie about the event - is both a better descriptor and better fits what the lead describes as "monumental" ("The march and the attention it attracted were monumental in advancing women's suffrage in the United States"). Just another one of those dime-a-dozen woman suffrage parades, you had to avoid them on your way to lunch. Nothing special about this one, except for that pesky 'monumental' designation which, more or less, maybe deserves a proper name. A name actually used on a Wikipedia Picture of the Day. The same non-admin closer closed the seemingly incorrect 'manifest destiny' in about a minute. Asking for another pair of eyes or two on this one. Randy Kryn 3:22, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Police chief Sylvester[edit]

According to Newspapers.com, he was still on the job in early 1915, so I doubt he was "fired" after any investigation. I deleted that sentence and would ask for a source before it is put back. Thanks. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 03:44, 13 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • The person who added that may have been confusing the superintendant of police for the District with the Washington police chief; at the time, they may have been different jobs. The superintendant *was* fired.Brianyoumans (talk) 17:16, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The District superintendent of police was Maj. Richard Sylvester. He was also called by the title Chief. He was *not* fired as a result of the congressional inquiry, but was censured for his actions/inaction. Alice Paul claimed he was fired, but that was not true. He was forced to resign in March 1915 due to accusations by a member of Congress from Georgia. The news cited his failures in the 1913 parade as contributing to his ouster.[1] It is inaccurate to say the superintendent was fired in this context. As I make my extensive additions to this article, I will be deleting that statement.Biotech46 (talk) 21:19, 8 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Adams, Katherine H. & Michael L. Keene. 2008. Alice Paul and the American Suffrage Campaign pp. 96-97

New edits[edit]

I am planning to do a number of edits to this article as part of my Wiki Scholars course focused on improving articles about women's suffrage. I am new to editing in Wikipedia and I want to be respectful of all who have contributed to this article previously. One thing I would like to do is create a section for the day of the event, since right now there is just a "Background" and "Aftermath." When I read this article, I ended asking a lot of questions that are not answered. Another thing I plan to change is the lead-in summary. The paragraph about the new currency is given too much space, as much as the rest of the article, and even more than is included in the section for that subject. I would like to expand that and move it to its proper section and then just have a single sentence in the leader. I'd also like to standardize the citation formats and I see that some sources are cited several times in different formats, and should possibly just be listed once and referenced multiple times (e.g. citations 1, 10 and 17 are all the same).--Biotech46 (talk) 22:45, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Cool, go for it. If you get reverted on some things, and you think you're correct, please discuss on the talk page. Way too many new editors leave Wikipedia because someone reverts them, but you sound sincere and sincerely interested. Yes, just a bit too much of the currency plan in the lede, when the bill is both introduced and in circulation then that would be a good time for full lede history and descriptors (although the full information should stay deeper into the text). Good to "meet" you, and thanks for your interest in improving this page about one of the most important historical movement events in the 20th century and the people who designed it and carried it out. Randy Kryn (talk) 22:51, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the encouragement!--Biotech46 (talk) 22:59, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Ditto on the "go for it". I wrote the original version of this article based pretty much on what I could find online, without access to journal articles and such. It has been improved, but not in a systematic way. A thorough rewrite would be good. One idea: perhaps we could split out a list of notable participants by state? People are starting to add them in to the text in random locations, when most of them are not really useful in telling the story of the event.Brianyoumans (talk) 18:41, 9 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I have several "offline" resources and a lot of great information about the procession itself. I think that's a good idea to have a section for notable participants. I did see one added recently, and I think there will be more given this anniversary of the 19th amendment.--Biotech46 (talk) 00:49, 10 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
There are people who seem to want to portray all the suffragists as racists. I'm glad to see that you are finding that not to be true in this instance.Brianyoumans (talk) 23:08, 11 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I wish it were as simple as they were/weren't racist. No they weren't ALL racists. But in 1903, the national leaders of the suffrage movement chose to appease Southern white suffragists rather than standing in solidarity with black suffragists. The blacks saw this as tantamount to racism - and I can't say they're wrong to view it that way. As Neville Chamberlain's experience shows: Appease a force of evil and history will judge you harshly.
I will do my best to retain a neutral tone, using secondary sources, per Wikipedia guidelines.--Biotech46 (talk) 15:33, 12 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I am going to be moving my edits from my sandbox to the article today. These are not my final edits. I will be continuing to add material and refine what I have done already. In addition, I will be working on streamlining the notes/sources.--Biotech46 (talk) 15:38, 19 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Looks great! Brianyoumans (talk) 20:52, 19 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! I saw you added a second link for Hazel (There is one in the Planning section). Should I leave that?--Biotech46 (talk) 21:21, 19 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
No, I took it out. I didn't notice the earlier one. It's easy to do on a long article, and probably doesn't do much harm, but it's probably better in order to avoid overlinking. Brianyoumans (talk) 17:31, 20 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Really easy to get confused about links on a long article. Even my Wikipedia editor missed that I had a link in the beginning. I'm sure I might have missed some other duplicates. :-)--Biotech46 (talk) 17:39, 20 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Potential image source[edit]

Some of the images shown this article from the Atlantic magazine may available from the Library of Congress or open source from Getty, or this article could be added to external links for this article. Just a suggestion, leaving it up to those working on this article to decide. Here's the link: https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2019/06/the-battle-for-womens-suffrage-in-photos/591103/ There are some wonderful images in this magazine article.Rosalina523 (talk) 16:42, 12 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 6 October 2019[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: No consensus on a title. Woman Suffrage Procession seemed the most compelling of the proposed titles, but no consensus around it materialized. A reasonable point was raised, however, if we should follow the archaic adjectival usage of "woman", and that question was left unanswered. Anyway, there were WP:NOGOODOPTIONS here. I anticipate a re-proposal before too long, and I would advise the proposer of that move to look carefully at this move to see what needs to be addressed in order for a consensus to arise. (non-admin closure) Red Slash 05:15, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]



Woman suffrage parade of 1913Women's Suffrage Procession of 1913 (Washington D.C.)? – Discussions on the talk page regarding the correct name for this article appear not to have been resolved. They have revolved around whether the title should be fully capitalized, or changed to Woman Suffrage Procession or something similar, or left as it is. Additionally (and not discussed in the talk page), there was a little-remembered suffragette march that occurred that year in the UK, and which culminated in a rally of 50,000 people in Hyde Park, London (see information about the British march here), so the Washington parade may need to be renamed to reflect this. Amitchell125 16:03, 6 October 2019 (UTC) --Relisting. Sceptre (talk) 23:30, 14 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support Woman Suffrage Procession. Using the original name of this historical event (all other variations can be handled with redirects) reflects the important nature of this well-known march, as shown in the film Iron Jawed Angels and its use in the redesign of the United States ten-dollar bill. The original name is shown on the 1913 program, which is a Wikipedia picture of the day. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:06, 7 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the title should reflect the name of the parade as it was known by the organizers and media at the time. "Woman Suffrage Procession" (not "Women's Suffrage Procession"). I like the idea of adding the geographic location, as well. I was unaware of the UK event, and that probably won't be an issue, but it's still good to distinguish that the U.S. movement was separate and different from the UK movement. --Biotech46 (talk) 14:59, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
And to be clearer, my support is for Woman Suffrage Procession and not the year or location (which could all be handled by redirects) as long as the UK march didn't have the same name. Randy Kryn (talk) 19:38, 14 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Most newspapers of that era did not capitalize any of the words; a few did capitalize the first two words, leaving procession lower-cased, this being a function of the "downstyle" in newspapers popular about then. https://www.newspapers.com/search/#query=woman+suffrage+procession&dr_year=1913-1913&offset=28 I suggest lower-casing the final two words and adding "(1913)." Unless somebody can find that the title was actually capitalized in all three words. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 00:27, 15 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The official program capitalizes 'Procession' ('Woman' and 'Suffrage' are in all-caps in the program's styling), which indicates that the organizers capitalized each word of the full name. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:11, 15 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't sound like you're talking about usage in a sentence, or independent sources, so it doesn't sound very relevant. If sources didn't treat it as a proper name (which it looks like they mostly didn't), then we also should not do so. Dicklyon (talk) 04:48, 15 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'm okay with not using all caps, but still feel the title should reflect the official name of the event. I like adding the year in parentheses. Could we please go with "Woman suffrage procession (1913)"?--Biotech46 (talk) 14:25, 15 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Newspapers.com (for just the District of Columbia in the year 1913) gives 1,171 uses of "parade" and 9,969 uses of "procession." These would be local reporters who would presumably know what the thing was actually called. (As I mentioned, the capitalization would vary depending on the style of the publication.) BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 05:46, 15 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It seems that maintaining 'procession' in some form would be using both the official and the era's common name. Partly upper-cased Woman Suffrage procession (red link, will change that in a minute) or Woman Suffrage procession (1913) seem fine, per BeenAroundAWhile, Dicklyon, and Biotech46. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:22, 15 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - looking back, I see that a similar discussion took place in 2016 and I my opinion is the same as it was back then. There is no consistency as to whether it's called a procession or a parade, but the parade form seems to have the edge in common usage, and similarly there's no consistency as to whether it is capitalised, which per MOS:CAPS means we don't capitalise. Finally, on the claim that this is ambiguous with a UK march from the same year (which doesn't seem to have an article right now), I think there is a case for WP:SMALLDETAILS disambiguation on that one. This event has the slightly unusual title of "woman suffrage parade", whereas the UK one would be titled as the more usual "women's suffrage parade". So I think it's fine for it to remain where it is. THanks  — Amakuru (talk) 14:39, 15 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • A good reason to put it at its 1913 name (procession, etc.) is that the event will create quite a bit of news when it's finally used on the American ten-dollar bill, which has been approved but pushed back from its 2020 planned printing, so the original name will become more prominent and accurate. And per Women's Coronation Procession, which is appropriately upper-cased. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:44, 15 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    That sounds a bit WP:CRYSTAL to me. If common usage changes when the new banknote is launched, we can re-evaluate the discussion then. Until such time, there is no very good reason to change this title.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:53, 18 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Request consensus on move to "Woman suffrage procession (1913)" Once again, this discussion seems to have come to a stalemate. I have spent considerable time working on the article to achieve "good article" status and respectfully request that all parties come to a consensus on either "Woman suffrage procession" or "Woman suffrage procession (1913)". I think either of these would address most concerns with the exception of the parade vs. procession issue.--Biotech46 (talk) 14:54, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Let's upper-case 'Suffrage' since 'Woman Suffrage' is the topic of the 'procession', support the rest[EDIT: still support the three word capitalization per Levivich below] Randy Kryn (talk) 15:07, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Randy Kryn and I both would like the title of the article to reflect the official name, and use capital letters. There is precedent for that (Women's Coronation Procession) and there is also precedent for using the more common usage, as opposed to the official title (Mud March (suffragists)) which also capitalizes. Others seem to think we should use small letters for all but the first word AND use the word "parade" rather than "procession". If we don't come to a consensus, the title will remain as is. If we want to get "procession", we may do well to concede on capitalization. No one is going to be completely satisfied.--Biotech46 (talk) 16:46, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
We won't get unanimity, but I believe it you moved the article to Women's Suffrage Procession of 1913 (Washington, D.C.), as you suggested, nobody would revert it. You could be WP:Bold. I will support you in any subsequent discussion, if there is one. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 16:42, 18 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, that title, suggested by the GA reviewer, is not really satisfactory to anyone involved, but perhaps I should accept your suggestion to be bold and go with my preference.--Biotech46 (talk) 16:48, 18 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'd object on the word "Women's", it should be "Woman" per historical name and above comments. Randy Kryn (talk) 16:51, 18 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I yield on both points. Yes, make it read the proper way. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 16:56, 18 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Woman Suffrage Procession per COMMONNAME. It's what I'm getting the most Google scholar hits for, and it seems to be what non-scholarly RSes call it, also: WaPo, New Yorker, Smithsonian. I don't see evidence that a date or location parenthetical disambiguator is needed. Levivich 16:12, 22 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Consensus Summary: I have moved the page, but had to add (1913), as the title "Woman Suffrage Procession" was already a page and it would not allow me to move to it. While there has been one person who felt the name should not be changed, most of the discussion seems to agree with a title that reflects the official name of the event, and there is plenty of precedent for such a title within Wikipedia. Also, the title suggested in this proposed move was NOT acceptable to anyone.--Biotech46 (talk) 15:28, 23 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
A Wikipedia person will help me get it moved to the shorter version without the year.--Biotech46 (talk) 16:05, 23 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Biotech46: I'm sorry, but this isn't correct. As someone who participated in the discussion (above) you should not close it, and should leave it for someone uninvolved per WP:RMCI. In particular, it has not been demonstrated satisfactorily that "procession" is the common name for this, and the default is to retain the current title which was agreed in the previous move request. Please move back to the old title. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 16:13, 23 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Amakuru I am requesting that Elysia (Wiki Ed) close this discussion. You are the only one who does not wish to move this page. I do not think you should have a veto over everyone else. There has been considerable evidence presented for "procession" over "parade".--Biotech46 (talk) 16:20, 23 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
What evidence? This was debated before, and the clear evidence was that reliable sources describe it as a parade. I'm not at my desk right now so will come back to this layer, bit you can't move it like this against the WP:COMMONNAME policy. Please move back and we can discuss if there is any evidence because so far I haven't seen anything convincing. And there is consensus against capitalising it as well. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 16:24, 23 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Biotech46 I don't have any special authority to close discussions and determine consensus (also I do not work for Wikipedia, but rather an entirely separate organization, Wiki Education). Seeing that page move is controversial, I have undone my request for speedy deletion of the redirect Woman Suffrage Procession. The best thing for you to do now would be to let the Requested Move process play out. Elysia (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:39, 23 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the clarification, {u|Elysia (Wiki Ed)}}. Understood. This is apparently not a democratic forum and there is no arbiter to determine a "winner". @BeenAroundAWhile: Thank you for your support. I wish your prediction had come to pass.--Biotech46 (talk) 19:22, 23 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - just to follow up on my !vote above, since it has been claimed that "procession" is used more than "parade", here is evidence that the WP:COMMONNAME is "woman suffrage parade":
    • Google Scholar, contrary to what Levivich says above, shows 132 results for "woman suffrage parade", and 71 results for the procession title.
    • On a simple Google search, I'm getting 35,000 results for parade and 12,900 for procession.
    • As already noted above, for some reason in an ngram the "procession" version doesn't show up at all, but woman suffrage parade enjoys significant coverage in books, and the non-capitalised form is favoured over the capitalised form.
    • There has been some claim that the "official" name was the Woman Suffrage Procession, but per WP:OFFICIALNAME we would only use that if it was also the most commonly used name in reliable sources.
    • There are plenty of high-quality sources using the "woman suffrage parade" form: [3][4][5][6][7].
    So, in summary the move request should be assessed against policy, and on its merits, not by counting votes, and I don't see a good reason to move right now. Happy to be persuaded otherwise if there is evidence that I've missed, however. In the meantime, this should be moved back to its long-term title until an uninvolved admin or editor can close this discussion. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 17:08, 23 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Procession: "A procession is an organized body of people walking in a formal or ceremonial manner". The original choice of "Procession" as the official name of this event reflects both the British English preference (see the first sentence of Parade), likely due to Alice Paul's and Lucy Burns' suffragette work in England, and the fact that it was divided into groups of activist women and not a 'parade' in the standard sense. Walking in a "formal or ceremonial manner" describes the event while parade doesn't quite fit. Randy Kryn (talk) 17:43, 23 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • The search term "woman suffrage parade" returns results other than the 1913 one in Washington, D.C. For example, in Wyoming in 1869 [8] and in Chicago in 1916 [9]. "Woman Suffrage Procession", AFAICT, returns results specifically for the 1913 march in D.C. Levivich 19:02, 23 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thank you for willing to be persuaded Amakuru. I realize I am new here and don't have the same privileges as others, nor have I had time to read every Wikipedia policy. It appears that the instructions would have us arrive at a consensus, which, according to my dictionary, is a "general agreement or concord; harmony; majority opinion." Also see: WP:CON. You may not think votes matter and that this can only end with one person proving everyone else wrong, but it doesn't seem to me that is what is required. Consensus is only achieved when everyone understands that we all need to bend a little. Rules can only take us so far as a society - there are exceptions to every one. As for capitalization, "Woman Suffrage Procession" is a proper name and should be capitalized. Would an article on Elizabeth Cady Stanton by "Elizabeth cady stanton"? Of course not. However, I would agree to not capitalizing as a concession, if you could agree on "procession". How about it?--Biotech46 (talk) 20:17, 23 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • According to WP:NCE "If there is an established, common name for an event (such as the Great Depression, Cuban Missile Crisis or a "Bloody Sunday"), use that name. In the majority of cases, the title of the article should contain the following three descriptors: When the incident happened. Where the incident happened. What happened." (Note the capitalization.) The current title does include a date, but no one (except myself) has argued for inclusion of the "where" as proposed by the GA reviewer when reopening this discussion. By this convention, the title should properly be "1913 Woman Suffrage Procession (Washington, D.C.)" or some variant. It appears that the real sticky wicket is this concept of "common name." In terms of "procession" vs. "parade", both have been demonstrated to be in common usage. I did not find a policy regarding "official" names for events, but it seems that if the official name is also rather common (perhaps not more common than the other), that we should give more weight to the official title of the event. In reviewing WP:COMMONNAME, I noted that a name should be unambiguous. By using "Woman suffrage parade of 1913" we can see that this is, indeed, ambiguous. There were many suffrage parades, and some of them were also in 1913.--Biotech46 (talk) 20:58, 23 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Consensus Summary II: Given that consensus does not require unanimity, and the merits of the arguments are important, I will try to do a better job of summarizing where we do and do not have consensus. DateThere has been one request to delete the date, but given that it conforms to WP:NCE, we should leave it in. Therefore, we DO have consensus for "1913". Women's suffrage vs. Woman suffrage Common usage related to this event and agreement among those in this discussion favor the latter. Therefore, we DO have consensus on "Woman suffrage". Parade vs. procession I won't attempt to summarize all the evidence, but both sides have proven their merit. However, the merits have persuaded the majority of people in this discussion that procession is more appropriate. Therefore, we DO have consensus on "procession". Where Per convention, the title should include a location, but titles should also be concise and location can be omitted if the location is generally understood. Only one person has argued for inclusion of the location. Therefore, we DO have consensus to omit location. Capitalization We have arguments for capitalizing only "Woman", capitalizing "Woman Suffrage" and capitalizing "Woman Suffrage Procession". There is no clear majority based on the merits (there are plenty of citations available within Wikipedia conventions and article names for the first and third case). Therefore we DO NOT have consensus on capitalization. I respectfully request that we come to consensus on this final point, at which time I will submit a request that the discussion be closed and a new title be implemented.--Biotech46 (talk) 22:18, 23 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Procession should be capitalized, as part of the title. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 02:13, 24 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The standard consensus on capitalization is the guideline MOS:CAPS, which says we avoid unnecessary capitalization. If sources show that caps are optional, we default to lowercase. In this case "Woman suffrage procession" is often not capped in sources; e.g. see Library of Congress, which also calls it the "National American Women's Suffrage Association procession". The idea the "Woman Suffrage Procession" is the proper or common name of the event is simply not supported in sources. Dicklyon (talk) 04:34, 24 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
On the final issue of capitalization, we do not have a consensus. Based on the merits of the evidence presented by Amakuru and Dicklyon, we should conform to the Wikipedia standard and not capitalize any but the first word. I would like to personally thank everyone involved in the discussion, and especially Amakuru for elevating it above opinion to include evidence citations, Wikipedia standards, and logical discourse. I will submit a request to have the discussion evaluated and closed. Alternately, according to WP:RfCl even an involved editor can close a discussion if consensus has been reached (Amakuru?). Then I (or someone else) will make a move to Woman suffrage procession (1913) per the consensus as summarized above.--Biotech46 (talk) 14:39, 25 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your kind words, Biotech46, and for attempts to gain agreement. I still haven't seen the evidence on which you wish to change "parade" to "procession", though. I presented a bulleted list above with the evidence that the common name in sources is "parade". Presumably, since you're still saying it should be procession, I must have made a mistake or missed some evidence. Please could you tell me where I went wrong? Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 17:20, 25 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Upper-cased 'Procession' seems not only a good compromise, but the real name of the event. Next year is the 100th anniversary of U.S. women gaining the right to vote. That is what this solemn procession was asking to occur. These events are symbolized on the new design for the American 10$ bill, with the image's backdrop being this event, the Woman Suffrage Procession. Even though this monetary honoring has been pushed back a few years, the design will remain the same. The historical importance of this march is evident, so moving it to its real name seems the encyclopedic thing to do. If it comes to ignoring a rule or two and making this one of the occasional exceptions to a Wikipedia guideline, that's seems like in could be a factor in the discussion. Randy Kryn (talk) 20:31, 25 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Randy Kryn I see that I have failed to appropriately review support for capitalization. We DO have a consensus in support of capitalization. Dicklyon and Amakuru object, and with ample documentation to support their objection. Levivich provided three links to recent articles that use the capitalized version of the official name. BeenAroundAWhile, you, and I also agree that using the official name is appropriate. I think we should come up with additional examples to cement this consensus. But a majority does suffice, if we wish to push it. One thing I would point out is that the monetary commemoration really has been indefinitely postponed - it may never happen. If it does, we can also review it at that time. We DO have a strong consensus on "procession" to replace "parade". Amakuru strenuously objects on the basis of commonality. However, commonality is not the only criteria in choosing a title for an event. I see no evidence that the consensus was inappropriately achieved. Evidence was presented on both sides and considered and discussed and 5 of 6 editors engaged in this discussion have come to agreement. I find nothing in Wikipedia's procedural documentation on this (WP:CON) to suggest that one objection can overrule a consensus. Amakuru - I reviewed the discussion and your bullet points (one of your sources was clearly taken from the Wikipedia article and thus not valid). I'm not sure why you have not seen the evidence presented by the other editors in this discussion. It is true that parade is more common than procession, but it is also more ambiguous. I redid the ngram viewer graph, leaving off "woman" and this supports parade [[10]]. But we are not discussing parades in general. I surveyed the sources I used in writing this article. Adams and Keene use "procession" 18 times, referring both to the suffrage procession and the inaugural procession. They use parade more often. Dodd uses procession 6 times. Doris Stevens frequently uses procession. Zahniser and Fry use procession almost exclusively and Alice Paul, the organizer, also adamantly used the word whenever referring to the event for the rest of her life. The Senate hearing documents repeatedly refer to the "suffrage procession" the "the procession" throughout. In fact, the Senate and House resolutions also call it the suffrage procession. This event was THE Woman Suffrage Procession, not just any suffrage parade. It is wonderfully unambiguous. In my review, I see that we have consensus for both "procession" and for capitalization. We are not required to have unanimous agreement, no matter how desirable that may be.--Biotech46 (talk) 23:27, 25 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, but probably use "women's suffrage procession (1913) (or "of 1913" – there's some tension between WP:CONCISE and WP:NATURALDIS). Loewr-case per MOS:CAPS, WP:NCCAPS. The RS are nowhere near consistent (even the event-contemporary ones) on what to call this, much less on typography, which is a house-style matter anyway. Ours is to not capitalize unless sources overwhelmingly do so. First rule of MOS:CAPS. These emotive arguments based on "importance" are just arguments to capitalize for subjective emphasis (which WP does not do – second rule of MOS:CAPS).

    The other matters: "procession" seems to dominate in sources, so use that, though I don't feel strongly on it (”march" would also work, if we're regularly using that term for such events). Next, we do not over-disambiguate, so do not add "Washington, DC" unless there's another article on another such notable event known by the same phrases, in the same year, from which we must disambiguate further. And, since this is not a proper name but one of multiple descriptive labels, use the one that makes sense in current English, which is "women's suffrage". When's the last time you heard of "women health", "woman rights", "woman studies", "woman liberation", etc.? "Woman" simply isn't used adjectively that way any longer. Obsolete English should not be preserved on WP except as necessary in titles of works and other directly quoted material. "Women's suffrage" is the common and conventional collocation that's idiomatic in present-day English.
     — AReaderOutThatawayt/c 00:12, 26 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

tl;dr Parade / Procession[edit]

This entry should definitely be called 'Woman Suffrage Procession' - plus any useful addendums, eg: (or Parade)

As per WP:OFFICIALNAME:

- Obscurity is not a relevant reason to use 'Woman suffrage parade', because someone has already argued that 'procession' is more frequently found than 'parade' outside of Wikipedia.

- There are no competing authorities, because 'Woman Suffrage Procession' is literally what they themselves called it, as per the programme, which makes it the official title of the event. In the English language, by default, the title of an event is a proper noun and therefore capitalised.

- Changes to name is also an irrelevant argument here, since the organisers can no longer change the name of this event. We literally have visual evidence of their publicised choice of event title.

There are no good reasons not to give this the name the organisers gave it, plus any redirections, addendums or qualifiers deemed useful according to Wikipedia's general practise and the excellent reasoning of her many editors.

Wherever possible, it is surely crucial that Wikipedia should capture the facts of women's history as lived in the first person by the women themselves, as opposed to someone else's third person description of their history.

BessieMaelstrom (talk) 16:20, 10 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the above editor, and I wonder why it's taking so long to WP:Move this article to the name which was originally given it. 01:53, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Women4wiki (talk) 16:17, 11 May 2020 (UTC) Wondering what reason anyone can have for not using Procession, the word the women who organised the event used? What the media used in their coverage can be mentioned in the article but it doesn't dictate the entry for the procession.[1][reply]

There are a couple discussions above where editors have proposed moving it. Neither ended with a clear consensus. Following the above, someone else could try to propose it again, but it would be a good idea to review the arguments presented there first. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:51, 11 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 11 May 2020[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved to "Woman Suffrage Procession" (non-admin closure) buidhe 04:04, 22 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]



Woman suffrage parade of 1913Woman Suffrage Procession (1913) – The official programme demonstrates that the women involved chose to title this event 'Woman Suffrage Procession'. The English language defaults to capital letters in such an instance and, in the most recent discussions above, consensus was reached in support of capitalisation, ref Biotech46 on 25 Oct, who also points out consensus to use 'procession' over 'parade', to whit: "This event was THE Woman Suffrage Procession, not just any suffrage parade." The addition of the date in parentheses serves to identify this specific event beyond all question. Extensive debate has taken place, and consensus stated. BessieMaelstrom (talk) 17:34, 11 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Strong support, per nom (although "1913" probably isn't needed as this is a stand-alone proper name of an event). To me this as one of the main incorrect titles on Wikipedia (maybe a tie with the oddly downcased Four past Midnight). The historic long-term significance of this event is more than enough to change it to its real name. But that the event is scheduled to be represented on the reverse of the United States ten-dollar bill gives it added popular culture significance. The procession's programme, which is one of Wikipedia's main-page featured images, correctly states the name of this titled demonstration. Thanks, BessieMaelstrom, for this nomination. Randy Kryn (talk) 19:44, 11 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Randy: agree that we could lose the date, yes. BessieMaelstrom (talk) 00:51, 12 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Woman Suffrage Procession - at this stage, the 1913 part seems unnecessray as Woman Suffrage Procession (capitalized as such) already redirects to this page. If there is another one with the same name, we can disambiguate later. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 19:51, 11 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Rhododendrites - agree ref date being unnecessary. BessieMaelstrom (talk) 00:51, 12 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Woman Suffrage Procession. This does appear to the event's proper name, although the program also shows it as "Woman's Suffrage Procession" (but "Procession" in either case). "1913" would be unnecessary overprecision and contrary to WP:CONCISE. The current lower-case title, used as a descriptive phrase, seems ungrammatical. Station1 (talk) 20:59, 11 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. With due respect to the nominator, who is new to Wikipedia and maybe not yet familiar with naming policy. But the key thing is not the official name but the most common name in reliable sources. So what the event's programme says is not the key point, but which form is most prevalent. As I showed in the discussion above, the word "parade" is found far more often in sources than "procession", so according to the WP:COMMONNAME policy, we should use that. Similarly, again as shown above, sources do not routinely capitalise the title so per MOS:CAPS it should not be capitalised. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 21:56, 11 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The official name is typically the default unless another sufficiently precise name is more common in the sources we're using. I'm not typically interested in total google hits, etc., since who's the say the quality of those sources -- or even the relevance. It doesn't seem clear that the actual name of the event is particularly controversial, so the central question seems to be do we call it by its name or by a description of the event. Since the name of the event is known, precise, easily understood, etc. I see no reason to use a description instead. Yes, sometimes, descriptions are more common than the name itself, but unless the name is ambiguous, unclear, etc. that doesn't seem like a great reason. Beyond that, going with some variant of "women's suffrage parade" or otherwise using lowercase introduces imprecision and thus the need for a disambiguator that isn't necessary if using the actual title. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 22:14, 11 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The suggested retitling of this page fits the primary titling criteria: "A topic is primary for a term with respect to long-term significance if it has substantially greater enduring notability and educational value than any other topic associated with that term." The long-term historical significance of this event towards the topic of women's suffrage in the United States and as it relates to overall global women's suffrage deems that it be given its proper name. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:30, 11 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I agree completely with Rhododendrites: the event had a title, of which we have clear evidence. There is no reason to use a general description where we can instead be precise. As Randy says, we're talking about an historic event, not something like an annual festival: arguably, there is no actual common usage conflict between the two, because if you're talking about it, you're likely to both name and describe it. Certainly both phrases show up in a Google search, because one is a description of what the event was - and most of the websites I can see that use the description also give it its name. Given the choice, therefore, there is no reason why we should not choose to title it with its actual title. BessieMaelstrom (talk) 01:34, 12 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The movement for women's suffrage was both a worldwide movement and a United States movement. The Woman Suffrage Procession, initiated and organized by the 1910s movement's main US strategist and leader, Alice Paul, was akin to the March on Washington (and both were literally a march on Washington) and its historic identification with Dr. King. There is no underestimating the importance of the Woman Suffrage Procession in the 1910s movement for women's suffrage in the United States. Randy Kryn (talk) 00:28, 17 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Randy - couldn't agree more, and I do want to pay due regard to Amakuru's important point about the prevelance of the event description appearing in searches. Whilst the WP:COMMONNAME policy is a really important one for reasons of accessibility of information, we must bear in mind that Wikipedia has become a primary source as well as a tertiary one. For that reason as much as any other, it seems to me that we have a crucial responsibility to represent the importance of this historic event in as authentic a way as possible, by using its official title for this article and disambiguating, as we do so well, to allow descriptive searches to reach their target. BessieMaelstrom (talk) 10:27, 17 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Looking at the online sources, it looks like many of the older sources use "Parade", while some of the more recent ones use "Procession". So, I think we are free to decide one way or the other, and "Procession" was the word they used. Incidently, I started this article, and I think I only used "Parade" because the principal source I used, the LOC article, used it. And I'm so proud my little article has grown into a big one!  :-) Brianyoumans (talk) 14:36, 19 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Brianyoumans! Thanks so much for starting this article - what a great and important contribution you made. And thanks for popping up here. Really great to have your input, particularly. BessieMaelstrom (talk) 22:52, 19 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

See also?[edit]

The See also section has gotten out of control; this isn't an index to the subject of woman suffrage, it's an article on one event. I think most or all of these should be mentioned and linked in the text (if they aren't already) and then the section eliminated.Brianyoumans (talk) 01:41, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

10 doesn't seem particularly "out of control". After reading this, I figured some dozens must've been added since the last time I looked. Selma to Montgomery marches seems like it can be sensibly removed, but the others seem ok IMO. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 01:59, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I added the notable suffrage marches and rallies, which seem appropriate for the See also of this page. The 1965 Selma to Montgomery march was the first major suffrage march since 1913, and seems to qualify for this See also section. Randy Kryn (talk) 02:55, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I've encountered a number of other editors who seem to think that See alsos should be very limited, but, taking a look at the existing guidelines, they don't seem to be particularly deprecated. There does seem to be a range of opinions about them - see WT:See alsos. Some large and critical articles - like French Resistance and Socialism - have "see also" sections, but they are small (and in the case of French Resistance, a bit random, IMHO.) Capitalism, on the other hand, has a rather large "see also" section.Brianyoumans (talk) 03:11, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Limited but they don't need to be small. The added suffrage marches are directly related per topic and now include all of the notable ones, in chronological order. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:27, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]