Talk:Wanda Gág

Accurate name: Wanda Gág

That's her correct and official name, as appears on her book covers. --Húsönd 20:29, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

That is not how it's spelled here in Minnesota, where she lived. See the website for her home, for example, an historic site. Jonathunder 20:59, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Husond, even if that true on some book cover, it isn't determinative of the issue.

Furthermore, was there any evidence whatsoever of what any book cover says when I reverted the undiscussed, unreferenced move by User:Tevildo? A: No, there was not.

Is there any evidence now in the article as to how her name is spelled on book covers? A: No, there was is not.

Is there any citation to any reliable source here on the talk page to back up Husond's claims that this is how it appears on book covers? A: No, there was is not.

Q.E.D. Gene Nygaard 01:44, 10 March 2007 (UTC) Corrected tense with strikeouts 04:42, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

OTOH, there is, and was, clear evidence of how the Wanda Gag House spells its name. Gene Nygaard 01:45, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

It is a distinct possibility that people doing websites do not know how to produce diacritic marks correctly. The US National Gallery of Art [1] and the Library of Congress [2] both show the diacritic, as do most images of book covers, as previously mentioned. As well, the Wikipedia article on her father uses the diacritic throughout and there seems to be no controversy there. Just further sources to ponder. Ryanjunk 00:04, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I currently don't have the means to scan the book cover, but I have it here in my hands and there is definitely a diacritic: Wanda Gág. Furthermore, this is how I have always seen the name spelled in literature referencing this author. I agree with Ryanjunk, some people may drop the diacritic because they don't know how to mark it correctly, but on Wikipedia the article should bear the diacritic (providing there are redirects in place at Wanda Gag, and there are). --woggly 10:25, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

The name issue has resurfaced: Wanda added the ´ over the a in Gág after she went to New York. Neither of her parents ever used the accent mark, all of her biographies are consistent on this. I understand the desire to be consistent, but the corrections by Gobonobo are in error. Further complicating matters, the Wanda Gág House now uses the diacritic mark, albeit inconsistently. I recommend checking any of the reference titles concerning Anton Gag before reverting.Dktrfz (talk) 17:54, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Question???

When you write GAG in the Wikepedia search engine and don't use the accent mark - will the page still come up? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.80.168.143 (talk • contribs).

Yes. Doing that will redirect your result to this page.--Húsönd 02:15, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Copyright violation

I've added a copyvio tag because several paragraphs seem to have been lifted directly from this website. The material was added during this edit by Sfphotocraft in November 2006. As best I can tell, that material was already on that website by November 2006. See the Internet Archive logs for the site here. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 14:50, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Why don't we just delete the copyviolations and start over with a smaller article, starting here [3]?. We can add material later...Modernist (talk) 15:24, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Done...Modernist (talk) 22:43, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Removed some content...

While adding and footnoting info I had to remove this "She considered herself a feminist and advocate of free love in the 1920s." because I didn't find a citation for it in any of my books. Feel free to add it back if you have one.Tlqk56 (talk) 05:00, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

The Cech source appears to be inaccurate on several accounts, most notably date of her marriage. It is an older reference, possibly "sanitized" for children? The Winnan book was written after her adult diaries were made available, it contains entries in Gág's own writing. Numerous references to feminism are made by Gág in Growing Pains, her adult diaries also contain numerous references to open sexual relationships. Much of the newest material needs citations, it reads like opinion.Dktrfz (talk) 03:13, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Cech may be wrong, but it was published in 1983, as the reference says, long after her death, and is for adults. I don't question the feminism facts, or any others. I simply don't have citations for them. Feel free to put them in and cite them, as I said above. I cited every fact in the article that I added, except for the one I missed when I split the paragraph differently. Thanks for noting that. Since WP doesn't allow writings by the person themselves as support for facts, her diaries don't help there. But I'm not interested in fighting over anything, only improving the article, and I've used all my current sources so I'm finished unless I find something new. (The citation for "There was a movement among educators at the time against fairy tales." follows it. So I removed that tag. It is: Cech, pg. 187.)Tlqk56 (talk) 05:12, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

It's definitely getting better but the phrase "Some people felt" is just a bunch of weasel words. Which people? Which movement? I still have many doubts about the Gale material. It is not from a dedicated biographer. I will be checking other "facts" derived from those references. The wedding date mistake was more than egregious, it was positively disingenuous. The current article has very little on her artistic achievements. It may be time to create separate sections on the different parts of Wanda's interesting and complex life - early years, art school, New York scene, printmaking, children's books, legacy, etc, which would allow a more balanced picture. If you haven't already, read Wanda's Growing Pains, Karen Nelson Hoyle's bio and the Winnan book. Dktrfz (talk) 02:07, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

New Sections

Starting to add new sections, to give a more balanced overview of Wanda's life and work. Feel free to fill in, PLEASE NOTE: some older material has factual errors, try to source material based on newer research which had access to her archives after 1993. Try to avoid sources which are just rehashes of other rehashes. New sections may be sparse until they are filled in. Dktrfz (talk) 01:09, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I just noticed that you are including a lot of pages from the same book. Would you consider using just one reference for the book and then using {{Rp}}? In addition, things like "Cech, John (editor), Dictionary of Literary Biographies: American Writers for Children, 1900-1960, Gale Research, 1983, volume 22, pp. 183;" aren't entirely necessary since there already exists a reference that says "Cech, John (editor), Dictionary of Literary Biographies: American Writers for Children, 1900-1960, Gale Research, 1983, volume 22, pp. 179-191;"  Ryan Vesey Review me! 15:19, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea, I'd have to study the procedure in depth before attempting it. There are more sources I'm looking at, but these existing references will be the main ones. I'm trying to eliminate the Cech references, they have been in error in several instances, there are better sources, which have had access to primary materials which had been restricted before 1993. Dktrfz (talk) 18:20, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

2015 update: Still filling in school and work sections. May try to include her various lovers under family and personal life if I get the nerve. Books for Children section still seems awkward, anyone?Dktrfz (talk) 22:52, 21 January 2015 (UTC) How much personal information is too much information? Gág repeatedly wrote of the importance of her lovers (plural) in her work. TMI or relevant? Dktrfz (talk) 17:46, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Honor Awards

Re: Edits by 32.218.47.31. Please check the Caldecott and Newbery sites for a complete description of the differences between Medals and Honors: "Beside the Caldecott Medal, the committee awards a variable number of citations to worthy runners-up, called the Caldecott Honors or Caldecott Honor Books. The "Honor" was introduced in 1971, but some runners-up had been identified annually and all those runners-up were retroactively named Caldecott Honor Books." I am reverting your edits, if you have a reason for your edits, please state it here.Dktrfz (talk) 13:48, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Edits by 32.218.xxx.xx et. al.

Every edit I make is intended to increase accuracy and clarity. Feel free to edit them as much as you like, but refrain from personal attacks.Dktrfz (talk) 01:55, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks to 32.218.45.191 for the constructive edits!Dktrfz (talk) 15:08, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

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Sexual Relationships

In biographies and her diaries Gág's sexual relationships has been mentioned as important to her artistic inspiration and development, something to bear in mind when editing. Bowdlerization has cropped up here in the past, editors would do well to consult the Winnan, Hoyle, and Cox references, as well as Gág's own writings before removing them.Dktrfz (talk) 17:01, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Reassessment

Wow! This is a splendid biography of a person that Wikipedia needs to know all about. A potential featured article. I understand it had copyright problems in the past and did not check for them except to run Earwig's Copyvio Detector (which says violation is possible at 42.2% which needs to come way down). At this time I raised it to B class which is as high as it can go without impartial review. Comments:

• I added alt text for the photos and tried to put them in chronological order. Sorry the illustration in the New York section probably belongs one section up.
• Can you please remove or adjust some of the citations in the lead? They break up the prose. WP:CITEBUNDLE might apply I don't know.
• I added paragraph breaks but you might want to change those.
• The lead should be expanded to explain her influence on picture books. It could be at least two or more paragraphs.
• Policy on this is extensive, more than I have time to learn today. The section "Selected prints" is informative but it might need to find another way to present them. WP:EL, MOS:LINK and Wikipedia:WikiProject External links are some places that could help. -SusanLesch (talk) 18:27, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Hi Susan! We've met once at the January 2019 Wiki-meet up in Minneapolis! I really appreciate your edits to this article and the elevation to B class. As you could probably tell, I have been a main contributor to it for many years. Here are my responses to your comments:

• Copyright issues - Early versions had whole sections that were plagiarized, these are long gone. I looked at the Copyvio page and nothing there struck me as egregious, only some direct quotes, I may be wrong about that. It would be nice to have some images from her books, but those are definitely under copyright. Most of the copyright "violations" were from articles which copied the Wikipedia article, several of my edits were copied word for word.
• Illustration order is still a little odd, I liked the Gág house image in the legacy section as it shows a current picture of the restored museum. If it was put back there the other pictures could be moved up to be in better sync with the sections. The litho stone picture should be in the New York section.
• I like all the new paragraph breaks.
• The lead does have some style issues, it could easily be longer, but that might take away from later information. The multiple citations for Growing Pains was the result of an old edit war where an anonymous editor didn’t think that that book was important. Maria Popova and other modern writers have featured it. It is a great book and central to the understanding of Wanda’s artistic development (and the best pre-WWI chronicle of life in the Twin Cites I have ever read.)
• The Selected Prints section avoids any copyright issues with its direct links to high quality images in museums and art publications. They are sort of a 'greatest hits' of her best prints, previously there were some low-quality files in the article.

A big problem with this article has always been is that Wanda was a complex individual: parallel careers in children's books and serious art, a 'leftie' and a free-thinker, especially in regards to her sexual relations. The early versions of the article were very "sanitized" and had no information on her fine arts efforts and some of the 'facts' about her personal life were simply wrong. I've featured her in my blog many times, but most of that information is a result of my original research so is not suitable for Wikipedia. You can read them here: https://flippistarchives.blogspot.com/2004/04/wanda-gag.html

I could see the article being expanded, but I'm too close to the subject to do so. Feel free to make any changes, I'll be supportive of your efforts.Dktrfz (talk) 14:35, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

@Dktrfz: sorry I don't recognize your name from the meetup. I'm not interested in developing this article and was hoping to encourage more work on it, unfortunately several years en retard. You are welcome to revert any or all of my changes. Best wishes, -SusanLesch (talk) 22:38, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

OK, I will take all this into consideration. I look at this page about once a month or so, I'll sleep on making any changesDktrfz (talk) 01:04, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Glad to hear it. If you remind me where you were sitting maybe I will remember who you are. -SusanLesch (talk) 14:55, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm the grouchy looking guy on the left in this picture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Minneapolis/WikipediaDay#/media/File:Minneapolis_WikipediaDay_2019_--_putting_candles_on_cake.jpg Dktrfz (talk) 22:49, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Oh, yes! I have a vague memory. Thank you for the link. -SusanLesch (talk) 16:05, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Growing Pains References

Here are some further references to reviews of GP removed from lead for clarity: Smith, Frances. "Growing Pains".The Saturday Review, October 5, 1940, p. 12. Woods, Katherine. "Growing Pains". The New York Times Book Review, October 20, 1940, p. 9. Worcester Telegram, October 6, 1940, p. 6. The Saint Paul Dispatch, September 26, 1940, p. 10. Sherman, John. "Growing Pains". The Minneapolis Star Journal, September 22, 1940, sec. 1, p. 13. "Growing Pains".The New Yorker, September 28, 1940, p. 79.

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Wanda Gág/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: David Eppstein (talk · contribs) 00:47, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it well written?

   A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:

   Only minor issues found.

   • "In 1921 she became a partner in a business venture called Happiwork Story Boxes; boxes decorated with story panels on its sides.": second independent clause has no verb.

   B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

   Section order ok; lead appropriately summarizes body (but see 2c below); the incorporated list of publications is an appropriate thing to include for this kind of article.

2. Is it verifiable with no original research?

   A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

   Many issues, some serious because they make verifying the references difficult:

   • The inline links to web sites for the list of selected prints need to be removed. WP:EL does not permit external links in the body of an article, and these largely appear to fail our standards for reliable sources. If a better source for the selected prints cannot be found, that part of the list may need to be removed itself, or maybe better replaced with a list of prints in notable museums with footnotes sourcing them to the museums holding them.
   • The use of long references followed by shorter references is ok, but you might consider using the {{sfn}} templates to make links from the shorter references back to the long references (this is not required for GA).
   • References are not very consistently formatted. Some of them appear to be in Citation Style 1, as would be generated by the {{cite}} series of templates; it would be helpful for all to be in the same style.
   • Footnote 5 (Philadelphia Museum of Art) inappropriately lists the name of the museum as part of its title and the name of the website where the name of the museum should be.
   • Footnote 8 (Cox, Minnesota History) is missing its title and the journal title is not italicized. Same for footnote 50 (Pincus-Witten).
   • Footnotes 12, 16, etc. point to "Gág" with page numbers but because they have no year and the whole article is about Gág it is impossible to tell what publication is intended. It should be spelled out in full of the first of these references. Is it maybe "Growing Pains"? If so it should be moved out of "Further reading"
   • Footnote 14 (UPenn library) and 61 (Whitney Museum) again give the website hostname where the name of the institution hosting the web site should be.
   • Footnote 24 (an article in The New Yorker?) is missing both title and author, as is footnote 31 (an article in The New York Times), footnote 34 (an article in the magazine John Martin's House), footnote 42 (in New Ulm Journal), footnote 51 (Horn Book), and footnotes 54 and 57 (New Ulm Journal again).
   • Footnote 56 references an entire book (without a specific page number) for a simple fact that should be much easier to source (the Newbery Medal, strangely here called the Newbery Honor).
   • Footnote 59 has the wrong title (it is using the object description as a title).

   B. All in-line citations are from reliable sources, including those for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines:

   There are some major issues with reliability of sources here, enough to make me wonder whether anyone even looked at these sources while setting up for a GA nomination:

   • Footnote 38 (Popova) appears to be a personal blog, not likely to be considered reliable. Same for footnote 46 (Rohmann), 47 (Dubosarsky), and 49 (one-minute reviews).
   • Footnote 45 is totally broken. I have no idea where the reference should really point or what its title should be, but this title and link is not about Gág. It does not support the claim it is used as a reference for. Same for reference 48 (HMH books).
   • Footnote 55 is a bare-URL reference that should be cleaned up. Also it's a deadlink. And it's not clear (because not accessible) whether it would be reliable if it weren't dead.
   • Footnote 58 is a deadlink with an uninformative title
   • Footnote 60 goes to an archived copy of a search page, not useful as a reference.
   • Footnote 61 link does not mention Gág.
   • Footnote 63 is an untitled bare-url deadlink.

   C. It contains no original research:

   Footnoting is appropriately thorough. Taking most claims in good faith from the offline sources. But see issues above re individual problematic footnotes, as well as the following:

   • The footnote in the lead for oldest still in print should be moved to or repeated on the place in the body of the article where that same claim is repeated in more detail, which appears to be the caption for one of the images.
   • Is there a source for the publication list, from which its completeness can be verified?

   D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:

   Although Earwig came out with a high 42.5% similarity score, compared against http://dla.library.upenn.edu/dla/ead/ead.html?q=Wanda+Gag+Papers, the actual similar text did not look problematic (mostly proper noun phrases).

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

   Coverage of her life looks appropriately thorough

   B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):

   I didn't see any material that went into too much detail.

4. Is it neutral?

   It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:

   There do not appear to be significant disagreements that need to be represented.

5. Is it stable?

   It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:

   Nominator is a major contributor to the article and has been gradually improving it over a long period of time; there do not appear to be any recent disputes.

6. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   Some serious issues with image licensing here:

   • File:Gág preparing Lithographic Stone.jpg I'm not sure this is a required part of the process, but where is the evidence that the check for a missing notice of copyright renewal was ever performed?
   • File:Wanda Gag-Millions of Cats.jpg is missing a required US public-domain explanation tag.
   • File:WandaGagSiesta.jpg is also missing that tag. (It claims that the photographic reproduction of a PD image does not have an additional copyright, correctly, but we also need to know that the original image itself is out of copyright.)
   • File:GagHouse.JPG has contradictory licensing tags: It claims both to be freely licensed, and not to be. If not, it needs a fair-use rationale. If so, this should be cleared up.
   • File:Gág Statue.jpg should probably be deleted from both Wikipedia and the article per Commons:COM:FOP US unless the sculpture can be shown to be outside the US in a part of the world where this is allowable or the artist of the sculpture released the sculpture under an open license. Photographic images of recent 3d artworks in the US are usually copyright violations. Alternatively, a case for fair use of the image would need to be made, beyond just decoration of the article.

   B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

   The article is heavily illustrated with images of, by, and about Gág, as is appropriate for the topic. All captions look ok (but see 2c re one caption's sourcing).

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   There are serious sourcing and image licensing problems to be overcome. If that can be done, the overall structure of the article looks ok with only minor other changes required. Putting this on hold to provide time for the necessary improvements.

—David Eppstein (talk) 01:56, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your input David.

I addressed most of the issues you brought up with these exceptions:

Reference formatting seems to be at the mercy of the bots, I got rid of the dead wood, that should help. I should have vetted them.

The old references from The New Yorker and The New York Times were in general review sections, no titles or authors indicated, page #s are correct.

The Newbery Medal and Caldecott Medal are different than the Honor awards, the wiki links lead to complete lists.

Maria Popova is an established and respected writer, that reference may be an exception to the usual rule.

I took all the selected prints out of the main article and put them below Further Reading. I eliminated any that weren't from established museums.

The images are a bit of a muddle, I removed The Millions of Cats cover and the statue picture. The Gag house pic seems to be PD, the author has given it a CC license for it. He's a regular contributor and always has CC BY-SA 4.0 (most lenient) releases on his work.

The litho pic is well over 70 years old, never been published, image search brings up only copies of this article.

Thanks again.Dktrfz (talk) 04:53, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

If the litho pic was unpublished, its copyright clock would start when it was published. I suggest you consider its copyright more seriously rather than using image search as the basis for that sort of decision, pay attention to formatting references using cite templates rather than plain text, and pay attention to putting the full and correct metadata into the references, which I have requested in this review and you have not done. It is not acceptable, for instance, for the entirety of a reference to be "New York Times, December 15, 1929", as if you expect readers to track down a copy of the entire newspaper from that date and read it cover-to-cover to find the relevant information within it. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:47, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Hi again, I thank you for the effort you've put into this David but it is becoming obvious that this procedure is beyond my ken. Fail it or delete the request, I won't be pursuing the matter any further.Dktrfz (talk) 21:44, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Ok, closing as fail. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:47, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Removing wrong attribution because it was Dehli not Wanda

I am removing the following:

• In 1928, Gág hand-colored some of Rockwell Kent's illustrations in a limited edition of Candide.

Here, the art historian Carl Zigrosser attributes the coloring of Rockwell Kent's to Ione Robinson & Dehli Gág. Dehli was one of Wanda's siblings.

The Voltaire/Kent edition of Candide mentions neither Gág or Robinson.

References

Peaceray (talk) 22:18, 18 January 2024 (UTC)