Talk:Elizabeth Wharton Drexel

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All right, I'll bite. What makes that woman encyclopedia-worthy? Any accomplishments? And I find the tone throughout "second marriage" unbearable. {{nn-bio}}, anyone? Lupo 20:22, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Socialite

Socialites may be boring, and their only notability is their fame, but I am sure no one will remember 50% of the entries in Wikipedia in 50 or 100 years. Its odd that every fictional character on a TV series has an entry. I didn't write the stuff about her husband... --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 21:32, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Richard, the problem I see with this article is that it doesn't explain why she was famous — if she was ever famous at all. That's precisely what nn-bio means: the article fails to establish this person's noteworthyness. On the fictional characters, I wholeheartedly agree. Lupo 15:20, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Socialites

I assume the whole category of socialites has the same problem, they are famous by their birth or who they married. They are of little interest to most people alive today, who would rather read another entry on fictional Star War characters. Look at the other names in the category. They are the people on the social pages of the New York Times in the 1800s and early 1900s. Before film stars appeared in the 1910s, they were the people you read about to live vicariously. I think a comprehensive reference work should have them as entries. Their names appear in the press, and their lives and deaths noted in both Time magazine and the New York Times. The articles talk about them as if the reader is thoroughly familiar with them already. With some there can be a paragraph in the main article on their family, but others can be fleshed out to a stub or a full biography. Wikipedia is more than a Brittanica style encyclopedia, its also an almanac with its lists, a gazetter with its geographical entries, and a biographical dictionary with its stubs. There is lots of room for historical, accurate information, even if the audience for it is small. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 17:17, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Maybe we should have them, but then our articles should give a bit more than just birth and death dates and a sequence of marriages. Why were people interested in her? The article gives no hint whatsoever. Was she some kind of Paris Hilton? What kind of work did she do for the Red Cross? Did she accomplish anything, or was she just a rich heiress? Maybe you could try to get her "King Lehr" book from one of those libraries and see if you could flesh out this stub. (My library doesn't have that book, and it isn't available through interlibrary loan either.)

The stuff on Harry Lehr should actually be moved to an article about this man (and should be rewritten; it reads as if it was culled together from her book and is highly biased). There's even an early image of him available online at the Maryland Historical Society. Looks like some advertisement photo for a theater production or some such; he is dressed up as a woman. MHS have stamped the image as "not for publication", but it was taken by the Perkins Studio, 311 E. Baltimore Street, Maltimore, MD. The studio was at that address from 1887 to 1897, photographer was Harry L. Perkins [1] (1853 - ?), son of Palmer Lanfield Perkins (1825 - 1900). From 1882 to 1886, the studio was located at 103 W. Baltimore Street [2]. If Harry L. Perkins died before 1936, the image is PD even if unpublished. Lupo 07:29, 27 March 2006 (UTC)