Talk:Schools at War

source

Doncram, I have that journal article now (via a request at Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request), so you can forget about that. I was going to remove the photo of Daniels School because it really doesn't add much to the article. I maybe since they bought a jeep, we could keep it with a photo of Stockton High that bought 275 jeeps. It was demo'ed in the 66, but here it is in 58. Do you have any place where we might get a useable photo for commons? MB 01:06, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

development, including on official vs potentially mixed views of program

In this edit I revised summary of Lamar County's achievement of having all 37 of its schools reach 90 percent participation. Feel free to revert/revise. This was to reword some grammatically as "Every one of the schools" doesn't match to appositive phrase "the only county in the state" (consider if original sentence was reordered as "The only county in the state, every one of the 37 schools in Lamar County, Alabama qualified for the flag in Spring 1945.") And to mention that all schools included all the white schools and all the Negro#United States ones, as appears in the source. I think this usefully makes an appropriate although very light reference to Racial segregation in the United States.

I don't have specific sources to address controversy/tone type issues, but I have an overall sense so far that the article draft is taking the official, there-exists-no-controversy, we-are-all-in-this-together-and-we-have-no-differences, patriotism-is-all-we-need tone of this government program, a bit too exclusively. "Schools at War" was in fact a propaganda program, and I think if we covered an equivalent patriotic program in schools in Nazi Germany, say, that wikipedia coverage should/would provide some thoughtful recasting of the program as not entirely innocent and uniformly wonderful. In this U.S. program, I would think there were some aspects which today we would find hit some nerves. E.g. it could perhaps be striking how the program, if it was running today, might be wildly successful in conservative/Republican/white areas and not at all in black/Democrat areas (this is entirely speculation). Or there could be cases where the program encouraged young fanatics to act contrary to their own families, say stealing money to put into the savings program and causing hardship because the family could not afford that; we would be a bit creeped out if we were reading how some Nazi kid was doing the like (again this is entirely speculation). Or there might have been issues of corruption/stealing/bullying--after all this was sweeping up great amounts of cash money from children that I think would be easily vulnerable (how many kids put in a bunch of 10 cent stamps, did not have clear documented ownership of their tiny share of one bond, and were simply rooked 10 years later when the bond matured and some former teacher or some former classmate/bully pocketed the proceeds? And/or to what extent did the U.S. Treasury effectively confiscate monies, like how businesses benefit from failing to fully account for customer lay-away deposits or from running gift card programs where it was super-convenient for participants to lose track/control of their ownership of benefits.) This was a huge program involving tons of cash with few if any controls in place, in a world when there was no internet and no potential for tracking/monitoring like there might be today. In my mind, then, _of course_ there must have been many many cases of theft/abuse/corruption. (IRL, in my own high school, the cash savings of 40 or so kids put towards a ski trip were stolen, disappeared from the school's safe, I recall.) Anyhow, if this were happening today and the official program was sweeping any/all issues under the rug, perhaps many/most/nearly all journalists would go along with it, but if this were today then I think some journalists would be finding cause for concern. So I think some suggestion, some open-ness to this being not entirely wonderful ought to be given. Again though, I do not have any contemporary or retrospective sources providing any critical tone. I just don't want this article to be too fawning, from following only the official sources and the fawning coverage in newspapers etc of the time. This is not at all meant to be negative about the writing so far; I really do like the article as drafted, and find it surprisingly informative and interesting about a program that I believe I had never heard of, before a few weeks ago. Even if no sources introducing criticism/imperfection of the program are found, it is still a great contribution to get out factual coverage of this. And academic/critical references, if/when they are found, can be added in the future. Thanks. --Doncram (talk) 13:45, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

I was surprised that there was practically nothing about this program in "academic" sources. Its like it was forgotten after the war. I think I found one critique that called it "propaganda" but it wasn't a published RS. Mil Historians certainly cover every aspect of the military campaign, but social scientists don't seem to have commented about this. MB 14:28, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. Yeah i think this program would be a good topic for a masters thesis and/or a few academic articles having some critique, although it is completely forgotten; glad this article somewhat remedies the forgotten part of that. I wonder if there automatically exist Treasury records kept forever, about redemption rates of bonds, and I imagine that bonds purchased through this program would have lower rates due to the diffuse ownership. And then there might have been corresponding internal memos/reports analyzing some of this, which might be accessible by FOIA requests. There might even have been prospective reports assessing that a program like this would have high-ish administrative costs for all the brochures and instruction support, but yielding extra-good returns due to likely non-collection of bond proceeds ultimately. Finding any internal records like this could give some purchase to an academic review, along with interviews/surveys of participants still alive today. I don't currently have any history department connections to make the suggestion to, though. --Doncram (talk) 14:54, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Or maybe the program had fake-type benefits that were perceived to be important for social control purposes or whatever: it might have been non-economical, or less efficient than some alternatives might have been, but broadly public in a politically advantageous way. Like how I have read that scrap metal collection drives in England during WWII were useful for morale and public relations, giving kids something to do and giving housewives who turned in old pots a sense of contribution, a sense of taking some control by doing _something_ in an out-of-control dangerous world. These aspects would be psychologically beneficial, and have indirect but real effects upon war efforts. Although the mixed metals collected were impossible to use, and were mostly just stacked up in piles hidden away from public view. I have read stuff both ways, saying the metal was useful vs. was not useful. I think it is good for Wikipedia to cover the bad/unexpected aspects as well as the official/positive, where sources are available. I wish there were some broad channel to make suggestions/requests to academics. --Doncram (talk) 15:08, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Did you notice the very last paragraph of the article. It does say overhead was high and other programs (e.g. payroll savings) brought in more money / $spent on the program. That came from a right-after-the-war analysis (not sure how independent it was). MB 15:30, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

User:MB, glad you created the "Analysis" section. Including sourced statement "The bonds sales ratio to the program costs were lower than other programs like payroll savings." I know you have done good writing in many other articles, but this one seems tops to me! --Doncram (talk) 15:22, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Drive-by comment

As this article is GA nominated, I thought I'd add a drive-by comment about one aspect which I really think ought to be addressed about what "sponsorship" actually means. If it worked anything like a Spitfire Fund, the idea of "buying" a jeep etc. was purely a fundraising gimmick and none were literally "bought" with any of the raised money. The campaign itself was about propagandising, raising money, and reducing inflationary pressure in the domestic economy. —Brigade Piron (talk) 16:06, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

GA Review

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

Reviewer: GhostRiver (talk · contribs) 17:43, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

I think this article has been waiting at GAN for long enough! — GhostRiver 17:43, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Good Article review progress box

Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

Infobox and lede

• Per MOS:US, whether "US" has periods in the acronym should be consistent throughout; there are no periods in the body but they are here in the lede
• "thirty-two million" → "32 million" per MOS:NUMERAL
• "The office hower" → "The office, however,"
• Per WP:LEADCITE, information cited in the body does not need to be cited in the lede, and all information in the lede should be directly mentioned in the body
• Their most important contribution was financial. POV, WP:WEASEL
• "90%" → "90 percent"
• "motivated selling" → "motivated sales"
• Why is "bought" in quotes when sponsored can suffice?

Formation

• Name the program in the first sentence
• "larger five dollar" → "larger five-dollar"
• Link World War II here, as well as the Depts. of Education and the Treasury
• Citation needed for the pamphlets

Purpose

• Mention Anderson's name before his titles
• No single-sentence paragraphs; I don't see why the line about the Slogan can't be the topic sentence to the following para

Operation

• Keep "scrapbook" out of quotes if that's an accurate definition
• savings books were provided which when filled held $18.75 in stamps which could be exchanged for a bond. A lot going on here, needs some commas
• Sentence about the scrapbook at the end should be with other sentences about the scrapbook

Publications

• "published a quarterly journal titled Schools At War (comma) which was distributed"
• Rather than a bullet point list, have "Other publications included teaching aids, such as" and then list out in prose
• Also, that citation should go at the end of the list

"Minuteman" flag

• "ninety percent" → "90 percent" per MOS:NUMERAL
• "thirteen blue stars" → "13 blue stars" per MOS:NUMERAL
• Comma after "in the Los Angeles School District"
• "a special insignia reading"
• "first large city" → "first major American city"
• "ninety schools" → "90 schools" per MOS:NUMERAL

Campaigns or promotions

• Link the first instance of "jeep" to Willys MB, which is meant when discussing WWII jeeps
• And then delink it in the second paragraph
• "at a cost of $3,000"
• "to indicate that it had been"
• Many of these sponsorship details and costs strike me as undue trivia

Program posters

• Delink Chicago per MOS:OVERLINK
• "supplier to the US military" → "supplier for the US military"
• The first paragraph needs some sentence improvement for flow; right now each sentence is "Subject was/were X."
• Not sure why "contributed" is in quotes
• Once again, I think the bullet points can be turned into prose, especially with artists who contributed multiple posters, like Joseph Hirsch (who should only be linked on the first mention)
• The citation for specific stamp values should be after the list, not before

Youth organizations, private schools, colleges

• "Although the program reached millions of students through the schools" → "Although the program predominantly reached its participants through their schools,"
• Cut out "and others"; it's implied that "including" is a non-comprehensive list
• "In addition to the nation's public schools, Catholic schools, the largest class of private schools in the US, in each of the 106 archdioceses across the country were included in the program." → "In addition to public schools, Catholic schools, the largest class of private schools in the US, from all 106 archdioceses in the United States were included in the program."
• Move the Catholic schools up before youth organizations so you have "public schools → private schools → non-school organizations"
• Also, combine the first two paragraphs so you have "successful → unsuccessful"
• "College teachers" → "college professors"
• Comma after the quote on citizenship
• That quote is also pretty POV, insinuiating that professors were unpatriotic, a rhetoric that's been weaponized before

Results

• "thirty million" → "30 million" per MOS:NUMERAL
• "to the states" → "to the States"

Examples

• Almost all of this section sounds like trivia; there are some grammar and MOS issues here as well, but I won't nitpick because I think almost all of this section can be excised. Any examples that are included should ideally have received more than local attention.

Analysis

• The program was so successful for many reasons. POV, phrasing. Rephrase as "The Schools at War program was considered a success by..." and then add whom: the government? Historians?
• "strong backing by" → "a strong backing from"
• I don't love, as a whole, that this section only has one source. Is it possible to get some other (non-governmental) opinions in?

References

• Inconsistent date style throughout: sometimes mdy, sometimes dmy, sometimes YYYY-MM-DD
• Unnecessary period after "US." in [1] (US. Treasury)
• If the website is redundant from the publisher (e.g. chipublib.org, Chicago Public Library), only the latter needs to be included
• Similarly, [34] (Willy the Jeep) is missing Haggin Museum in the publisher field

General comments

• Images are public domain or CC and are relevant
• No stability concerns in the revision history
• Copyvio score looks good, highest score is from attributed direct quote

The more I read of this article, the more unsure I am. Prose issues are easy to sort out, although I don't necessarily like the heavy use of bullet point lists when prose would suffice. My greater concern is with the extensive trivia, as well as the overuse of primary sources. While this information can be used for raw facts, that the only source used to determine whether or not the program was successful was... a publication by the very government that administered it, I find questionable. And in case my political beliefs are of concern here, I would say the same about any Analysis or Legacy section: a film director should not be the sole voice in determining the legacy of his product, an athlete's own words should not be used to determine the lasting influence of their participation in a sport.

At the end of the day, I am willing to leave this open for the customary seven-day holding period, at which point I would likely have a litany of other prose suggestions, considering the content will be heavily altered. If this is of interest to you, I will leave it open. Alternatively, I can fail this review, you can make whatever changes you feel need to be made (including potentially a WP:GOCE copyedit), and then re-submit for someone else to look at. Another alternative would be to ask for a second opinion, to which I would also be amenable. That being said, there tends to be an egregious waiting time for second opinions. Your choice. — GhostRiver 18:48, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

GhostRiver, First thanks for taking to time to review this. I can go through and address the copy edits. But there is not much I can do about the use of primary sources. I was rather surprised that this program has not been well analyzed in the academic community. This was discussed before right here on the TP in a previous section. I found almost no mentions of it in any history books; it seems to have been quickly forgotten after the war ended. The only section of the article that really talks about the success of the program is the analysis section at the very end. That is based on a primary source, because, there is just nothing else to go on. I was cognizant of the source and kept it quite short, with a couple of sentences about the success and and equal amount about the failures. (The fact that negative aspects were in the source is an indicator of its neutrality). The last sentence (poor bond sales ratio) is really quite negative - I could expand on that more because it really is saying payroll bonds sales were a more efficient way to raise funds.

Since I have no more sources, I don't see that I can heavily alter much. I can make the c/e changes, and work on the Analysis section. If that's not going to be sufficient then maybe I will withdraw. On the other hand, the message on my TP said it was close to passing if the minor corrections were made. This is much less optimistic. MB 04:58, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

GhostRiver, did you not get my ping? I see you have been active. I'm still waiting for a response. MB 01:18, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

More sources

@MB: I am a teacher, and it is difficult for me to find the time sometimes to write responses that require nuance during my brief free time. I was able to find contemporary analysis of the program in:

• Warfare State
• Pledging Allegiance
• Mobilizing the Home Front
• Children and War
• School-based Savings Programs, 1930-2002
• Girlhood

Most of these have to deal less with the immediate economic successes or failures of the program and more to do with the impact of asking children to participate in war efforts at this level. Again, I will leave it up to you if you want to leave this nomination open to undertake the (potentially extensive) edits, withdraw, or ask for a second opinion. I also apologize for the talk page message; it's a bot-delivered template that is not always reflective of reality. — GhostRiver 18:13, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Availablility

• Warfare State

Looks useful, available in local college library

• Pledging Allegiance

Looks useful, available in local college library

• Mobilizing the Home Front

Looks useful, available in local college library

• Children and War

Mostly too general

• School-based Savings Programs, 1930-2002

Potentially useful, called a "Working Paper", (RS?) Much of this paper is a fairly detail description of the program - not that much additional analysis.

• Girlhood

Not sure how useful, available in local college library

Comment from Doncram

It is totally random that i just found my way back to this article today, maybe via an old AFC note on my Talk page about Daniels School. I was reading it and totally blown away by how much further it has been developed by User:MB. Wow. Then browsed this GA review, and see great comments by reviewers, and realize article was improved by thoughtful editing to respond to those comments. I am really amazed. I like how MB pulled together so much (lots of primary sources) to create such an insightful article. I know it is supposed to be bad to “synthesize” or otherwise engage in wp:OR in Wikipedia, but i think this work is a great counter-example. The synthesis really did/is creating knowledge. Seriously this is awesome and MB oughta get some huge award for this, and reviwers oughta get commended too. Thank you to all of youse guys! (Confession: i was to blame for creation of original, terribly incomplete/inadequate draft article.) Just wow. —Doncram (talk) 06:34, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Status query

GhostRiver, MB, where does this review stand? It has been a month since either of you posted here, and the article has only had a minor copyedit in the interim. Can this get nomination get moving again soon? Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:03, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

I was under the impression that MB was actively working on tracking down some of the sources provided. It's a bit more concerning seeing that many of my other comments have not been addressed (particularly with regards to converting bulletpoint lists to prose) and I am leaning towards failing the article if more work is not made soon. — GhostRiver 00:40, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

BlueMoonset, yes, I made some of the c/e changes requested. But the bigger issue is with the additional sources suggested by GR that would round out the analysis section. I looked into those books and most of them may be useful. But they are not PD and/or available online. I would like to work on this more and further improve the article, but am not willing to physically go to a library to do so. So if GR feels more needs to be added from these kinds of source, which I believe he does, I think this will have to be withdrawn at this time. MB 03:15, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

GhostRiver, we were updating this simultaneously. As I said above, going to a library is not something I have an inclination to do. MB 03:17, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

BlueMoonset MB If the nominator is reluctant to put the work in to improve the article, then I am inclined to mark it as a fail for now. Perhaps a different future reviewer would feel differently. It also does not imbue me with confidence that I have been casually misgendered. — GhostRiver 17:06, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

GhostRiver, it is quite clear that MB won't be making the improvements (additional sources) that you feel are necessary, so if it doesn't meet the GA criteria now, then go ahead and fail it. No need for this to wait any longer to be concluded. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:47, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Understood. Failing now. Feel free to renominate at a later time. — GhostRiver 15:38, 28 December 2021 (UTC)