Talk:Crystal Palace/Draft

Richard Jensen has nominated the version dated 20:08, 4 June 2007 (CDT) of this article for approval. Other editors may also sign to support approval. The History Workgroup is overseeing this approval. Unless this notice is removed, the article will be approved on June 10,2007.

Article Checklist for "Crystal Palace/Draft"

Workgroup category or categories	History Workgroup, Architecture Workgroup [Editors asked to check categories]
Article status	Developed article: complete or nearly so
Underlinked article?	Yes
Basic cleanup done?	Yes
Checklist last edited by	Russell Potter 18:39, 3 June 2007 (CDT)

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Approval area

I have placed the ToApprove template on this article by request from Approvals Manager Nancy Sculerati for History editor Richard Jensen using the Individual Editor rules. --Matt Innis (Talk) 20:16, 4 June 2007 (CDT)

The Crystal Palace lecture

Did you ever heard (or hear of) the famous Crystal Palace lecture by David Owens, a professor at Harvard and my housemaster at Winthrop House? It started out as just one of the lectures in his course on, I guess, Modern English History or some such, then became so famous that it had to be moved to a much larger venue than his usual classroom. Hundreds of outsiders would come to hear it and watch the slide show.... Hayford Peirce 10:59, 3 June 2007 (CDT)

Hi, Hayford. No, I hadn't heard of the David Owens lectures. The CP is an endlessly fascinating topic, though; my first encounter with its historical symoblism was in All That Is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity, by Marshall Berman. Since then, I've collected books and ephemera on the Palace, and visited the site many times. Much of what I plan here will draw from my own Crystal Palace site. Best, Russell Potter 18:39, 3 June 2007 (CDT)

I guess his name was Owen, not Owens. Here's a paragraph from a 1954 Harvard Crimson article about him: "His reputation for humor is at once Owen's greatest asset and a liability which he is most likely to deplore. Like the Hogarth engravings on his office walls, Owen's lectures are liberally sprinkled with bits of historical paraphernalia, each so interesting in itself that it is likely to detract from the whole. The "Crystal Palace" lecture, featuring lantern slides of a once famous Victorian exhibition, along with Owen's barbed asides, is an example. "I'm sorry it has developed into a kind of stunt or parlor trick. It really has a value in depicting the Victorian era," he remarked in justification." It was still going strong in 1964.... Hayford Peirce 19:36, 3 June 2007 (CDT)

The Crystal Palace as anthropological milestone

Great topic. I first learned about the Crystal Palace as an undergrad in anthropological theory class. The prologue of Victorian Anthropology by George Stocking focuses on the palace and its significance as a marker of change in Victorian views of "civilization." I've still got the book, so I'll reread that section and post notes on anything that might add to this article. --Eric Winesett 21:49, 3 June 2007 (CDT)

Eric, delighted to find another Citizen with an interest in the Crystal Palace! The Stocking volume is an excellent one (always glad to hear of a student who didn't sell back a book!). The Berman title I mentioned above also uses the Palace as a kind of metaphor for both Victorian sensibilities and early modernity. Please go ahead and add what seems important -- I have created a section at the end for the cultural significance of the Palace, which may be a likely place to begin. Cheers, Russell Potter 22:54, 3 June 2007 (CDT)

p.s. Would you have a look at my own Crystal Palace site? I cannot, under CZ policy, add a link to my own site on the links pages, but if you or another editor or author deem it worthy, you can add it under "External Links." Thanks, Russell Potter 11:54, 4 June 2007 (CDT)

Style issues

I started doing some copyediting, and quickly realized that adhering to the Chicago Manual of Style would change a lot of capitalization in the article. Chicago style does not capitalize words like park, palace, commissioner, or exhibition when they are not used in a title. So "the Crystal Palace is in Hyde Park," but "the palace is in the park." Then again, this is a British subject, so the rules may be different if we prefer British English. I the standard in British English to capitalize in such a way? --Eric Winesett 22:14, 4 June 2007 (CDT)

Eric, thanks for the note, and your thoughtful and painstaking copyediting here. The thing is, I do not think that CZ as of yet has adopted any particular manual of style, so I think we will have to use a more general set of guidelines for the present, one tailored to overall consistency within articles and between them, keeping the limts of wikicode in mind.

My sense here is that, when referring to a specfic Park (such as Hyde Park), a later reference to either should be to "the Park" (as in "there were concerns about the impact on the Park"). It's the usage I've seen in both US and UK references on the Crystal Palace; perhaps it's because Hyde Park, like Green Park and St. James's Park, is one of the Royal Parks of London, and names not simply a patch of green, but a special type of legal zone. With the Commission and its Commissioners, again, this seems to be regularly capitalized whether or not their full name is given, since it's in essence a shortened form of the body's proper name, "The Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851" (again, maybe Royal entities rank higher in "majuscule" letters!).

But in general, even though it's a UK topic, since I'm a US writer in a US-based encyclopedia, it seems to me that American usage should generally prevail. The one grey area I see is the late reference to the "National Sports Centre" -- which is what it is literally called, and how spelt -- but of course the US standard would call for "National Sports Center."

You should copyedit as you see fit, in any case, so long as the practice is internally consistent; these are just my thoughts. Russell Potter 22:25, 4 June 2007 (CDT)

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Awesome article. Well done, I surely couldn't find much in the way of copyedits, but then again I may have just gotten tied up in the story ;-) Matt Innis (Talk) 22:17, 4 June 2007 (CDT)

Matt, thanks for the feedback! The Crystal Palace has been a lifelong interest, so I've really had fun putting this together! Russell Potter 22:25, 4 June 2007 (CDT)