Talk:SS Atlantic (1870)

Contradiction

The disaster section states: "Every member of the crew survived, with a total survivor count of 390 people of the 952 aboard." The trivia section, however, claims that "as the bodies were recovered and prepared for burial, it was discovered that one of the crew members was actually a woman". The second part reads like typical Victorian newspaper blarney to me, but either way, something's fishy. 69.229.127.207 13:58, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Growing up near the area where the Atlantic hit shore and being practically raised on stories of the disaster, I don't recall hearing or reading anything to suggest that the whole crew survived. Then again, an attempt may have been made at the time to distance the crew from the woman dressed up as a crew member, perhaps to underscore that not one woman or girl survived the wreck.

I cleared up the contradiction. Bob Chaulk and Greg Cochkanoff's recent book list seven crew members as confirmed dead with three missing. I also gave a source for the romantic woman dressed as man story.Letterofmarque (talk) 03:39, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 06:15, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Treasure?

The legacy section recently had a subsection added claiming millions in gold bullion that supposedly disappeared. I am extremely dubious about this claim and the cited source which does not include page numbers. This sounds like the maritime equivalent to an urban legend. Can anyone verify this or is there some better sourcing for the claim? -Ad Orientem (talk) 20:30, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

I have deleted this section. I have read a lot on the disaster and have never seen this claim repeated in any reliable source. It is far too sensational of a claim not to be widely repeated if there were any truth to it. The sole cited source is about a salvage tug from the mid twentieth century, long after the wreck of the Atlantic and no page number is given. If someone has a reliable source, feel free to re-add. -Ad Orientem (talk) 13:54, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Linking to the wrong John Speakman

Quartermaster John Speakman led a number of survivors ashore by swimming to nearby rocks, creating a link from the vessel to land.

The above is the caption of the photograph of the Quartermaster John Speakman. However his name is linked to a contemporary British biologist.

I don't feel confident enough to break the link myself so perhaps someone more experienced would do the honors.Cah1954 (talk) 14:20, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

 Good catch and thanks for the heads up. -Ad Orientem (talk) 16:02, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

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Bill is 100% a trans man.

Doing stuff like presenting/being male, going by the name "Bill", and passing as male for the entirety of three entire voyages is NOT something cis women do.

I recommend changing the one paragraph so that male pronouns are used instead. 2601:540:CA02:4000:0:0:0:CDC7 (talk) 18:24, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Your opinion on how a person in 1872 should be described, what they did or didn't do, and why, using terminology and labels that were not coined until the 1990s, is not helpful. Furthermore, most of that para is a quotation from a newspaper (the punctuation has been fiddled with after time and is now faulty, but the original insertion makes it clear that it is a quote-within-a-quote). Davidships (talk) 19:23, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

We don't know much about this person or what motivated their behaviour, so any speculation is just that. Applying modern terminology to someone from the 19th century is a problematic idea tbh. G-13114 (talk) 20:04, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

We do not assign terms like trans, gay etc absent clear statements to that end in reliable secondary sources. -Ad Orientem (talk) 20:09, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

We DO know this person used male pronouns, with the quote from the crew mate showing us this. So we should at LEAST change all the female pronouns to male ones. 2601:540:CA02:4000:D034:446:7A02:5E70 (talk) 00:05, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Ummm... no. Not unless multiple independent reliable secondary sources do so. We do not project our own opinions or interpretations onto people and events. See WP:SYNTH. -Ad Orientem (talk) 00:22, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

As already noted, the current quite logical mixed use of he/she appears to be from a single quotation from the newspaper Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper of 26 Apr 1873 (perhaps that could be checked). I find it difficult to believe that the discovery regarding Bill was not widely reported in the press, and in subsequent sources. - Davidships (talk) 10:03, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

I've found the said article reproduced here. I must admit I haven't seen it reported anywhere else, and I've read quite widely on the disaster. Maybe one tabloidy type newspaper article is a suspect source, I don't know what the reputation of this newspaper was like for factual reporting. G-13114 (talk) 13:03, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Apparently the report was also carried in the Halifax papers (This article refers to the Halifax Morning Chronicle of 5 April 1873, which is probably directly reporting the interview; but I haven't found that on-line (see Wikipedia:List of online newspaper archives#Nova Scotia). I would expect that similar reportage appeared in the CAN/US east coast papers around the same time. Meanwhile, that report did reach the British papers - the earliest I found was in The Globe on 25 April, which I have added as a ref - and it appeared in many others, such as the Manchester Evening News, Dundee Courier and The Globe (London). Davidships (talk) 16:43, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Location of loss

User talk:178.61.144.67 - please do not keep adding material to the infobox that is unsupported by any reference.

There was a rock, now known as "Golden Rule Rock", but that was not what the ship struck. It was a rock that some survivors reached, and from which locals were able to get them ashore. I have added that to the article. Davidships (talk) 18:19, 21 January 2024 (UTC)