Talk:Committees of correspondence

Title discussion

This needs ot be moved to Committee of Correspondence Dunc_Harris|☺ 20:54, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

No, because there wasn't just one—the article describes all such committees, and so the capitalization that would be used in referring to a specific one is not appropriate for the title. Postdlf 21:16, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

There WAS a "specific" Committee: the Continental Congressional one (Which was an intelligence committee), so that can go there, and the more general ones can stay here. 68.39.174.39 22:10, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

But the fact is it's a general term by which a series of them were known—they were all intelligence committees and they were all called committees of correspondence, and were probably all designated in capital letters during their time (of course, early American English capitalized seemed to capitalize just about everything in formal writing). But feel free to expand the mention of the Continental Congress committee in this article. Postdlf 02:04, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Article Sources

I came across a page, http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h675.html, that reads remarkably similar to this article. Either that page used this article, or this article used that page. Should it be cited? --Bsdlogical 00:47, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Shadow governments?

Where did the designation of Committees of Correspondence as being "shadow governments" come from? This just stikes me as being incorrect. Certainly in Massachusetts they were quasi-legal institutions whose members were elected by and under the authority of the town meeting. This made them semi-legal; and they often shared members and various protective community actions with the local militia. Did Richard D. Brown use this term? His book seems to be the only citation for several of the introductory sections. I believe the preferred term should be "semi-legal institutions" or something along those lines. More citations would also help. IPBiographer (talk) 02:14, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

The commitee of correspondence proposed merger

• This other article is primarily about the Virginia committee of correspondence. The history of each state's committee of correspondence is different. The article's scope is also greater than just the topic of the committee of correspondence.
• I would propose: The commitee of correspondence article be renamed the Virginia committee of correspondence, the content which is common to all states be merged into the Committee of Correspondence article, that a sub-section be created in the Committee of Correspondence article with a summary, and a link to the main article, of the Virginia committee of correspondence article. BradMajors (talk) 23:03, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

The article Virginia committee of correspondence was entirely plagiarized. After the offending material was removed the article was reduced to a single sentence. I have removed the link to this article since it is of no value at all as a source of information. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 13:28, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Bias?

Why is the word Patriot capitalized? In fact, why is it used at all? Might not a non-US reader question which side should be considered patriotic? Or is it assumed that in an article on US history, bias rules may be disregarded? --Jeepien (talk) 15:38, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

"Patriots" is the usual name of the group involved, as used by RS. Their opponents are called "Loyalists". Bias? no, that follows the dictionaries (like the OED). Rjensen (talk) 04:17, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Most books do not capitalist patriots. For example, the 2013 book Patriots uses lowercase throughout for patriots and loyalists, though it capitalizes "Committee of Correspondence". Dicklyon (talk) 18:14, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Patriots should be lowercase. Tory should be uppercase when referring to the political party. IPBiographer (talk) 01:51, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Proposal to move page to Committee of Correspondence

Or 'Committees of Correspondence'. In the search engines Google and Bing Wikipedia comes in as one of the few who do not capitalize the name. An important part of the American Revolution, these committees took on the role of shadow governments, both within their states and throughout the colonies, and as such served as proper names. An equivalent but different role was served by the Committee of Safety, which is capitalized on Wikipedia. Does anyone object to the capitalization? Thanks. Randy Kryn 14:27

Randy, Bing and Google hits for any generic term will also show up capitalized, because the search engines rank hits in titles and headings, which are typically in title case, above hits in the middle of text. See for example Google search for justice of the peace, where again the wikipedia page shows up lowercase because we use sentence case for titles, while others show up upper case; would you have us capitalize that one, too, in spite of usage in books being about 2/3 lowercase? I've showed you how to get meaningful stats from books. If you want to move this article, you need to follow the directions at WP:RM to open a listed discussion so that people have a chance to notice and weigh in. When you do, present a sensible rationale if you want my support. If you present a bogus rationale like you have done here, I will oppose on that basis. Dicklyon (talk) 17:56, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Firstly, yes, I would capitalize Justice of the Peace. Here's how to get meaningful stats from search engines: go deep. Go deep into them. On your google link for Justice of the Peace I was able to go in 35 pages before it gave out (can you go past where they stop you?), and it seems the overwhelming amount of entries in those 35 pages capitalize. If I wrote it out I'd capitalize it. But it's not one I'm interested in making a fuss over (although someone should on search engine results alone). So let me understand you. You'd oppose this capitalization if I didn't give reasons which you could agree with? That doesn't make sense. It's either you thinking it should be capitalized or not, which has nothing to do with me. I'm just pointing out that here's a page which may be inaccurately named, an important page, and asked you if you agree or not. What do you think, outside of anything I may have offered? I haven't 'gone deep' into the search engine for committee of correspondence, but deep enough to know that its capitalization holds up and is used by many major institutions, historical societies, and even Britannica has this topic capitalized. That's a common name rationale. That's what search engines provide, a look at who on the internet is using lower case and who is using upper case. Even though Wikipedia is a major institution and a search engine giant, having this page in lower-case (or the page Justice of the peace in lower case) hasn't seemed to have a consistent impact on its common name being capitalized. I haven't looked at the references yet, I'll keep poking around this, and maybe open up a formal discussion. This one seems important enough to get it right, and I've thought so for months but never did anything about it. Thanks for the push-by-example. Randy Kryn 2:26 25 January, 2015 (UTC)

Randy, you're just not looking. Consider this page, the very first hit after the wikipedia article. The Google search snippet shows the title with capitalized "Justice of the Peace". But the actual document does not capitalize it; you have to look and see! Dicklyon (talk) 03:44, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Just realized, as I reedited some edits adding this page earlier (I'd capitalized them and went back and have decapitalized), how out-of-sorts they look now. Check out the Samuel Adams template, and notice how weak the entry 'Boston committee of correspondence' looks. That's just yearning to be capitalized. Would that be a proper name, adding a city name to it? Sure looks like it to me. Randy Kryn 3:05 25 January, 2015 (UTC)

That might be the answer. This cited book uses caps for "Boston Committee of Correspondence" but lowercase for "the Assembly's own committee of correspondence" and "a new city committee of correspondence" and "If each colony were to create a committee of correspondence", and "Boston's committee of correspondence". The article title might be more appropriate as the generic common noun, especially as the lead is about the plural. But certainly specific named committees would be capitalized. Dicklyon (talk) 03:54, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll change them back on the templates I added them on. Wanted to get the Samuel Adams template in semi-good shape before the History channel miniseries premiering Sunday night, Sons of Liberty, which I've been looking forward to watching. As for the rest....first comes some rest. Randy Kryn 4:02 25 January, 2015 (UTC)

War of 1812 is Missing

There is no mention of the role of Committees of Correspondence during the War of 1812. IPBiographer (talk) 02:14, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Erroneous links

The list of members of the Virginia Committee of Correspondence includes two people who weren't alive as of March 1773, when the Committee was formed: Robert Carter Nicholas and Dudley Digges. Both appear to be a case of right name/wrong person.

The current link to Robert Carter Nicholas leads to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_C._Nicholas, who was born in 1787. His grandfather, also named Robert Carter Nicholas, was an active Virginia politician at the time. It seems likely that the article simply links to the wrong Robert C. Nicholas, but I have no sources to back that up, so I can only point out that the link is in error.

The current link to Dudley Digges leads to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dudley_Digges, who died in 1639. It seems he was the great-great-grandfather of the Dudley Digges who served in the Virginia House of Burgesses until the American Revolution, but again, I have no sources to positively identify the much later Dudley Digges as one of the members of the Virginia Committee of Correspondence.

OldeMusicke (talk) 06:22, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

The link to the Smith College "Committee of Correspondence" collection from the 1950s has nothing to do with this topic and should be removed. IPBiographer (talk) 01:58, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Daniels Link

The link to <ref>[[#Daniels|Daniels (1986)]], p. 5.</ref> doesn't go anywhere. Was this #Daniels link deleted? I am researching the North Carolina Provincial Congress for an article on it and Joseph Hewes was the member of the committee that was in touch with other colonies at the time of the First Provincial Congress in North Carolina.

User:G._Moore talk 13:17, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Clunky and Unclear Wording

Not sure what this is supposed to mean: "By February 1774, 11 colonies had set up their own committees; of the thirteen colonies that eventually rebelled, only the provinces of North Carolina and Pennsylvania had not." — Preceding unsigned comment added by MainePatriot (talk • contribs) 06:49, 14 January 2024 (UTC)