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July 12

Marie Van Brittan Brown

Apparently Marie Van Brittan Brown was presented with an award from the prestigious "National Scientists Committee". There are hundreds of references to support this. However I can find no trace of this body, except in said references.

Does this body or did this body exist?
- If so, what awards did it make? Is there a list I can consult?
- If not:
  1. Was Marie Van Brittan Brown and/or her husband Albert L. Brown given any other award?
  2. How do we explain this in the article. "Numerous references claim ... but there is no trace of such an organisation.^{[Citation needed]}"

All the best: Rich Farmbrough 17:38, 12 July 2024 (UTC).[reply]

Perhaps the awarding organization was the National Safety Council, which issues a variety of awards, such as its "Distinguished Service to Safety Award".^[1] Someone may have made an incorrect guess what the initialism NSC stands for; others copied without checking. --Lambiam 19:27, 12 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. It could be, but I can't find any matches. I had already tried the National Science Board and Foundation. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 13:51, 13 July 2024 (UTC).[reply]

The earliest ref I could find in Google News was dated 7 March 2016. It gives "National Science Committee", a variant that was in the Wikipedia article, but not in its reference. It was introduced to the WP article in this edit, in February 2016. It cites this short article, which is undated, archived by archive.is on 29 April 2016 and by archive.org in January 2016 (It carries "© Copyright, African American Registry, 2000 to 2013" which however looks like a generic sitewide copyright notice).

However another source dated 11 April 2016 here, also mentioning the award, provides sources, namely:

Raymond B. Webster, African American firsts in science & technology, (1999);
The Inventor of the Home Security System: Marie Van Brittan Brown by Think Protection;
Patent: US 3482037 A;
“Brown Interview with the New York Times,” New York Times, December 6, 1969.

It's not in 1 or 3. I can't yet find 2, and I doubt it will be in 4, since this was a short while after the patent was granted. It's not impossible that this author (Rebecca Hill) also consulted Wikipedia, which by then contained the claim.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough 13:51, 13 July 2024 (UTC).[reply]

OK it's the thinkprotection source. Here at archive.org. No visible author or date, but dated March 2016 by the upload directory. Hence postdating the introduction into Wikipedia. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 14:23, 13 July 2024 (UTC).[reply]

A Google search for ["National Scientists Committee" -Brown] does not yield any relevant results, so I recommend removing the statement, clearly incorrect in its present form and as far as we could figure out unfixable. The common origin may be this article, published February 16, 2012, on the website of 107 JAMZ, a radio station based in Lake Charles, Louisiana. --Lambiam 09:19, 14 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]