Re-enactment - the Civil War

[Monk]

Re: Re-enactment - the Civil War

Please don't take this information as though I'm trying to put you down OpenHands. This just happens to be one topic's of interest I have and I was just responding to your question. I don't think of you as ignorant in any way for asking why they would be inclined to re-enact this time period.
People who ask question are never ignorant, only the ones who won't.

[Gobae]

Re: Re-enactment - the Civil War

The other odd question I get is when I'm blacksmithing. For some reason people want to know "if my father did it" or "if my dad taught me". I'm not sure why, but there seems to be some preconceived notion that blacksmithing is an inherited trade.

Other than that, we get the typical questions: "Is that fire real?", "Are you really going to eat that?", etc. (The answers are "yes", and "yes we eat everything we've killed and cooked")

On the one hand I'm very happy to share and teach. But on the other, it really does amaze me how disconnected people are. Not so much disconnected from history (many find it dry and boring and given the way it's taught that's understandable), but disconnected from basic life skills some of which were still common as little as 60-70 years ago.

[Monk]

Re: Re-enactment - the Civil War

^ I also find it mind boggling how a lot of people can't do the most basic things anymore. When we camp (tent) we cook with fire not with all the electrical crap that a lot of people bring with them. When we have power outages it not uncommon for a someone to come over to see why we have lights and they don't . We have oil lamps through out the house for just such instances.

P.S. I was going to comment on your avatar earlier but didn't have the time. you also answered my question as to whether or not you were a smithy. But I see I need to work on my visual skills as well....Duh.

[DanieMarie]

Re: Re-enactment - the Civil War

I sew, and that's a skill most people (at least, most women) used to be able to do that most can't anymore, and same with gardening. Those aside, I know people who can't even cook. Like, not even something easy like homemade quick pasta or stir fry. To me, that's a basic life skill and is on par with not being able to do laundry, but there are a shocking amount of people out there who can't do it.

[Ophidia]

Re: Re-enactment - the Civil War

No, we're not part of the SCA. The SCA is a quasi-Medieval group and the Medieval era happens roughly 800-1200 years after the era we portray. Also the SCA's rules and structure are only loosely based in history. In short, the SCA is not conducive to doing the living history and research of the Iron Age Celts.

You get out of the SCA what you put into it - there are quite a few SCA members who take their personas very seriously and do a lot of in-depth research (although there is quite a gap between the Iron Age & the time period favored by SCAers). I wish the more serious people still had a hand in our local Ren Faire - when it started out in the early 90s, it was like you walked into a whole different world. Now it's mostly shopping opportunities and a chance to look at corseted cleavage.

[thalassa]

Re: Re-enactment - the Civil War

Other than that, we get the typical questions: "Is that fire real?", "Are you really going to eat that?", etc. (The answers are "yes", and "yes we eat everything we've killed and cooked")

lol...sounds like when I'm crocheting---Are you knitting? Is that real yarn?

And when we are on our way to a reenactment in dress--Are you Amish?

On the one hand I'm very happy to share and teach. But on the other, it really does amaze me how disconnected people are. Not so much disconnected from history (many find it dry and boring and given the way it's taught that's understandable), but disconnected from basic life skills some of which were still common as little as 60-70 years ago.

Lol, whats funny is I portray an amateur natural historian, specifically a botanist, of the 19th century. I have a mid-1850's reproduction microscope, plant press, vasculum, Wardian case, etc. Its funny (despite this being the era of Natural History and the heyday of Darwinism) how many people are clueless as to the basic history of science (yes, it *actually* existed back them).

Even worse are the assumptions of women of the time though is Southern Belle a la Scarlett O'Hara--you rarely see a dirt poor farm wife, almost never a slave, and very rarely a prostitute.

[DanieMarie]

Re: Re-enactment - the Civil War

LOL you'd hate me. I'd probably definitely be a Southern Belle if I were to do it. But in all fairness, I've always been more into the "fashion" styles of each era, and that pretty much resonates throughout all of history. Is it excusable if that's just your style? I mean, even in my modern clothes, I rarely wear jeans, and I NEVER wear something like sweatpants in public :P

EDIT: WOW, 7 hours of sleep in 48 hours sure does lots for coherence!

[Gobae]

Re: Re-enactment - the Civil War

lol...sounds like when I'm crocheting---Are you knitting? Is that real yarn?

And when we are on our way to a reenactment in dress--Are you Amish?

Hah! Amish! That's funny.

Even worse are the assumptions of women of the time though is Southern Belle a la Scarlett O'Hara--you rarely see a dirt poor farm wife, almost never a slave, and very rarely a prostitute.

Very true. I went to an ACW Ball once and I thought it would have been awesome to crash the party as a scruffy slave catcher. Can you imagine bursting in with shackles yelling that you've got a writ allowing you to capture runaway slaves?! Not all of history is pleasant and sometimes the public and the re-enactors forget that.

[B. de Corbin]

Re: Re-enactment - the Civil War

...Now it's mostly shopping opportunities and a chance to look at corseted cleavage.

I actually like corseted cleavage...

...and historical accuracy is generally not a big concern to me when regarding them (or maybe "it." Singular or plural?).

[thalassa]

Re: Re-enactment - the Civil War

Very true. I went to an ACW Ball once and I thought it would have been awesome to crash the party as a scruffy slave catcher. Can you imagine bursting in with shackles yelling that you've got a writ allowing you to capture runaway slaves?! Not all of history is pleasant and sometimes the public and the re-enactors forget that.

It really depends on the unit (We actually are lucky in that one of the units here that we reenact with has a black family that portrays a soldier in the US Colored Troops, and his wife and kids portrays an escaped slave family, and she acts as cook/laundress when they are reenacting Union troops, and they portray a slave family with the hubby fighting with the officer of the unit as his personal servant. )...but overall, most people just don't do those impressions...but there are enough people that could probably talk about them.

For example, in addition to my interest in Victorian era natural history, I can talk at some length about 17th and 18th century women's health--STDs (responsible for a HUGE number of "disease" deaths), contraceptive methods, abortion rates ( 1 in 4 or 1 in 5 pregnancies depending on your source) and methods (there were several patents for DIY), marriages because of pregnancy (between 15 and 30% depending on the state)... A woman in our old unit's area of interest was women soldiers, and a female that portrays a male soldier in the hubby's unit knows everything there is to know about 19th century mortuary science. One of the guys in the unit is a surveyor IRL, and has an impressive collection of 19th century surveying equipment that he brings out for his discussion of building fortifications.

[thalassa]

Re: Re-enactment - the Civil War

LOL you'd hate me. I'd probably definitely be a Southern Belle if I were to do it. But in all fairness, I've always been more into the "fashion" styles of each era, and that pretty much resonates throughout all of history. Is it excusable if that's just your style?

You really wouldn't want to be a Southern Belle. The South was an excessively patriarchal society in which upper class white women were not much more than baby-making arm candy. (Yes, there were exceptions, but overall, it is not the way someone with half a brain and the guts to use it would want to have lived)...a good book on Southern women is called Mothers of Invention by Drew Gilpin Faust. Lower class women in the South and Northern and in the "Western" states (the midwest now) had a heck of a lot more freedom, and (for Northern women) education and opportunities for independence.

As far as the clothes go...sewing skill wasn't really about how fancy something was. TBH, I doubt anyone has the sewing skill of your average 19th century woman (or man for that matter). For example (and I think I put this on the old fourm) good quilters in the 17 and 1800's could hand quilt so microscopically that you need magnification to see them (machines certainly can't duplicate it). Really a middle class woman, to do her best to emulate The Fashion of the Day, would need to rely on far superior sewing skills to turn frugality into style. Patterned fabric for example was pricey--the bigger the pattern, the more fabric needed (or the more skill) to piece it together to match the pattern...being able to piece and turn a dress was a highly desired skill. Kids clothing for example, relied on growth tucks and pleats so it could last them for the entire year (or longer). Most women only had one good dress--detachable bodices, removable sleeves, etc to make them convertable for tea dresses and evening dresses and ball gowns was fairly common.

[DanieMarie]

Re: Re-enactment - the Civil War

Yeah i'm aware of that....I do sew and design clothes and learned a lot of fashion history! It's interesting to learn more about the US though...I don't know much about American fashion at the time.

I don't think I'd want to be a southern belle either. The style I like from that time was more typical of New York or London....but really more London. And also, if I were to get involved in re-enactment I doubt I'd be siding with the south!

But also, isn't re-enactment kind of about playing a character? Like a chance to be someone you're not? I think in that respects there's an appeal there, like if you're normally a very self-sufficient, independent person, maybe it could be fun to play a "lady" because that person is so different from who you are.

[Tylluan Penry]

Re: Re-enactment - the Civil War

Would experience of being an Elizabethan musician count? I used to do quite a bit of that when I was young - partlly because my singing voice suited the period apparently (thing? reedy? mouldy? ) I loved it though, and learned a lot about the instruments, ornamentation etc. But my costume? Definitely owed more to fantasy than anything historical. I had been reading a lot of Lord of the Rings at the time....

[Gobae]

Re: Re-enactment - the Civil War

It really depends on the unit (We actually are lucky in that one of the units here that we reenact with has a black family that portrays a soldier in the US Colored Troops, and his wife and kids portrays an escaped slave family, and she acts as cook/laundress when they are reenacting Union troops, and they portray a slave family with the hubby fighting with the officer of the unit as his personal servant. )...but overall, most people just don't do those impressions...but there are enough people that could probably talk about them.

That's really fortunate. Most groups don't portray the common person. In fact the SCA is based on a system where "Everyone is presumed to be minor nobility to start...." Although I can see the allure of portraying someone of a higher station, personally, I love doing hands on stuff. Which may also explain part of the reason I've chosen to show an early era; there's almost no one buy the gear from, you have to make it all yourself.

---------- Post added at 08:58 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:41 AM ----------

But also, isn't re-enactment kind of about playing a character? Like a chance to be someone you're not? I think in that respects there's an appeal there, like if you're normally a very self-sufficient, independent person, maybe it could be fun to play a "lady" because that person is so different from who you are.

Well, there are a couple of types of re-enactment; first-person and third-person. A 1p re-enactor will definitely be playing a character and stay in character while talking with the public, and during the course of an event. A 3p re-enactor may not even have a persona, but instead act as a narrator/interpreter for the event.

I also have a 3rd category that I call "Real Person". It's kind of like 1p, but there's no need to assume a persona because you ARE the persona. In other words, I don't have to actually re-enact a 1p role of a blacksmith because I AM a blacksmith. Because of this the conversations that I'm having about charcoal, metal, bellows, water, what I'm making, etc are a 100% accurate and just like discussions any 200BC Celtic blacksmith would have had.

To answer your second question, personally, I like seeing what my life would be like if I were living 2200 years ago rather than pretending to be someone different. It gives the experience a whole new level of intimacy and accomplishment that I wouldn't get otherwise.

[DanieMarie]

Re: Re-enactment - the Civil War

Yeah I guess I'm just seeing it from my own eyes. As a woman, personally, there's absolutely no other time I'd actually want to live in, so doing re-enactments of any time and place are more interest, research and speculation combined with the fun of being someone I'm not for a short period of time. I could see myself getting pretty absorbed in it though....I used to do acting and it seems from that perspective it would be really fun, as well as a good chance to learn more about history in kind of a direct way. But in the back of my mind I think I'd always still be appreciating the fact that I can go home and have a hot bath under electric lights, check my email and vote lol.