Votes For Women

Suffragists at Strawbery Banke 2016

Last year in the month before SBM's first reenactor'stimeline event I was looking at the lineup of military camp after military camp, and at the concentrations of groups by time period and decided the event desperately needed some women's history, especially representing the early 20th century.

As a bit of a lark I put up a Facebook post asking if any of my friends would be up to portraying a few good suffragists to help drum up support for votes for women at the timeline. I got many good responses, some of whom were actually quite serious about coming out on July 2nd, especially if I could supply costuming. A quick conversation with the head of SBM's role players confirmed that she would be happy to help with costumes (we have a 1908 house and a 1919 one) and would like to help with the group itself.

The group that came together was a fabulous mix of feminists, reenactors, and friends. Not every one was a history nerd, not everyone was comfortable portraying history in front of the public, but we all felt it was really important to respect the women who stood up for our rights by reminding museum goers of the struggle less than 100 years ago. In the few weeks before the event I convinced my dad to go through his plywood collection for some sign sized pieces, found some blank banners online, and even roped in one of the SBM summer interns to make up some votes for women ribbons we could pin to our costumes. I frantically painted signs and lettered banners, just enough for a small group of women to be recognized as suffragists.

I saved the orchard next to SBM's 1919 house for our set up, and in the week before the second I dug through my closet and went to the local thrift shops to assemble my own outfit. I was going for 1908 for my outfit. I already had the petticoats & walking skirt, but my early 20th century shirt is a warm flannel one, and my hat is a winter wool one, so a new shirt and hat were in order. Along with organizing a new event, and putting together the suffrage group I unexpectedly spent a week in the hospital just before July. I had no time to make anything, but I had a black straw hat, and found taffeta ribbon at Michaels. I wrapped the entire spool of fluffy white net around the crown of the hat to make it look like a massive (but light and airy) Edwardian hat. Then at a local Portsmouth store I found a white cotton nightgown with the right sort of details and collar. I didn't even bother to shorten the nightgown, just tucked it into the skirts and wore it like a shirt. I knew I would not get to spend a lot of time with the other suffragists, I'd be too busy managing the event. But I really wanted to dress up; and a nice shirtwaist, walking skirt, and straw hat were fine for this working girl.

 

Early on the morning of the 2nd all us suffragists met in the SBM costume storage rooms. Most of the ladies had not met each other before, but they all quickly bonded while getting into new and interesting costumes, and talked modern politics as well as historical. By the time I lead them out to the orchard I knew they'd have have fun and well represent our foremothers. During the day they figured out to let people try on the "votes for women" sandwich board, visitors had a good time taking photos of their friends carrying the signs. The women talked to visitors from our modern perspective about why equal rights are still important today and about the historical fight to vote. From all the feedback I heard only good things about all the conversations they had.

By the end of the day they all agreed to come back next year, and even maybe get together some other times too. We haven't done that yet, but I've got plans. I think the group will be even bigger in 2017, but I'm hoping it will be just as positive and just as much fun. I think I'll have a cool new outfit too.

Percy drives Mama in a Model A. Probably a good idea to keep my eyes closed.

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Variety in Living History

There is no one Living History Experience
Last month we had a lovely variety of LH experiences, and I’ve been reminded again how there is no such thing as a typical reenactment, if you keep your eyes peeled and your mind open.

Medieval Talk Show: A small group of us went to visit a middle school down in Connecticut, where we got to sit down with the kids, and they could ask us anything. Anything! And we would answer in period from our own experiences. How many people get to interview someone from the past? It was also great for us because we never know what they are going to ask, so it is a chance for us to think about parts of daily life we have never thought about before.

Guild Day: A week later we went back to the same school, but this time brought the whole guild, our tents and encampment furnishings, even Percy came for the day. The students divided up into groups and visited each “station” for a few minutes. Kristina and I talked about families living on the march, and the difference between soldier’s life and noble’s life. While we were talking as fast as we possibly could, we looked after both Percy and Lilly, a very well behaved 3 year old, the child of two other guild members. Both kids were looking adorable in their historical clothes, and were close to stealing our show, but in a good way.  It was hot as heck that day, so I brought out a big copper basin and filled it with water, then gave the kids a few bowls and spoons. They splashed happily while Kris and I talked and talked. I wish we had gotten some photos, but I have not seen any yet.

Workshop: The next day everyone assembled at our house for a workshop in chopping wood. Okay, we did only a little splitting firewood, it was more about making tent pegs, and using natural forks to make spits, carving out some wooden mallets, generally playing with twigs and branches. This one was not in costume or in character, but it was so important to me, because it increased my knowledge about stuff that our characters would have known about. Just like today people know the difference between a sedan and a station wagon, folks in most time periods would have known the difference between oak and maple.

Immersive Overnight: From the workshop we climbed into our 16th Century clothes and marched out into the unknown. We spent the night in the woods in back of our house out of sight of civilization and completely in character. We had no modern amenities: the cell phones, flashlights, coolers, everything stayed at the house. Stephen had written up a scenario for us to follow: we were routed after a battle and had met up, us women and a very few of the soldiers, and were looking for a safe place to spend the night before making our way back to the lines in the morning. This was a completely new thing for us, we usually drive in to a site with a car full of stuff (in this case we only took what we could carry) and we usually drop character when the public leaves. It was hot, it was nerve wracking, and Percy was teething, but we made it through and I think we all learned a lot. I would definitely do it again, though probably not the day after an event.

Getting ready for an Immersive Overnight

How to attach stuff to your Frau.

Percy and I get ready to head into the woods.

Armory day: As if there was not enough from the week before, the next Friday we drove out to Western Mass. Percy and I spent Friday visiting a college friend of mine, then on Saturday while Stephen was being a mud beggar at the Mutton and Mead Renaissance Festival we went to Springfield Mass, to the Springfield Armory, a museum run by the National Park Service. They were having an “Armory Day” timeline event and I wanted to check it out sine I am hoping to host one next year. I wore my 1930s denim slacks from Wearing History, and a cute blouse the fits in the first half of the 20th Century. I put my hair in a kerchief, and Percy in a button down and pair of “railroad” overalls. I don’t think we got a single photo of the two of us. We walked around to the different encampments, played in the grass, drank orange soda and ate a hot dog (the Boy Scouts were selling lunch) and were mostly ignored by the reenactors. I got a few ideas of what not to do: call it a timeline of munitions if only the Civil War Guys are firing, hire a dance troupe to “interpret” a certain historical time period; and a few more of what to do: invite the Signal Corps, the 1812 Marine, Boy Scouts.

Renfaire: Sunday found Percy and I washing up in the guild’s encampment at Mutton and Mead. It was a very different experience not being in charge. Stephen was there, but not in camp, he was being paid to be a mud beggar. I was only there on Sunday so I stayed out of the planning. The camp looked different, there was no set schedule, we all did our own things and interacted, I mostly watched Percy and tried not to droop in the massive humidity. I got to spend time with two of our camp’s new members and we all got asked a lot of really good questions. Western Mass is like that: a lot of very intelligent people, many of whom work at the local colleges, or went to those colleges and never left the area. They were happy to get some info, ask follow-up questions, understand the whys and wherefores of life with a marching army. Plus, I got to see a lot of people who used to work the Vermont Renaissance Faire, which is the one where I got my start and where Stephen and I met. So it was old-home day, with all the renfaire trappings, and a chance to dress up and educate the public.


Seriously, a lot of variety of Living History in a short amount of time.








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Not Universally Accessible

We just got some feedback on the Christmas program here at the museum, it is feedback that I have heard before, on an issue that I have struggled with for many years: universal access for those of all levels of mobility. As a historic site, one must travel the roads and paths to get to the historic buildings, all of which are entered by going up stairs. We have retro-fitted some buildings with ramps, but entrances are not the only problems: getting around inside the buildings can be tough, and just getting to the buildings from the visitor center can be a challenge.

The busiest day of this year’s Christmas program was also the most problematic in terms of visitors navigating our site. The weekend before we had received a foot and a half of snow, then on Tuesday we got another 8 inches. All that had been cleared off the paths, but Friday and Saturday were warm and the light mist had been melting the snow all day. Since it was fairly cold, the ground was mostly frozen, forcing the snow melt on to our nicely shoveled paths and either re-freezing in to ice slicks, or mixing with just enough thawed ground to cause massive mud puddles. The grounds were totally a mess. I wore my rubber boots and muddled through, but those visitors who had dressed up in fancy shoes, or had mobility issues were having trouble on the grounds.

What could we do about this particular situation? We were certainly salting and sanding the icy patches, pushing back the snow, but even with a dedicated grounds crew there was not a lot we could do about the mud puddles. The water was not being absorbed into the frozen ground, and in order to soak up all that water we would have needed to invest in a couple tons of sand or gravel, or possibly several industrial vacuum cleaners. Do they make vacuum cleaners that suck up mud puddles?

So short term we could not do anything about the rough walking conditions, but that does not mean we can not improve for the future. So what are some of the long term solutions? The easiest and most cost effective solution to weather conditions on roads is to pave them: wooden walkways, cobblestones, concrete, asphalt. All of these would significantly reduce the mobility issues of our modern visitors. However, we are a historic site and none of those methods of paving can be documented for the time when most of our houses were built, which is the late 1700s early 1800s. At that time the roads were dirt, so that is what we have: dirt. By having piles of snow and mud puddles in December we are giving visitors a taste of winter in times past, and all the limits that go with it.

So yes, a number of elderly visitors and those with mobility issues do have trouble navigating our grounds in bad weather, even if nothing is falling from the sky at the moment that they come through. From a modern perspective that is totally unfair. I think universal access is an incredibly worthy goal and I do try, in my own little way, to work towards universal access for people of all abilities. But I am also a historian and can tell you, folks with disabilities did not really get to enjoy the “good old days.” Aside from the stigma a differently-abled person had to endure, in the time before electricity there were no elevators, no electric wheel chairs; heck, all those muddy paths were dark and even more treacherous before the cheap modern light bulb. What happened when older folks were no longer able to walk all that well? They certainly did not expect to go out with the grandkids to a nine-acre site in the middle of the winter and expect to walk around for several hours. But just because they were excluded in the past does not give us permission to exclude people today. BUT we don’t want to give up on presenting history, that is what we do!

I know there are people out there in the museum world doing wonderful work on universal access, but I have found very little of it on historic settings. If a reader has any insight, please share. I’d love to put more brains to work on this.


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Museum Closing, Doors Opening

A few weeks ago now I heard about a museum closing its doors at the end of the year. Higgins Armory Museum is an incredibly unique institution, its founder collected medieval arms and armour, which he set up in a glass and steel structure on the top a hill in Worcester Massachusetts. When driving on the highway through Worcester you can see the helmet gargoyles on top of the grey building. I have friends who have worked there, studied there, even raised money for the institution. When I lived in Worcester I would go visit, and feel superior because I squired for a group of guys that fought in that stuff so I was familiar with the ways that all the suits of armor fit together. When I was putting together a kid's program on the middle ages I spent quite a bit of time (and money) in their gift shop, which contained all the latest in books for kids on the Middle Ages.

I will have to go visit a few more times before the end of the year and they close their doors, Anyone who wants to make a trip, drop me a line, I'll meet you there.

I am a bit surprised at this turn of events, though I have known for years that they were in financial hardship. They are not the only museum, my classes at Tufts in their Museum Studies Program inevitably bring up the sad state of museums at the moment. All non-profit institutions are feeling it, from education to healthcare. I am not too upset at the fate of Higgins though, because their collection is not being auctioned off, it is not being put into storage, it is going to be integrated into the Worcester Art Museum. So it will continue to be a unique part of Worcester, the quirky little city with the unpronounceable name. If the museum must close, and at this point I think more and more museums are going to face this sad reality, I am glad that Worcester Art is willing to take it on, and I hope they will be strengthened by the addition.

In my opinion, there are too many little museums out there. There are limited resources being put towards history, towards independent learning institutions, and those resources could be used more effectively if consolidated a bit. Maybe I've been brainwashed by corporate America. Maybe social media has dulled my senses, and the culture of suburbanization means I do not value my own community as much as I should, but the reality is that there are a ton of little historical societies and niche establishments out there that are on the brink of economic insolvency. Aren't we sometimes stronger as a team than as individuals?

I would love to see history be valued as a part of American Culture, and I'd love the history of everyday life, and ordinary people be just as well known as the history of wars and heroes. I think this could be a great opportunity for the Worcester Art Museum, I hope WAM and Worcester are able to take advantage of it.

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Conquered 38 Times

How does one explain the history of a place that goes back 6,000 years?

over the rooftops of Jerusalem's Old City

One of the things I noticed during our day in Jerusalem’s Old City is that there are as many different ways to tell the story, the history of Jerusalem as there are people, or perhaps even more than that. You’ve probably heard the joke about the group of 5 Jews (or scholars, or whatever) where you will find 6 opinions. The same can be said for teaching or storytelling methods, and in one day in Jerusalem’s Old City we experienced quite a variety of ways to tell the story of Jerusalem.

We hired a guide to the Old City and met her early in the morning. She got out some maps and a whiteboard and explained the story of the city in terms of geography. Then several hours later while sipping tea outside a teashop she explained the story with her arm span as a timeline, her elbows and shoulders were the major shifts and the life of Jesus was her left ear. After she left us we toured an old stone fortress and watched the introductory video (which happened to be the story of Jerusalem) then toured the exhibit halls (the story as told by objects.) and later than night came back for a laser and light show (yet another version of the story of Jerusalem.) Before our arrival I had read up on the story in guidebooks and magazines, and when we got home we got to tell our friends and families our own version of the story.

Jerusalem is a complex place, full of diverse people. Maybe more complex than the history of the US or most other places we might visit, but I think the lessons apply. Be on the lookout for other versions of the story, other ways to tell a tale or teach a lesson. Even if you think you know the story, you never know what new details might stick.

Model of Jerusalem during the time of the Second Temple at the Israel Museum

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Recruitment

I have heard through the grapevine that many Civil War reenactment groups are having trouble recruiting new members. I have rather written off thier complaints as aging groups having trouble attracting a younger croud, but Das Geld Fahnlein is not growing like it needs to. And now I'm getting worried.

Our initial recruitment was a group of five friends getting together and talking about the fact that we still wanted to participte in the Renaissance Faire, but we were much more interested in the history than the entertainment, and wouldn't it be fun to start our own group? Once the planning was underway we notified all our friends, and asked the faire to put the word out along thier communication channels. Our first year group was just fantastic. Everyone was enthousiastic, fun, more than a little quirky and our first year was a rousing success. Last year most of the recruitment that happened were friends of friends. A current member would convice a friend to come to a workshop and they'd be hooked.

This year, we have not had as much luck with friends of friends, and although we have had some interested folks we've met at events or who have found our web page, none of them have stuck around for more than a single workshop. Now I'm wondering if we're too intimidating? Everyone says we look so good that they will have to wait to join us until they are up to our standards. But really, we're a relatively new group, and would rather loan people the gear they need, and steer them towards the best research materials, and have them join in as soon as possible and not three years from now.

Is it the economy? This is definitely not a cheap hobby. A few of my friends have asked how much it costs to make an outfit in order to join and the answer is around $300 if you shop around and do a lot of it yourself, but not much cheaper unless you are an incredible bargain hunter.

Do we need to do market research? Should we poll all the folks we know to see why they are not rushing to join the guild? Stephen and I ask all the LH folks we know about recruitment and we're getting the picture that maybe it is just a slow sort of thing. Maybe there are not more reenactors because it really is a very small proportion of the population that is interested in taking part.

We have so much fun though, I am hoping we can get more people to join so I have more cool friends to hang out with.
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When Myth, Fact and the Average Citizen Collide

When I heard the news about Sarah Palin getting her facts wrong about Paul Revere I heard it first from a history blog. Since I don’t watch TV, I missed most of the major hype, and read about the scandal at a much more sedate pace. It struck me even in that first reading, that while the whole story she was telling was not accurate, there were bits of fact, and bits of myth mixed up together in a way that fit into her own narrative, and it struck me that she is not all that different from the normal tourists who get the tour, and that maybe it was partially the fault of the tour guide.

The person who gave the tour, Vicar Stephen T. Ayres, has since responded here and I was right about the Palin entourage being very similar to the average tourist, “They didn't strike me as very different from the 500,000 other visitors we see each year” and even the vicar himself wonders,   “Perhaps it was too much information in too short a period of time to digest properly.”

The average citizen/tourist gets their history from a variety of sources: schooling when they are young, stories they heard growing up, media portrayals (books, news, event cartoons) and, if we are lucky, visits to historic sites where they hear from trained tour guides or enthusiastic volunteers. But the average person can only absorb so much information at a time. Add to that the fact that while that information is being absorbed, it is being processed into what the person already knows, it is being fit into a larger narrative constructed over a lifetime. When talking to the public in Living History settings I often worry about how much of what I am saying will be heard the way I mean it to be heard.

What can we do about this? Those of us who want to educate the public, and hope to better people’s understanding of life in different times and places? We can keep our narratives simple, we can mention the myths and the well known facts, and most importantly (in my opinion) we can ask questions. While most folks might be embarrassed to be asked to give a history lesson before we start our own, we can ask specific questions, ask what the visitors are interested in, ask for their own list of facts, then we can fit our talk in around those points, and into their current narrative, into the vocab words they have absorbed at various points in their lives. Hopefully in the process we will improve the accuracy and deepen the understanding of everyone we talk to.

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Breaking News: People are Human

A few days ago on the way home from work I was (as usual) listening to NPR. They were playing an interview with an Egyptian protester who is visiting the US and right at the end the host, Michelle Norris asked if he had learned anything during his time in New York that he will take back to Egypt. And this is how he answered:
"Well, I - and this was a very short time. I'm leaving on Wednesday, so I haven't had much time to get any insight. But I was in New York last month, actually when Osama bin Laden was assassinated. And I got a very deep insight because if I was in Egypt while this was happening and I opened the news, and I saw, you know, Americans dancing, celebrating this death and like this feeling the news all the time, so I would have been really annoyed.
But I was here in New York, and I realized there are these other people who were, you know, hit by the terrorist attack that this guy caused, and they weren't actually celebrating the death. Media was overblowing it completely.
People were going about their lives. And there many that didn't feel it was that significant. They feel that, you know, there's a lost sense of justice, people I talked to in the streets and so on. And so I don't know how to say that the insight was that the Americans are, you know, more human than the image we have of them, or New Yorkers at least."


Whole transcript here.

That last bit at the end struck me. The insight he came away with was that New Yorkers are human too. They have their daily lives, their worries, their mixed feelings, the same as people in Egypt.

When we set up our encampment at public venues, when we dress up go into schools, when we strike up conversations with ordinary folks, one of the things we are trying to do is show modern folks that the people back then, though living different lives, were human too. As Hanne I occasionally complain about life on the road with my husband the soldier, about the weather or the cookfire etc. because I am not only teaching facts about Hanne’s life, I am trying to get across that she is human and far from perfect, but possibly a bit easier to connect with (‘cause who doesn’t complain about the weather?)

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Hitting the Wall

Our house is draped in canvas right now.  It rained on the Sunday of our last reenacting weekend of the season, so we had to pack up all the tents wet. In fact, we transported all of the tents back to our house, because Stephen and I had the only vehicle that could accommodate all the tents and poles, so even the ones that are owned by other people ended up at our house. Wet canvas is subject to mildew and mold which can completely ruin a tent, so as soon as it stopped raining (almost a week after we packed them up) Stephen took all the tents back out and laid them all over our yard. In the evening when I’d look up the hill they’d look positively ghostly, their indistinct forms were so amazingly white against the greys and blacks of twilight. Once the tents were on the lawn it rained at least a little every other day, and it is cold enough at night that there is frost. The things just were not drying. When we heard the weather report threaten snow on Sunday night Stephen and I dragged all the canvas inside: 1 large wedge tent, 1 dining fly, 2 pavillion roofs, 2 very long walls and 4 shorter walls. The ground cloths and rugs are still out on the lawn. We draped tents in the garage (one over the band saw and workbench, one over the motorcycles), one in the guest bedroom, one in the sewing room, one in the den, one in the upstairs office, one over the bannister, 3 in the downstairs bathroom. Stephen has already put out the word that next year the only tents coming home with us will either belong to us or to the guild, but not to any individuals; unless those individuals are willing to pay rent, prices not negotiable.

The canvas is such an apt image of the way I feel about reenacting right now. It is the end of the season and I am exhausted by all the reenacting, though we still have cleanup to do and podcasts to record, and blog entries to write, not to mention all the projects that I started during the season and never managed to finish!

In fact, we skipped our last event of the year. After 5 weekends of faire we were going to spend last weekend in the Pocconos with other people who reenact the same time that we do. But by the middle of last week two of the folks going on the trip had bailed out, and we were burnt out and not recovered from Faire. The thought of unpacking and re-packing just to un-pack again was heartbreaking, and the thought of camping in temperatures that were threatening below freezing had me really scared. We tendered our regrets, and I’ve felt relieved and guilty ever since. I still think it was the right decision, but it is really too bad we missed the chance to hang out and network with other folks who are interested in the same stuff we’re interested in!

A few weekends ago I did a bunch of interviews at a Colonial event for the Podcast and I asked one of the folks who agreed to talk to me if he was involved in other reenacting groups. He told me that he was, that he probably was involved in too many groups, that he participated in too many events, and had probably taken the hobby too far. It struck me that that is totally an end-of-the-season sort of answer. That I’m not the only one looking back and wishing I’d had a few more days at home, that I’m not the only one who is tired, and looking forward to a slow-down if not an absolute break.

During the last few weeks of faire, Stephen valiantly carried on the podcast without me. I was tired and the thought of talking for a half an hour or more about Living History on top of doing it every weekend (and our normal jobs and lives on top of that) was just too much for me. When faire ended even Stephen seemed reluctant to head up to the “studio” and talk about Living History. We both love it, but I think we’ve hit a wall.

Don’t worry, all you listeners, all you blog readers, this is only temporary. Already I’m planning all the projects to do over the slower months. We’ve got spring events marked in our calendars. We’re putting together some new workshops and discussions to have at Reenactorfest in February. Tonight I am glad that reenacting follows the earth cycles. It may seem like we’ve slowed down for a bit, but we’ve just got to do a little re-charging. We’ll do a little historical research, read some books, maybe sleep in. And we’ll get through the winter, then emerge in the spring ready to jump back in to history with both feet.

At some point we’ll probably even fold up all those tents.

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First Person Blogs

Some blog entries are easy to write. Others, for no particular reason, I agonize over and the writing just comes out all stilted and weird. This is one of those posts. I am determined to put it up though! So here goes:

Among all my blog searches, rss feeds, and quest for all things Living History related on the internet I come across some beauties every once in a while. Today I want to tell you about blogs from the first person perspective. Yup, blogs written as if they were in a different time, far removed from our own. There are basically two different styles these blogs can take: actual historical text, just digitized in blog form; or reenactors and modern folks writing as if they were a historical character.

Historical texts

Every day I learn about more and more primary source material that is being digitized and made available on the web. Most of these are in archives or library collections, but some of them --particularly those that were written as diary entries in the first place-- are put up bit by bit, blog-style. A blog that I have been enjoying written by "Two Nerdy History Girls" had a post that contains a good list to be starting with here check the comments of this post  too, tons more are mentioned.

Modern Interpretations

There are a few reenactors out there that are writing blogs from the perspective of the persona they are portraying. My favorite is this colonial impression and this later impression, of a doctor both done by the same individual. He wavers between totally history based posts, and some the wink at the current era, but I find he does a great job balancing both.

There are a few blogs that I’m not sure if the writers are reenactors, or what their relationship is to the history they are writing about this Mozart blog is a bit of a mystery to me, but still fascinating. A now solved mystery is about the author of Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog in fact, there was so much mystery and hype about that blog, that a bunch of medieval scholars have written a book about it! I have not yet read the book, but it is on my Amazon wish list!

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Making Judgements, Part 1: A Warning

It is part of human nature that we look at the world around us and judge the other people we come into contact with. We categorize, we stereotype, we rate based on our own series of merits. Over at the Living History Podcast Stephen and I are trying really hard to be inclusive, using the broadest definitions and giving air time to as many different voices as we can. Doing that feels good. It makes me believe that there might be a chance to form a community, that there are tons of other people out there that share the same things that I do. But we’re not all the same, and that is ok too.

But what if we want to categorize? There must be some judging we can do? Well, I do tend to make judgments about the other LH groups and individuals that I come into contact with, though I try to not make quick decisions based on a single meeting, and I try to take into account what the group is trying to accomplish, and not just my own criterion. But there, I’ve admitted it, I do judge.

Now I’m sure all my readers are on the edges of their computer chairs (or couches or whatever) to find out what my own judging criterion is… well, it is twofold: based on my own criterion for myself and the stuff I’ve learned working in the non-profit world, and is accompanied by a warning about hypocrisy. I’m sorry, I’m going to make you wait for later entries to hear about my judging criterion, I thought they deserved their own entries. Besides, I think the warning about hypocrisy might be more important.


The novel Diamond Age by Neal Stevenson may be one of my “must read” books. It is a good story, told well, that tackles some big topics like self-governance, education, and the control of technology. One of my favorite passages is about how, in a permissive age where everyone is allowed to name their own morals, the biggest sin is hypocrisy. If you say you are the most moral, then people will hold you to it. If you say you have no morals, but then it turns out you do, hypocrisy raises its ugly head and other people get to judge you on it. (It was much better said in Diamond age, I just don’t happen to have a copy on me right now.) It all goes back to the fact that we love to judge other people, and will do so based on what they profess themselves if we have no other means by which to do so. But running around calling other people hypocrites mostly reflects badly on the one doing the yelling as much as it does upon the person being judged. I take that very much to heart.

Part 2: How Museums Do It, Part 3: My Criterion.

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A New Venture: Living History Podcast

I really was not staying busy enough with my regular job, new house, and all the reenactments that I've been doing lately. So Stephen and I decided to launch a new venture we are now producing a podcast called: Living History, the Podcast for the Reenacting Community. We've got a couple of episodes up already at:

http://livinghistorypodcast.com/

We'll try to do weekly shows on all sorts of living history related topics like: interacting with the public, event survival 101, public perception of reenactors, interviews with all sorts of reenactors, history professionals, and more!

We really hope this podcast is going to be a dialogue between many different areas of the reenacting community, because we are a diverse body engaged in so many different aspects of history. We hope folks will contribute topic ideas, disagreements, new perspectives, anything at all relating to Living History, which is a wide category.

Please listen, then if you would not mind giving us a rating and review on iTunes we would appreciate it!
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Tweed Ride - Fun with History!

While listening to NPR the other day I heard this story about people having fun with history. The story is about a group of bicyclists that took part in a “tweed ride” in Washington D.C. Participants dressed up in various costumes composed of tweeds, plaids, argyles and more. Apparently the trend started in London and has spread to quite a few US cities. My brother took part in the one in Boston this fall.

The thing that I like most about the photos I’ve seen and the stories I’ve heard is the moustaches. Real ones and fake ones, moustaches on men and women! One can not take ones self too seriously while sporting a fake moustache. Sometimes I get bogged down in being historically accurate, or in trying to be super educational, it is good to remind myself that history is fun. It is also good to remind the rest of the world beyond us history geeks that history is fun too! It is not all bloody battles and it does not have to be dusty and booring. Sometimes it sports quite a dapper ‘stash!

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Tall Ships

Over the summer I begged Stephen to go to Sail Boston to see the tall ships. I’d never been to Boston to see them, though Sail Boston is a regularly occurring event. I’ve been to the Mayflower II, and Mystic Seaport. I’ve even seen tall ships sail into Portsmouth harbor up the Piscataqua river. I don’t like to pass up any opportunity to witness living history, and the tall ships most certainly are living history.

Stephen and I made it to one of the piers where some of the tall ships had docked, and we immediately noticed that though all these ship were indeed tall (being powered at least in part by sails, hence the need for tall masts) most of the vessels we saw were steel. This was slightly disappointing (wood is so much cooler) but not a historical inaccuracy. Ship construction progressed to partial (and almost total) steel construction long before the steam engine reduced the need for masts.

We only got to go on one ship, the Cisne Branco a Brazilian naval vessel that had been built in the late 1990s. Like most of the tall ships, the one we were on was a reenactment of an earlier style, an earlier technology. But this was not an educational vessel like the Mayflower II, not a vessel recreated for a movie like the Amistad, not even purposed for a training vessel like many of the US Navy’s tall ships (though there is some training that happens on the vessel.) The sign that we read shortly after stepping on the vessel said that the ship wais mainly used for ambassadorial purposes. The ship sails around the world representing Brazil.

As I read the sign I was struck by the fact that historical reenacting is often used for ambassadorial purposes, even if most of the reenactors I know don’t use it that way. Hula dances for visiting dignitaries, traditional recipes served at church fairs, performances of historical moments have been recreated to introduce the important bits of one culture to those of a different culture.

In fact, reenactments often serve nationalistic as well as ambassadorial goals, but that is a different blog entry.

Do you know of any instances of reenactment being used for ambassadorial purposes? Please leave a comment!

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In-Class Visits a "Poor" Substitute

Recently the Boston Globe wrote an article about how high gas prices and economic downturns are affecting field trips. Needless to say, field trips are on the decline, kids are stuck in their classrooms and museums are feeling the pinch. The article briefly mentions an alternative, that I think gets short shrift and deserves a little more attention.

In-class visits, are on the rise at Old Sturbridge Village according to the Boston Globe, and that is good news for Autumn Tree Productions and other groups that may not have a physical location, but provide an interactive history experience for school groups.

How does an In-school visit differ from a field trip? Well the obvious one is that the kids never leave the building. In relation to history classes, it means usually a visit from a costumed character talking about life in their own time period. Often they bring props for the students to handle, and give demonstrations of the way things were done. Many museums offer in-class services, Plimoth Plantation has different programs for different age groups, Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester, Mass will bring swords and armor into the classroom, even science museums like the Museum of Science in Boston, Mass have programs. There are also groups not affiliated with a museum who do in-class visits, local reenactment groups will often come to visit, though the risk with amateur groups is in accuracy and appropriateness of material presented. There are a great number of unaffiliated people presenting specific historical characters or time periods that will visit a school for a reasonable fee.

Of course something is lost when the student can not see the architecture, walk the grounds, and experience all that a museum has to offer. There is no doubt that a field trip can be more immersive and very stimulating. However a class visit can be very personal, and geared towards the specific audience, and covering very specific topics that a teacher or student may ask about whereas it can be hard for a teacher to guarantee that in the rush of the field trip, their students are actually absorbing the facts and lessons that the teacher had in mind when she let her class loose in the museum galleries or historic house. When the students get to have a back and forth discussion with a medieval monk who is sitting there in front of them, it is much easier to maintain focus on life in the monastery than it is when the kids travel through an exhibit at their own pace and in their own order.

Another advantage can be timing. Is your local museum putting up a spring exhibit on local involvement in the civil war while the classroom schedule covers that unit in the fall? Is the particular day that your class can get free already booked up at the museum? A visit to the classroom often is easier to schedule around a class’ needs than an entire exhibit installation is.

Teachers, please do not be discouraged by the high price of buses, and the inconvenience of disrupting an entire day’s routine. There are a lot of us out there working tirelessly to bring to your school a taste of the past that will spark your students’ appetite for history!

Photos of Autumn Tree Productions offerings at schools in Newington, CT. Photos by Alena Shumway. Read this entry on entry page