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Re: Living History as Performance Art
To cut to the chase a bit here....
We derive a false sense of historicity from our faith in documentation. In other words, if we can come up with a piece of paper that says the 15th Ontario Guards wore polka-dot trousers during May of 1863, it gives us a comfort that we've reached some level of authenticity. Unfortunately, it often turns out that what was boilerplate history in one decade is then overturned in the next. While on first reading this might sound like a justification for "anything goes," it's most definitely not. My meaning instead is that documentation is only part of the process for understanding history, and shouldn't be a crutch or an absolution from doing further research.
Worse, too, is the tendency for "documented" standards to become mindlessly repeated in the hobby. My tired example of "no vests in the ranks" is the easiest to cite: someone, somewhere, decided that the rank & file should not be permitted to wear vests at events when in actuality the enlisted men of the period not only liked vests for the comfort and sartorial splendor, but purchased them or asked their kin to send them vests from home. Yet for YEARS EBUFU events had regs stipulating "no vests in the ranks." ?????
While I applaud your suggestion to do more research about topics like slavery and politics of the period, I doubt that soldiers in the ranks talked much about either. Do you sit around with your buds discussing Obama or Palin? Well, maybe you do, Talk Radio has made a light industry of political demagoguery, so that's probably a bad example. More likely if the men debated anything, it would be religion. This is the period of the Third Great Awakening, and religious revival was especially passionate among Southern troops (who had good reason as the war went on to think they would meet their Creator). One of the better first person LHs I've met, Rich Hill, once said we had things backwards these days: we talk of sex, but never mention religion. During the Victorian era, it was the opposite, and folks cared very deeply about various Protestant sects, whereas today most churches are happy when the homeless walk in.
The challenge for doing firper is that much of everyday life from back then has been lost. People didn't write down the commonplace details of their lives, either because they were simply living, or because no one thought to do so. A hundred years from now, will people know what a Post-It is, why we care about "dead zones," or why people were "voted off the island"?
For me, the trick is to learn as much as I can about the period, then the locale. If I'm portraying a soldier from Ohio, what town did he come from? But more to the point is to acquire as much common knowledge of the period. Do you know anything about horses? Even a city man would know a little bit, since horsepower was quite literal. Learn about the names for commonplace items-- matches were "Lucifers," for example. And as with things material, PEC: plain, everyday, common. Don't look for the unusual, keep it simple and low-key.
To cut to the chase a bit here....
We derive a false sense of historicity from our faith in documentation. In other words, if we can come up with a piece of paper that says the 15th Ontario Guards wore polka-dot trousers during May of 1863, it gives us a comfort that we've reached some level of authenticity. Unfortunately, it often turns out that what was boilerplate history in one decade is then overturned in the next. While on first reading this might sound like a justification for "anything goes," it's most definitely not. My meaning instead is that documentation is only part of the process for understanding history, and shouldn't be a crutch or an absolution from doing further research.
Worse, too, is the tendency for "documented" standards to become mindlessly repeated in the hobby. My tired example of "no vests in the ranks" is the easiest to cite: someone, somewhere, decided that the rank & file should not be permitted to wear vests at events when in actuality the enlisted men of the period not only liked vests for the comfort and sartorial splendor, but purchased them or asked their kin to send them vests from home. Yet for YEARS EBUFU events had regs stipulating "no vests in the ranks." ?????
While I applaud your suggestion to do more research about topics like slavery and politics of the period, I doubt that soldiers in the ranks talked much about either. Do you sit around with your buds discussing Obama or Palin? Well, maybe you do, Talk Radio has made a light industry of political demagoguery, so that's probably a bad example. More likely if the men debated anything, it would be religion. This is the period of the Third Great Awakening, and religious revival was especially passionate among Southern troops (who had good reason as the war went on to think they would meet their Creator). One of the better first person LHs I've met, Rich Hill, once said we had things backwards these days: we talk of sex, but never mention religion. During the Victorian era, it was the opposite, and folks cared very deeply about various Protestant sects, whereas today most churches are happy when the homeless walk in.
The challenge for doing firper is that much of everyday life from back then has been lost. People didn't write down the commonplace details of their lives, either because they were simply living, or because no one thought to do so. A hundred years from now, will people know what a Post-It is, why we care about "dead zones," or why people were "voted off the island"?
For me, the trick is to learn as much as I can about the period, then the locale. If I'm portraying a soldier from Ohio, what town did he come from? But more to the point is to acquire as much common knowledge of the period. Do you know anything about horses? Even a city man would know a little bit, since horsepower was quite literal. Learn about the names for commonplace items-- matches were "Lucifers," for example. And as with things material, PEC: plain, everyday, common. Don't look for the unusual, keep it simple and low-key.
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