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This weekend my family and I had the distinct pleasure to attend a civilian immersion event held at the Genessee Country Village museum in Mumford, NY. For those of you not familiar with the place it is a open air museum village made up of victorian buildings from across New York state, almost all of them having been built before the war. The houses barns and buildings are laid out organically and are interspersed with pastures, gardens and barns. The museum is closed for the winter, so we as reenactors had the entire place to ourselves, free of modern distraction.
Participants were each assigned a house which we were able to fully inhabit. The houses have working fire places or stoves, but no electricity or plumbing and are furnished with antiques or accurate reproductions, and the museum staff has no problem with any of the items being used.
The weekend was dedicated to first person with character bios posted online before the event so we could all get to know each other, and so that we'd all be well acquainted when the event went live on Friday night. The women attended to various period domestic activities through the weekend while the men turned their attention to farm chores including the butchering of turkeys and preparing for the slaughter of hogs.
If you haven't taken the opportunity to do an all civilian event you really ought to. Every soldier was a civilian before and after the war, and you can't understand the war without that context. By living a slice of life from 186X you can really gain valuable insight into many facets of life in and out of the army...and it's just plain fun too. After spending a weekend battling the cold, and the turkeys and the barn yard chores I had a much clearer understanding of just how much work life was in the past, and how important community was to survival.
I can't recommend the experience enough! And by the way, not to be a spoiler, but in our village election: Lincoln won!
Take care,
Tom Craig
Participants were each assigned a house which we were able to fully inhabit. The houses have working fire places or stoves, but no electricity or plumbing and are furnished with antiques or accurate reproductions, and the museum staff has no problem with any of the items being used.
The weekend was dedicated to first person with character bios posted online before the event so we could all get to know each other, and so that we'd all be well acquainted when the event went live on Friday night. The women attended to various period domestic activities through the weekend while the men turned their attention to farm chores including the butchering of turkeys and preparing for the slaughter of hogs.
If you haven't taken the opportunity to do an all civilian event you really ought to. Every soldier was a civilian before and after the war, and you can't understand the war without that context. By living a slice of life from 186X you can really gain valuable insight into many facets of life in and out of the army...and it's just plain fun too. After spending a weekend battling the cold, and the turkeys and the barn yard chores I had a much clearer understanding of just how much work life was in the past, and how important community was to survival.
I can't recommend the experience enough! And by the way, not to be a spoiler, but in our village election: Lincoln won!
Take care,
Tom Craig