the reenactors age

[DonSmithnotTMD]

Re: the reenactors age

Hallo Kameraden!

Hmmmmmm. A difficult concept that.

"Life expectancy" is a strange concept that I believe no two experts and reference books quite agree on. My references come from a number of my college anthropology courses (one of my minors, and internships).
While human "life span" (the length of time a human may live) remains constant (other than in the Bible), anthropologists like to ocme up with what was the "expectancy" one could hope to achieve in years based upon all of the factors of "life" such as food supply and nutrition, living conditions, ease or hardness of life, sickness and health and medicine, etc., etc.

For example, "Neanderthal Europe" it was given as 18. Ancient Egypt, 22. Ancient Rome, 25. Colonial America, 35. The Civil War, 40. The turn of the 20th century, 45. And then soaring after WWI.
Of course, different experts and books vary. And Euro-American "values and ranges" are different than Third World countries.

The problem with "life expectancy" is that it is made up. "Life span" is fairly constant- humans simply do not live to be 150 or 175 or 500 years- and I am slightly behind on the life expectancy for American men and women in 2004- 74 and 76?, or so.
That does not mean that there were no "old" people in 1861-1865, obviously no, but the percentage of the "Senior Citizen" population was much smaller.
That does not mean there were now 120 year olds either. (Just fewer of them.)

A few years ago, I did an "informal" study of grave stones and age at death at an 18th century Irish cemetery. The mean age at death was 43. Granted, it was a local Irish community, but the "mean" was higher than the "35" I learned for the period.

My point would be, even though there is not quite universdal agreement among anthrologists- they still use "life expectancy" as a study tool.
But I would add that the "harshness" of life; amount and quality of diet; presence of disease and disease vectors; lack of medical science (how many die from infectious disease in the USA today) or surgery; level and amount of physical work/drudgery needed to make a living; natural disasters and wars; etc., etc., can all affect how "young or how old" a person looks and functions in any modern or past culture.

So, as I was taught- 40 in general America. (And 3 out of 7 children died before age 5)

Curt-Heinrich Schmidt

and don't forget weirdness -- my g-grandfather died at 65, my grandfather was 84 (he had brothers who made it into their 60s and 70s and one who is still alive at 84) and my father was 60. Hopefully, it skips a generation.

One thing I firmly believe is that working hard seems to have something to do with it, as well as not having crap in your food, but that's another thing.

[TheFenian]

Re: the reenactors age

Curt-Heinrich,

Would you have been by chance referring to "median" age rather than "mean" age?

From what I remember from my statistics studies (lo, these many years ago) are not "mean" and "Average" the same thing?

Bill Eiff

[tinsmith]

Re: the reenactors age

HI,
I have been doing this reenactor thing for 25 years, and I'll give it up when I can't mount a horse any more.

I'm 54

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[sdreenactor]

Re: the reenactors age

im only 13 and ive been in this sence i was 11.....but i live in south dakota so i mostly do early indian war era but also some civil war

Randy Owen

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Muddling the middle of reenactors' ages

Hallo Herr Bill!

Yes, indeed, thanks for the correction (Modland brain lapse at work...).

When speaking of a "middle" score we think of what is the "arithmetic mean" (just "mean," for short). This is what most people also refer to as the "average" of a set of scores. However, a strong case can be made for calling the median "average," too.

Basically, the "median" value is that number which is in the "middle" or a range of numbers- meaning (no pun intended) there is an equal number of numbers above and below that one.

50, 46, 46, 45, 44, 43, 43, 42, 41, 35, 34, 30, 29, 28, 25, 24, 23, 21, 20, 19, 18

Which would we say is the "middle" age: 35 or 36.7?

If you chose 35 as the "middle" age, you picked a statistic known as the median.

If you chose 36.7 as the "middle" age, you picked a statistic known as the mean (in this case, the average).

What I dislike about means/averages is this. If there were just two CW soldiers, and one was 10 foot tall and the other 2 foot tall- the "average" height of a civil war soldier was 6 feet. IF there are wide extremes at either end of the "median," such as large numbers of 10 year olds and large numbers of 90 years olds- it will skew the picture.

Curt-Heinrich Schmidt
Not Responsible For Abacus Failures

[billwatson]

Re: the reenactors age

"Just to be crabby, what does this have to do with much of anything? ;-)"
--Curt


Curt

I think it has to do with how long some of can keep on playing before we spoil it for the other kids. The prospect of archaic reenactors getting about with walkers is kind of a downer. Really slows down the march pace. :-)

I think, upon reflection, I fell into a mainstream fallacy of sorts in my earlier post. While it is quite true that the overall lack of conditioning among history-heavy reenactors allows those of us who are older but in pretty good shape to blend in and keep up, that really doesn't address the question of whether we're accurately depicting history. We're blending in and keeping up with a group of reenactors, after all. Just because overall conditioning isn't accurate doesn't justify other inaccuracies, just as a cooler in the tent is no more acceptable simply by virtue of not being by the campfire. The real issue is, how do we blend in with the depiction of history?

However, whenever I follow that reasoning to its logical conclusion, I am dismayed to find that it means only about 16 fellows ought to take to the field. :-) And that brings me back to the concept that you need to fix everything that's fixable and not let what can't be fixed force you into staying home to mow the lawn.

A statistician probably needs to go over these numbers when they stop adding up, and see if the proportions we've got are, broadly speaking, within the same kind of distribution range as the armies. If not, it's fodder for third-person interpretation when folks ask about average age of Civil War soldiers, average age of reenactors -- which comes up. My first impression is that the reenacting community at this end is much closer to the CW norm than I'd expected. Not on it, of course, but much better represented at the young end.

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: the reenactors age

Hallo Kameraden!

"I think it has to do with how long some of can keep on playing before we spoil it for the other kids. The prospect of archaic reenactors getting about with walkers is kind of a downer. Really slows down the march pace. :-)"

I fully agree.

"War is young men dying, and old men talking. You know this." -Odysseus to Achilles, in TROY

I figure with a little training and practice, that my motorized wheel-chair will speed up our company wheels- and definitely have an advantage over walkers with their yellow-green tennis balls covers.

Seriously, it is unescapingly true, we DO distort and misrepresent history when the Civil War "average age" was say 26 and the CW Community's "average age" is say 40. Granted there were "older men" in service and in the ranks- I was just looking at two sharpshooters (federal and state) in their 50's who lied- taking off roughly 10 years. But, "war" is, and was, a "young man's"
thing...

I believe that the older ages among CW folks is a direct result of a number of things:

1. It is not 1861-1865
2. Uniforms, gear, and firearms are not free as issued at Government expense.
3. The Modern World has 18-24 years side-tracked with finishing high school, developing or trying to develop relationships with significant others, getting a car/clothes/toys, CD's, going to or finishing college, getting a job that pays more than Minimum Wage, getting an apartment, starting a family, starting a career.
4. The Modern World has 18-24 years at a disadvantage when it comes to
income and disposable cash, leisure time, and a desire to study and learn "history" which many ignored or slept through the first time or two around.

IF we could get this "cohort" of 18-24 year olds, uniformed and equipped, trained and drilled to H/A standards so that they COULD make up the 80-some per cent of the ranks men and boys under 24 should occupy- maybe I speak more strongly against "over 40 year olds" creating a new hobby- as one of us suggested- a GAR impression.

However, realizing the "limitations" of the "18 to 24 year old chort," in all things and all ways- I believe the CW Community would be gutted and bled to death if the maximum age was set at 35 or 40, etc. Yes, older men distort the "Purity of the History," but if the choice was no CW Community or a near totally F/M hobby, IMHO, the lesser of two evils is the walkers and wheelchairs. ;-)

I had a kind of TBG comrade who chose as his impressona and persona a CW soldier who was 42, the same age as he. While researching the man, he learned that he was actually 54- which only came out sortly before he died in hospital of intestinal blockage.
Historically, it was "authentic" for my comrade to be "42." For that impression/persona it is hardly wrong. But if everyman in the company was 42, we have skewed history well beyond Believable Image.

Another non-historical "consideration" is, where does the bulk of our CW knowledge and history lie then? What happens if everyone over 35 or 40 must quit- solely on the basis of chronological age (up to a point, "age" is a relative concept and determination)? Where does the bulk of our CW knowledge and history go?

One of the reasons I joked about being crabby and this having much to do with anything was not to put a damper on the historical discussion- but to point out there are, sometimes, "differences" between the CW and Today that we might just not be able to fix. ;-)

Curt-Heinrich Schmidt
Too Old (at 38) But Not Ready To Quit Mess
A Proud Member of the "Resource" Rifles

[hireddutchcutthroat]

Re: the reenactors age

363 Machinists 37.63


Gah! I only have 8.4 years left!

[Dale Beasley]

Re: the reenactors age

You guys between 35-45 help me out. Wonder what was the average age of the Reenactor who fell-out of the Port Gibson 03 Preservation March?

[Smoked]

Re: the reenactors age

I'm 15 now, started when I was 13. From Cananda so I've done a mix of Civil War, Indian Wars and WWII.

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[13thnhv]

Re: the reenactors age

Chronologically, I am 44.
Attitudinally, about 25.
Shoulders up: look 40, think 18.
Midsection: 55.
Waist down: 70.
If I had one wish, (and I think all of you older guys would agree with this), I would want to be about 24 and know what I know now.
And have what I have now.
Been doing CW since I was 30.
Rev War from 27-30.
The thing I most enjoy about my current age is the fact that I can get away with a few more naps than in the past.

[Lone_Rebel87]

Re: the reenactors age

I'm currently 16 but my right knee feels like it's 70 sometimes(torn MCL, LCL and other injuries).

Jordan Davis

[amazingkenneth]

Re: the reenactors age

41 Years old here. I hve been in reenacting for 12 years so far. Wish I was able to get in when I was younger.

Your Servant,
K.J.Reihl

[FootsoreFederal]

Re: the reenactors age

In my impression I'm 20 because no one can believe that I'm 16 in real life. I'll be 17 in September and have been reenacting for four years now.

Zach Whitlow

[Cracker Line]

Re: the reenactors age

I'm 16, started when I was 8 1/2 as a musician working at a local state park. Started doing early colonial (1650-1750) about 3 years ago, but am still doing civil war here in the deep south.

Cheers,
Adam