the reenactors age

[GeraldTodd]

My Goodness

When I started this stuff I was 14 in the summer of '75. Now I'm watching 44 approach.

Figuring one 2 day weekend a month for 30 years is 720 days - I'm 5 events shy of having been in the war for 2 years!! I figure I'll quit when my 3 year enlistment is up. ;)

[johnyreb62]

Re: the reenactors age

Just turned 40, have been reenacting in this great hobby in the midwest for 20 years.

Brad W. Amend

[Pvt.CLC]

Re: the reenactors age

I am 17 and lovin it! :tounge_sm ive been reenacting for almost a year and held the passion ever sence I was about 6...

[Pvt.CLC]

Re: the reenactors age

When I started this stuff I was 14 in the summer of '75. Now I'm watching 44 approach.

wow.....well thats a long time to make 2 years.... :D

[David Lanier]

Re: the reenactors age

I'm fifty-three but have always looked younger than my actual age. I've been re-enacting for eight years.

[hardtack1864]

Re: the reenactors age

I'm 16, been reenacting for just a little over 3 years.

[RN_PAC]

Re: the reenactors age

Okay, I have been seeing this thread on "new posts" for what feels like a month and a half so I'm gonna cave and post on it...of course thereby ensuring that it will stay on "new posts" for another day or so :wink_smil

I'm 31. Started in the hobby in '88 at age 15 and absolutely loved it (despite ensuring that I would end up forsaking a normal adolescence in my case) secondary to a lifelong obcession with the study of the War initiated when I watched that awful miniseries "The Blue and The Gray" when I was eight. However, I fell out of touch (with the hobby but not my study of the War) after '94 because of my career and ultimately going back to school again. I just became active again this year and couldn't be happier; makes me wonder why I didn't try to get back into it sooner. It sure is a whole lot different versus 10 years ago.

Its rather hard to believe that if I had not taken that time off from the hobby that I would have been in it for 16 years now. Holy Christmas....!!

Best regards,
Tom Scoufalos

[hireddutchcutthroat]

Re: the reenactors age

It is interesting that my own 25-30 bracket is one of the lowest. Is it that we are all unemployed or working 60hr work weeks, and or just to busy or broke to reenact? Or is Gen X just to jaded to post?

[Angel of Mercy]

Re: the reenactors age

I'm 17 and have been doing Living History at Fort Delaware for 8 years and reenacting for 7 years.

[modelf85]

Re: the reenactors age

Thirteen years old

[weed]

Re: the reenactors age

The average age of a Civil War soldier vs the average age of the Civil War reenactor/living historian. That is an interesting question. Ben makes a good point that the average age of a Civil War soldier would seem to be older in 1862 than in 1864. Also, the draft, would factor into this on the Northern side. My great grandfater lied about his age to enlist. He gave it as 31 years old when he was actually 43 and he survived the entire war. We must also consider that the Civil War lasted 4 years, while reenacting it, has been around a long time, thus giving the reenactor a longer chance to grow older (without being killed in the process, as a REAL Civil War solder faced all the time). I am 52 years old and have been reenacting (hardcore) for 33 years, thus the opportunity for me to get older in reenacting was there, but in the real war, 4 years older than when I started was as old as I could have gotten. I am fortunate enough to look like my late 30's rather than my real age. I have seen MANY reenactors come and go, for various reasons, over the years. I do like it when I see young members joining. For a "hobby" I am a school teacher in "real life". I see so much apathy towards learning (and history in general) from the students I work with, that the younger reenactors gives me a sence of hope for our future yet!

John M. Wedeward
33d Wisconsin Vol's
"The Raccoon Regiment"

[Army30th]

Re: the reenactors age

I am currently 36, almost ready to turn 37. Began reenacting at the age of 22. When both of my great great grandfathers enlisted, they were 27 and 28, having been born in 1834 and 1835 (not respectively). They both passed at the turn of the 20th Century, 1900 and 1901, thus making them between 65 and 67 depending on when their birthdays fell. Ironically, they could have both been 66 when they died, depending on who died first.

I recreate the "persona" of a young man in his mid-twenties from New Jersey. I was born and raised in NC and both greats fought for the South. (Don't ask)...

William Lee Vanderburg

[Bummer]

Re: the reenactors age

What can I say? I am a centennial veteran. Been doing this since Sept of '62.
But still a hardcore Private sleeping on the ground in my issue blanket and marching with the best of them...and hope to continue for a while yet.

Spence Waldron~

[75th OVI]

Re: the reenactors age

33 yrs old, in for 10. 1/2 of the company is at least 45 or older, most of them former military who run rings around us younger guys!

"For Union & the Constitution"
Tom Criscuolo
75th OVI

https://www.75thovi.com

[dwbishop]

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

Another point to be taken is the mortality rate of infants and children in that time period. When these early deaths are included in the overall numbers, this would lower the "average" life expectancy. It does not give a good indication of your expected life span if you survived childhood, and therefore does not give a accurate impression of age groups within adult society.- dwbishop