Month: October 2017

We Have Data

On By kittycalashIn Living History, making things, Philosophy, Reenacting1 Comment

My assistant misunderstood the exercise, and is disappointed that we will not be turning the government over to him.

Data Cat says it’s clear: Cats Rule.

What is clear is that 501 people from around the world (really: people responded from the US, Canada, Australia, Europe, Great Britain) were interested enough to see what we could find out by asking questions about what, how, and why we make and wear these funny clothes. I’m immensely grateful that Google tools are easy to use, as I can present Graphs Without Tears:

Here’s how that breaks down:
Strongly disagree: 1.8%
Disagree: 0.6 %
Neutral: 3%
Agree: 30.9%
Strongly agree: 63.7%

That is, 94.6% of respondents agree that they try to make the most period-correct clothing they can. The “strongly disagree” folks (9 of them) are interesting to me, because it’s a position that’s foreign to me. (This is why recording your email was an option, so I could clarify the data.)

Next, let’s look at Authenticity:

Here’s how that breaks down:
Strongly disagree: 2.6%
Disagree:.2 %
Neutral:1%
Agree:32.3%
Strongly agree:63.9%

And on the use of Primary Sources:

Yes: 94.4%
No: 5.6 %

When I dug into what sources people use, and consider “primary sources,” I realized I have more questions to ask, and there are some folks who could use some research help. Not handed to them on a plate or in a slideshow, but in terms of process, and in recognizing primary versus secondary sources, and how they can be used together for maximum understanding.

Then I asked, Why is documentation important to you? 

Those responses will also inform another round of questions. Many were very revealing of thought processes and approaches; some made me a little sad. A couple of people said, essentially, I don’t want other reenactors to laugh at me.  I think we can do better than that, right? Let’s try empathy on for size, and be as helpful as we can in guiding people to an understanding of what they want to do, and how best to go about it.

Because the answers varied in length, I started reading them to discern the essence of the response, and I came up with five categories; the sixth slice represents the answers left blank.

Accuracy: 73.4%
Immersion: 11.6%
Learning: 6.1%
Respect (of ancestors, history): 4.0%
Personal (fun; satisfaction): 0.5%
No answer: 4.5%

Accuracy is the main reason documentation matters to people, and they gave good answers for why accuracy mattered.

I want to have the resource itself, rather than someone else’s interpretation of it. If everyone bases their impression off of somebody else, rather than going to the source first, it becomes a game of telephone.

It’s like medical documentation. If it’s not written down, it didn’t happen. There’s enough open source imagery and documents on the internet, let alone physical ones or surviving garments, that there really is no excuse for wild supposition.

Because everything else is unsubstantiated conjecture or hearsay and feels inauthentic to me and to those around me.

Because I use my impression to communicate about history, and history is grounded in factual, accurate information.

Documentation is the truth behind the fiction of a living history impression.

Immersion had interesting answers, too:

I want to accurately portray my impression for the public. As an added bonus, wearing the correct clothing and using period correct items, helps me connect with the people I portray on a personal level.

Because the point of living history (to me) is to recreate the past enough to learn from the visceral experience of *living* it, so it needs to be pretty accurate! Documentation is how I can know if what I’m doing is accurate (or close to accurate).

It tells us a lot about the larger picture of what was going on: trade, manufacturing, diplomacy, economics

Learning:
Because if we’re teaching people history, teaching them something that’s wrong is a disservice and an embarrassment on our part. We have the ability to learn what’s correct.

Researching and documenting my impression is why I am proud to put on my clothes. I enjoy the challenge and detective work that comes before I ever cut into any fabric.

Respect:
We owe it to our ancestors to tell their stories as accurately as possible.

For the class of person I represent, documentation can be very difficult to get at. Some documentation indicates that the garment(s) in question possibly existed, 3 pieces of documentation is ideal, but 2 will sometimes do, depending on my instincts about something. I have regretted only going for two in the past because my intention is generally to represent something very common. Documentation is important because it shows respect for the historical people I am trying to represent, it shows respect for my own work and time and it shows respect to the hobby (which, in historical circles, is often far more important than people give it credit for).

There’s a lot to think about in considering what you all think about, and I am really grateful for your help! As I look at the answers over the next days/weeks, I’ll let you know what else I see, and once I figure out how to ask the next round, there will be more questions! Thanks again! (And if you didn’t get to participate this time, no worries: you can join in next time; the easiest way is to follow the Kitty Calash FB page, but I’ll also post a link here.)

Taking the Census. oil on canvas, 1854. Francis William Edmonds. Gift of Diane, Daniel, and Mathew Wolf, in honor of John K. Howat and Lewis I. Sharp, 2006 2006.457 Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Clear and Present Danger

On By kittycalashIn Living History, personal, Philosophy, Reenacting3 Comments
A Female Philosopher in Extasy at Solving a Problem. London, England; about 1770 Mezzotint and engraving with watercolor on laid paper
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

Scandal and outrage rock the reenacting world as reading comprehension lags and The Gentle Author is accused of presentism– or, at least, that’s the most reasonable translation I have for comments made about me last night on social media, including:

Yeah- she’s got great stuff. But I feel awful that she fell into a modern-think trap.

and, my favorite,

I’d say its a post modern Critical Theory think trap. Frankfort [sic] School is gushing from the pores.

Let’s take this apart, shall we? The Frankfurt School (not this place) was a social and political movement based in Frankfurt am Main in the immediate post-World War I years. After 1933, the school, formally known as the Institute for Social Research, moved to Columbia University in New York city. Being insulted by association with the likes of Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno is a new experience for me; I’m more usually associated with the ideas of Mary Daly and Jacques Derrida but I’ll take backhanded intellectual flattery where I can get it. (Also, thanks for thinking of me, but Kitty does not require your pity.)

More seriously, the postings last night (which happened while I was in class and have been deleted) brought to mind two powerful issues in living history and the reenacting community: Presentism and Feminism (with its unholy shadow, mansplaining).

Let’s go over these:

Presentism: uncritical adherence to present-day attitudes, especially the tendency to interpret past events in terms of modern values and concepts.

Feminism: The radical notion that women are people. the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes.

My recent post about MoAR’s Occupied Philadelphia event was accused of presentism, or “falling into a modern-think trap” and a “Critical Theory trap.” Here’s how that post came about:

Images were posted to Facebook, and I was tagged in one that showed me in the midst of a crowd that included members of the 17th Regiment of Infantry, one of the forces that occupied Philadelphia in 1777. My cousin, ever the wag, commented:

click to enlarge in a new window

“I suppose you hang out with Confederates, too,” had some bite. What surprised me was my well-educated and thoughtful cousin’s facile conflation of Confederates and British. Is the world that easily black-and-white, good-and-bad, Manichaen? Not usually, and certainly not usually to my cousin. Explanations seemed in order. Why had I done what I did, and what did I do? What was Occupied Philadelphia about?*

To me, it offered the chance for some complicated interpretation that’s more readily accessible via living history than by exhibit panel, or at least significantly more engaging than text. How do you elucidate the complexity of the American Revolution? How do you get people to think about the past in the past’s terms? How do you get them to query and interrogate their accepted understandings of history?

Apparently that position towards living history– that it is complicated, worthy of criticism, can be used to create a complicated look at the past, and can be understood through cultural criticism– is deserving of the dog-whistle scorn of men hiding behind false names on social media. It elicits from them suggestions for interpretation that include impressions already being done, and referenced in the original post. It elicits suggestions based on 1811 paintings of Philadelphia, because of course, nothing helps illuminate 1777 Philadelphia like a genre painting made 34 years later.

If anything, I was suggesting that complicated interpretations (that is, showing how an “occupying force” might be “good” for the population) can further an understanding of the past that helps us understand the present. Isn’t that the mission of most history organizations? Understanding the past to illuminate the present and shape the future? It’s unsettling to realize so immediately how people who practice history use it to reinforce the status quo, and use misreadings of interpretation to further their own sense of superiority.

That’s where feminism comes in: suggesting “new” roles for women in living history (Laundry? How ’bout being a Quaker?) on a page dedicated to women’s history is a dizzying feat of sexist thinking. It is particularly delightful given that the Gentle Author and her associate, Our Girl History, are among the people who have suggested new roles for women, and have organized events that included suggested roles, and in fact required them. But please, tell me what to do. Belittle me by association with some of the leading critics of the 20th century. Because when you do, you reveal yourself not only to me, but to others.

Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough. Oil on canvas by Charles Jervas.

As Our Girl History wrote recently, women’s voices in living history are too often silenced in the present by excuse of the past. That anti-feminist approach was on view last night, and continues to be the default setting for many men in living history. It reflects a persistent bias against intelligent, educated women, like the Female Philosopher.  It reflects a persistent position that women should “know their place:”

The greatest sin a woman could commit was to participate in any sort of public life, be it theatre, politics, or social causes – this made her immediately ‘difficult’

–Margaret Perry on “difficult” women in the long 18th century.)

It will not remain a viable position for long.

 

*Brits-as-Nazis is not my origination, but the distillation of a comment made about the dedication of a monument at Guilford courthouse and subsequently reported to me. Despite a commenter’s attempt to attribute the equation to me, it is not mine, as should have been clear from “in certain circles.” Not my circles, not my monkeys.

Occupation as Liberation

On By kittycalashIn Events, History, Living History, Reenacting4 Comments
Philadelphia Ledger, October 10 1777

240 years ago, Philadelphia was occupied by British forces under the command of General Howe; the city was taken after a brutal campaign through the outskirts of the city, as you may recall from a few weeks ago— and this is after the Battle of Princeton, with the accompanying ravages upon the populace. This past weekend, interpreters at the Museum of the American Revolution brought the issues of occupation to life for visitors. But what struck me the most when we got home, was my cousin’s comment on this photo:

Hanging with the British and Citizens of Philadelphia

“I suppose you hang out with Confederates, too.”

Ouch, dude. That’s my partner you’re impugning.

Occupation of town/homes.

I understand that, in certain circles, British troops in North America during the American Revolution are equated with Nazis, and I understand that it’s easy to see the world in Manichaen terms (though my cousin usually does not), with good guys and bad guys. But after watching Ken Burns’ and Lynn Novick’s Vietnam War series, I am reminded how (grossly speaking) “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter,” and while, as an America citizen, the “good” or “righteous” side should default to the Patriot/Whig cause, interpreting the other side offers room for people to question how they would have behaved in the past, and more importantly, to understand the actions of their country in the present.

There is no right answer.

Studying the past allows us to see the present through new eyes: Philadelphia in 1777 is occupied by a colonial power attempting (in part) to retain control of natural resources. Which side will you be on when the moment comes? Will you side with law and order, or will you side with natural freedoms and the rights of man (some exclusion apply; not all rights are right for you, and do not apply to African Americans, women, or American Indians, or non-property owning white men, etc. etc).

240 years later, what is the point of this hobby, these funny clothes, wandering around outside, talking to strangers? The point is that the past is always present. If we can understand the choices people faced in the past, we can understand our own predicaments better, and one hopes, analyze our options to choose better this time. We operate from a place of self-interest, even when we wish we could be idealistic, honorable. From the outside, actions aren’t always what they seem.

On Sunday (though I have found no photos thus far), I was arrested by the 17th for peddling a calico gown stolen from a room on Hamilton’s wharf, and alleged to be part of the Captain’s baggage. I tried to run, but was caught by two soldiers, and dragged away. From the outside, this looked like something bad: soldiers roughing up a woman. But I wasn’t innocent, and that’s the point: what looks like a bad thing may be a good thing. Costumed interpretation liberates us from the exhibit label, and allows us demonstrate a complicated past more quickly than a text panel can be read, and more engagingly.

When we assume that all Americans are “good,” we gloss over realities of people trying to get by when work, food, and money were scarce, and how “good” people do bad things. To play that well, you need both sides of the story. And that, dear cousin, is why I hang out with the Brits.

Living Like a Refugee

On By kittycalashIn Events, History, Living History, personal, Reenacting5 Comments
At the Speaker’s House. Photo by Drunk Tailor.

When I was in middle school, we were given an assignment that is now considered inappropriate: we were asked to trace our family history or genealogy as a way to help understand historical time, stories of immigration, and the ways in which we are all American (according to the then-prevalent “melting pot” model of being American). Exercises like that are now discouraged as educators recognize the myriad ways in which people form families, though in my middle school, what was revealed was not adoptions or absent parents but the yawning chasm of class and privilege. My people are more peasant than princess, so the women I portray in living history make sense to me. They don’t wear silk. They make things, and they sell things.

Walking back from Augustus Lutheran Church, Trappe, PA

Portraying a refugee was a little trickier to wrap my head around. Whiny I can do– if I wasn’t teaching workshops in New Jersey this November, I’d be in 1587 North Carolina pining for England and wondering why I didn’t listen to my mother instead of marrying that head-in-the-sky Virginia colonist. What made being a refugee tricky for me was finding something to do. Obviously I shared in the cooking chores and the walk to Augustus Lutheran Church, but projecting “refugee” was tricky for me.

Looking back, I can see that straggling after a militia company may well have been enough– not wanting to leave their “protection,” not having a place to be, illustrates displacement. Even dressed as a middle-class or lower-middle-class woman, I am out of place sitting on grass or following armed men.

Displacement: I had not previously considered this as a means of provoking informed interpretation. Interpreting lack or absence can be as effective as interpreting presence. “No shoes” or “no musket:” these are easier, more obvious, but as a refugee, I had no home, no place, and no belonging. That seems even more important to understand and interpret today, at least for those of us concerned with making the past present, and the ways we can study the past to understand the present.