I was in the midst of planning yet another maid’s dress (some of us have all the luck) when a friend alerted me to an online discussion that drew from my recent post on baskets. The comments — which I skimmed but twice– made me think about philosophy and intent.
Engraved by John Raphael Smith, 1752–1812, British, A Lady and Her Children Relieving a Cottager, 1784, Mezzotint and line engraving on medium, slightly textured, cream laid paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
There are two approaches to developing a living history persona and appearance I’ll consider here: one prescriptive, and one not. The prescriptive, didactic approach tells you what to wear and carry. Some folks like that. It is completely correct in some cases: soldiers, for example. You want to fall in with a unit of Light Infantry in 1777, it’s generally more convincing if you don’t wear the 1781 coat. Not everyone cares: some people will keep on wearing the Brighty Whitey Hunting Frocks and 1780 coats at reenactments commemorating events of 1776. Those folks can no longer be reached by prescriptive standards, and my preferred approach probably won’t reach them either.
Joshua Cristall, 1768–1847, British, Young Woodcutter, 1818, Watercolor with scraping over graphite on moderately thick, slightly textured, beige wove paper, laid on thick, slightly textured, beige card, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Mindful reenacting or living history sounds pretty nutty, but that’s what I would encourage. Thoughtfulness. Consideration. Not just the what, but the why. Why you wear or carry something can be as important and interesting as what you’re wearing and you’ll be all the more convincing for thinking it through. Thinking, not rationalizing. How appropriate is it to be in your best clothes carrying a basket also used to carry fire wood? You have to answer that for yourself, and if you’re doing it right, the answer will not always be the same– nor will the question!
Print made by James Bretherton, ca. 1730–1806, British, A Maid, 1774, Etching on moderately thick, rough, blued white laid paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
This isn’t the easiest way to go about anything, asking all these questions, but for some of us, the experiences make it worthwhile. You won’t always be able to do, carry, or wear what you want.* But the picture you create of the past will be more accurate and more engaging if you think more and justify less.
Look, I threw down about that floppy bird basket, but I have to provide food to troops this Saturday in Cambridge. What the heck will I carry it in? What will I take my sewing in?**
Probably a wallet and a bag, unless I can pack that floppy basket convincingly– it is entirely suitable to my lower sorts-stained gown impression– but if I can’t, I won’t take it. And that’s just one less thing to carry.
*I’m pretty much always the maid to make scenarios work, and while it doesn’t come naturally, art imitates life.
**Prays no one gets the bright idea to bring (shhh) tents to work on.
This morning, the Twitterz provided me with a link I’d missed back in November, to a piece about the Clash’s Vanilla Tapes. I listened to the cut of London Calling, and heard the ways in which it was not the final cut, and thought of authenticity. What a fabled state of grace: authenticity.
You think, if I just get this one thing right, I’ll be done.
What matters is the process. I know, how tiresome: it’s the journey not the snow leopard. But it’s true: what makes history in any expression fun are the questions, the new things to learn.
Yes, I have always liked to dress up, and to get my friends to join me.
I realized, too, that the joy I felt seeing the Clash at the Aragon ballroom none-of-your-business years ago was not unlike the pleasure I get from living history– and that’s not just because of the funny clothes and loud noises, though both sub-cultures share a taste for natty dressing and unusual music.
I find joy in the physicality of living history*, for although a milliners’ shop is no mosh pit, when your clothes, shoes, and accessories are as right as they can be, you will move and feel differently than you do in your office or workout clothes.
There’s joy for me in the difficulties, too: from Saratoga to cooking, I like a problem to solve, a process to learn.
I’ll never get everything just right: I’ll get closer to right, and the fun is in figuring out how.
Solving romantic troubles is not my forte, but just as your first crush may not be the person you spend your life with, the first living history/reenactment group may not be your last.
Some folks are serial joiners, just as there are people who engage in a series of medium-term relationships: as long as everybody knows what’s going on, things should be fine and no one will be set anyone else’s goldfish free and leave each other twisting in the wind. But some of us want a long-term home in history: what should we consider?
In no particular order, I offer the follow areas to examine:
Communication Style & Frequency
Surprised to discover members of your group at an event you thought they weren’t attending, so you went with someone else? Find yourself alone at an event that people said they were attending, but dropped at the last moment? Just because all life is like middle school, there’s no need to recreate scenes from Gidget in historic clothing: communicate.
Everyone requires different amounts of information, but after considerable time working, I think it’s hard to over-communicate. Folks, if it’s too many emails, hit the delete key. But if you do not get the basics– a list of events and potential attendees, reminders as the event approaches, coordination of food, canvas and powder supplies– and end up powderless and alone at an event, you may want to reconsider your allegiance.
Level of Activity & Engagement
“It’s just event after event after event,” whined the Young Mr last summer, and I hadn’t even made him march to Fort Ti and sleep under a brush arbor. Some people need to mix primitive camping in funny clothes with a few days at the beach, others spend their entire summers living life as old-school as they can. Some perform the classic turn-your-back maneuver described on Peabody’s Lament (pro tip: don’t do that!) while others actively seek opportunities to engage the public. Some like to be in first person, and others are always and only in third person.
How many activities can you fit into your year?
What’s your preference? If you want to try immersive, first-person interpretations, you need a unit that will support that, and opportunities to try it out. And if you want to go out often, you may need some flexibility in time period and activity.
But even beyond the times when you’re dressed in historic clothing and working with the public, you want to be with a group that includes people who are set a variety of RPMs. If you’re all super-intense original garment/gear/methods copying maniacs, you might not be balanced. As a newcomer, you need an environment that mixes challenges and support– like a good kindergarten.
Authenticity Standards
On that super-intense original garment/gear/methods copying theme, if the group doesn’t manage to meet a certain level of authenticity, or is not striving to improve, and to learn and try new things, is that the right group for you? I find that a curious mind is a necessity, one willing to accept that research advances and what we thought was right in the past may be proven wrong.
The other key here is, how does the group help you meet standards? Are there workshops to help you make up kit or improve what you already have? How deep do the standards go: clothing only, or to camp set up? What about how you cook, what you eat, and what you eat it with?
“Furniture”
Are the compromises people make balanced and understood? My family and I ar among the people who go to events in “wearable but not done” clothes, and that’s OK in our world. While we have period shoes, they are not always perfectly correct: the gents wore buckles in 1812 and the Young Mr definitely doesn’t get a second pair of shoes until we know his feet won’t grow larger than they are now….
Interpretation and Imagination
Did you have one, maybe two, really-really best friends in grade school? Did you play dress-up, imaginative games, engage in narrative play? Did you enjoy the school play (and insist on leading the writing of a research-based script)?If you did, you are probably looking for folks who played the way you did as a child.
What kind of interpretation do you prefer?
Good interpretation requires that someone in the group have an active and vivid imagination, and that people are willing to take risks. Interpretation is a risk: will this portrayal of a captain’s death, a washerwoman’s trial, a wayward apprentice’s punishment, actual work? Do we trust each other enough to slip into new roles?
Trust is key: will the other people in the group bail you out if you freeze, encourage you if you run with an idea, and meet you in the same moment? You will have to spend time with people to find out how well you can all play together but, happily, you will quickly learn if you cannot. If your questions about who you are, why you are in a place, and if you should be wearing a 1781 coat at a 1777 event are rebuffed, you may need to consider other options.
As new readers stumble along here, I thought it might be helpful to explain a few things, to explicate the process, if you will.
The Images
The images I post are, wherever possible, linked back to the holding institution or owner. When a full caption appears, chances are good there is a catalog record for the image. If the holding institution doesn’t have a database, or doesn’t have a good way to link to the image, there will be clues to the source in the text or caption. That way, if you want to share an image, you can click it and get the source to share elsewhere. Check Pinterest as well, usually there are even more images than I can fit here.
The Writing
While I conduct research for what I write and for the events I am part of, this is obviously not an academic blog. It’s a personal blog, and a conversation. I think by writing, so my posts tend to be process-oriented and more about questions than answers. The longer I live the less I know, and the more I am comfortable with uncertainty and the search for knowledge and understanding. You may not see the snow leopard. It’s OK. (I do recommend Matthiessen’s book if you haven’t read it.)
Jumping Snow Leopard by Emmanuel Keller
I try to give my sources (sometimes as footnotes, sometimes in the text; this is a blog, I don’t always follow the Chi Man of Style) so that you can verify what I find and reach your own conclusions. Most sources I use can be found on Google Books, or the Internet Archive so that everyone can enjoy the digital surrogates; I also try to link to holding library catalog records where digital sources do not exist. Please forgive me: I am not the greatest proofreader at 5:00 AM when many of these posts are written.
I pad stitch like crap, but it’s getting better.
The Sewing
Talk about your work in progress! I’m still figuring all of this out, and I expect I always will be. Grab your popcorn, I will be doing something stupid any minute now on a garment I need in very short order. Again, what I think is true is that 18th and early 19th century tailors and sempstresses had a vocabulary of stitches, materials, and techniques that they commonly used in a variety of ways. There will be typical constructions and idiosyncratic assemblages. Some garments will be a mix of both. Welcome to idiosyncratic central. This is about the process of figuring things out, gaining knowledge and increasing ability and understanding. I try to understand how I would have sewn in the 18th century, which means not even as well as an 8-year-old would have constructed clothing in 1770.
The Topics
I have my obsessions, you have yours. Historic laundry processes, living history, poor women, cats, museums, art, books, construction, the spectacle of the art and antiques market…you’ll find I jump around. Think of it as a restaurant with a varied tasting menu built around a few key ingredients.
The Attitude
Snotty and snarky? Yes. But because I know some folks read this at work, you are spared my customary in-person profanity despite the mighty effort it takes some days to resist writing like Rebecca Schuman. Especially when I write about the art and antiques market.
Kirsten Hammerstrom 
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