Living history
Encyclopedia
Historical reenactment
Historical reenactment is an educational activity in which participants attempt torecreate some aspects of a historical event or period. This may be as narrow as a specific moment from a battle, such as the reenactment of Pickett's Charge at the Great Reunion of 1913, or as broad as an entire...
. Living history is an educational medium used by living history museums
Open air museum
An open-air museum is a distinct type of museum exhibiting its collections out-of-doors. The first open-air museums were established in Scandinavia towards the end of the nineteenth century, and the concept soon spread throughout Europe and North America. Open-air museums are variously known as...
, historic site
Historic site
A historic site is an official location where pieces of political, military or social history have been preserved. Historic sites are usually protected by law, and many have recognized with the official national historic site status...
s, heritage interpreters
Heritage interpretation
Heritage interpretation is the communication of information about, or the explanation of, the nature, origin, and purpose of historical, natural, or cultural resources, objects, sites and phenomena using personal or non-personal methods....
, schools and historical reenactment groups to educate the public in particular areas of history, such as clothing styles, pastimes and handicrafts, or to simply convey a sense of the everyday life of a certain period in history.
Activities
Activities may be confined to wearing period dress and perhaps explaining relevant historical information, either in role (also called first-person interpretation) or out of character (also called third-person interpretation). While many museums allow their staff to move in and out of character to better answer visitor questions, some encourage their staff to stay in role at all times.Living history portrayal often involves demonstrating everyday activities such as cooking, cleaning, medical care, or particular skills and handicrafts. Depending on the historical period portrayed, these might include spinning
Spinning (textiles)
Spinning is a major industry. It is part of the textile manufacturing process where three types of fibre are converted into yarn, then fabric, then textiles. The textiles are then fabricated into clothes or other artifacts. There are three industrial processes available to spin yarn, and a...
, sewing
Sewing
Sewing is the craft of fastening or attaching objects using stitches made with a needle and thread. Sewing is one of the oldest of the textile arts, arising in the Paleolithic era...
, loom
Loom
A loom is a device used to weave cloth. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the warp threads under tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads...
weaving
Weaving
Weaving is a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. The other methods are knitting, lace making and felting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling...
, tablet weaving
Tablet weaving
Tablet Weaving is a weaving technique where tablets or cards are used to create the shed through which the weft is passed. The technique is limited to narrow work such as belts, straps, or garment trim....
, inkle weaving
Inkle weaving
Inkle weaving is a type of warp-faced weaving where the shed is created by manually raising or lowering the warp yarns, some of which are held in place by fixed heddles on a loom known as an inkle loom. Inkle weaving was referred to in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost. It was brought to the...
or tapestry
Tapestry
Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven on a vertical loom, however it can also be woven on a floor loom as well. It is composed of two sets of interlaced threads, those running parallel to the length and those parallel to the width ; the warp threads are set up under tension on a...
weaving, cloth dyeing
Dyeing
Dyeing is the process of adding color to textile products like fibers, yarns, and fabrics. Dyeing is normally done in a special solution containing dyes and particular chemical material. After dyeing, dye molecules have uncut Chemical bond with fiber molecules. The temperature and time controlling...
, basket weaving
Basket weaving
Basket weaving is the process of weaving unspun vegetable fibres into a basket or other similar form. People and artists who weave baskets are called basketmakers and basket weavers.Basketry is made from a variety of fibrous or pliable materials•anything that will bend and form a shape...
, rope
Rope
A rope is a length of fibres, twisted or braided together to improve strength for pulling and connecting. It has tensile strength but is too flexible to provide compressive strength...
making, leather-working
Leather crafting
Leather crafting or simply Leathercraft is the practice of making leather into craft objects or works of art, using shaping techniques, coloring techniques or both.-Dyeing:...
, shoemaking
Shoemaking
Shoemaking is the process of making footwear. Originally, shoes were made one at a time by hand. Traditional handicraft shoemaking has now been largely superseded in volume of shoes produced by industrial mass production of footwear, but not necessarily in quality, attention to detail, or...
, metalworking
Metalworking
Metalworking is the process of working with metals to create individual parts, assemblies, or large scale structures. The term covers a wide range of work from large ships and bridges to precise engine parts and delicate jewelry. It therefore includes a correspondingly wide range of skills,...
, glassblowing
Glassblowing
Glassblowing is a glassforming technique that involves inflating molten glass into a bubble, or parison, with the aid of a blowpipe, or blow tube...
, woodworking
Woodworking
Woodworking is the process of building, making or carving something using wood.-History:Along with stone, mud, and animal parts, wood was one of the first materials worked by early humans. Microwear analysis of the Mousterian stone tools used by the Neanderthals show that many were used to work wood...
or other crafts. Considerable research is often applied to identifying authentic techniques and often recreating replica tools and equipment.
Presentation
Historical reenactment groups often attempt to organize such displays in an encampmentCampsite
A campsite or camping pitch is a place used for overnight stay in the outdoors. In British English a campsite is an area, usually divided into a number of pitches, where people can camp overnight using tents or camper vans or caravans; this British English use of the word is synonymous with the...
or display area at an event, and have a separate area for combat reenactment
Combat reenactment
Combat reenactment is a side of historical reenactment which aims to depict historical forms of combat. This may refer to either single combat, melees involving small groups, or nearly full-scale battles with hundreds of participants....
activities. While some such exhibits may be conducted in character as a representation of typical everyday life, others are specifically organized to inform the public and so might include an emphasis on handicrafts or other day-to-day activities, which are convenient to stage and interesting to watch, and may be explained out of character. During the 1990s, reenactment groups, primarily American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
groups, began to show interest in this style of interpretation and began using it at their reenactments.
Living history in education
Many factors contribute to creating a setting in which visitors to living history sites can become active participants in their historical education. Two of the most important are the material culture and the interpreters. Material culture both grounds the audience in the time and place being portrayed, and provides a jumping-off point for conversation. “Interpreters” are the individuals who embody historical figures at living history sites. It is their responsibility to take the historical research that has been done on the sites and decide what meaning it has. These meanings are often a melding of fact and folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
.
Folklore is an important aspect of living histories because it provides stories which visitors relate to. Whether it is an interpreter embodying a past individual’s personal story or discussing a superstition of the time, these accounts allow the audience to see these past figures not as names on a page, but as actual people. However, folklore is also more than stories. Objects, such as dolls or handmade clothing, among others, are considered “folk artifacts,” which are grouped under the heading of “material culture.”
Individuals can participate in living histories as a type of experiential learning
Experiential learning
Experiential learning is the process of making meaning from direct experience. Simply put, Experiential Learning is learning from experience. The experience can be staged or left open. Aristotle once said, "For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them." David A...
in which they make discoveries firsthand, rather than reading about the experience of others. Living history can also be used to supplement and extend formal education. Collaborations between professional historians who work at living history sites and teachers can lead to greater enthusiasm about studying history at all grade levels. Many living history sites profess a dedication to education within their mission statements. For instance, the motto of Colonial Williamsburg
Colonial Williamsburg
Colonial Williamsburg is the private foundation representing the historic district of the city of Williamsburg, Virginia, USA. The district includes buildings dating from 1699 to 1780 which made colonial Virginia's capital. The capital straddled the boundary of the original shires of Virginia —...
, “That the Future May Learn from the Past,” proclaims the site’s commitment to public edification, as does the portion of the website created for the sole purpose of aiding teachers in instruction on the village.
Certain educators, such as James Percoco in his Springfield, Virginia high school class, have chosen to integrate public history
Public history
Public history is a term that describes the broad range of activities undertaken by people with some training in the discipline of history who are generally working outside of specialized academic settings. Public history practice has quite deep roots in the areas of historic preservation,...
into their curricula. Since 1991, Percoco has led a class entitled “Applied History,” in which his students have contributed over 20,000 hours of service to various institutions of public history. Formal education can help visitors interpret what they see at living history sites. By providing a structured way of looking at living histories, as well as questions to think about during visits, formal education can enrich the experience, just as living histories can enrich learning in the classroom.
See also
- Historical reenactmentHistorical reenactmentHistorical reenactment is an educational activity in which participants attempt torecreate some aspects of a historical event or period. This may be as narrow as a specific moment from a battle, such as the reenactment of Pickett's Charge at the Great Reunion of 1913, or as broad as an entire...
- List of historical reenactment events
- List of historical reenactment groups
- List of open air and living history museums in the United States
- List of tourist attractions providing reenactment
- Open air museumOpen air museumAn open-air museum is a distinct type of museum exhibiting its collections out-of-doors. The first open-air museums were established in Scandinavia towards the end of the nineteenth century, and the concept soon spread throughout Europe and North America. Open-air museums are variously known as...
- The 1900 HouseThe 1900 HouseThe 1900 House is a historical reality television programme made by Wall to Wall/Channel 4 in 1999. The show is about a modern family that tries to the live in the way of the late Victorians in 1900 for three months in a modified house...
- The 1920s Berlin Project