Living History

This week, episode 33, Alena and Stephen follow up the episode on Minutiae with by talking about reenacting and interacting the larger objects. They tackle big topics like:
•    Shelter: from Houses and environments to tents and other portable homes
•    Furniture: camp furniture, common furniture and a reading from Home by Witold Rybczynski
•    Storage: humans collect stuff, and have found myriad ways through the years of storing it all
•    Vehicles: both historical and modern transport concerns
•    Animals: adding animals to a portrayal, working with heritage breeds, dealing with the public.

Musical Interlude: Greensleeves performed by Renaissonics

Download: The Big Stuff

Thanks to all of you out there listening to the Living History Podcast and giving us feedback! In this week’s episode, number 31, we address some of the questions and comments we’ve received since we started the podcast including:

• What has been most surprising about doing the podcast?
• Providing more details as a part of our podcasts
• There is no such thing as a stupid tourist question
• Great tips for event survival
• Some unique living history terminology
• Is the human race loosing valuable skills to the detriment of us all?
• School Event restrictions
• Reenacting military life as a family, specifically gender disparities in more modern military reenactments
• How does the Renaissance Faire relate to Living History?
• What is our list of small items we still want (including an update on our chamber pot situation)
• Reenacting in order to show respect for those who lived in the time we are representing.

Musical Interlude: Jamie Raeburn’s Farewell by Tourdion

Download: Listener Feedback
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This week Alena and Stephen talk about their favorite places on the web, and how living history folks can utilize the web for research, community, information gathering and tons more. We talked about:
• Unit and LH group webpages – like the Saint Maximilian Landsknecht Reenactment Guild,
• Blogs – like Historic Cookery, Drifting Focus, Colonial Williamsburg’s Blog, and Tempus Fugit, and aggregators like the Civil War Interactive, and SCA Today.net.
• Forums – like Landsknecht.org, Living History Worldwide, The Muzzleloading Forum, and Armour Archive
• Digital Archives and Collections – like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Parker Library on the Web
• Vendors – including Reconstructing History, Jas. Townsend and Son, Amazon (in various countries)
• eBay & Etsy
• YouTube
• Google books
Musical Interlude: Come and I Will Sing You performed by Great Big Sea

Download: Living History on the Web
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When we are out there dressing up and representing a time and place we’re also representing different cultures. There are certain issues that come up when representing differences, including:
• Representing religion
• Ethnicity and Race
• Gender, Disability, Colonialism
Also as a part of this episode Alena interviews Debra Conner, who presents as the poet Emily Dickinson all over the United States. They talk about:
• How Debra became a living history performer
• Where her scripts come from
• Other historical figures she has portrayed

Musical Interlude: Maid on the Shore performed by Tourdion

Download: Cultural & Controversial Issues
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This week Stephen talks about the fading skills and arts many of us work to keep alive and how we pass those skills on to the public and fellow Living Historians.Stephen goes into:

• Skills that don’t have a market or place in the modern world, or have changed drastically
• Why these skills are important
• Taking up an old skill
• Teaching skills through general knowledge demonstrations
• Passing on the lost skills

Musical Interlude: Old Joe Clark by the Savannah Cotton Exchange off the Skirmish Presents, All in Tune with History CD

Download: Fading Skills