Living history

Living history is an activity that incorporates historical tools, activities and dress into an interactive presentation that seeks to give observers and participants a sense of stepping back in time. Although it does not necessarily seek to reenact a specific event in history, living history is similar to, and sometimes incorporates, historical reenactment. Living history is an educational medium used by museums, historic sites, heritage interpreters, 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, sewing, loom weaving, tablet weaving, inkle weaving or tapestry weaving, cloth dyeing, basket weaving, rope making, leather-working, shoemaking, metalworking, glassblowing, woodworking 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 encampment or display area at an event, and have a separate area for combat reenactment 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 groups, began to show interest in this style of interpretation and began using it at their reenactments.fact|date=December 2007

Living history in education

Living history may also be used to describe a method of teaching history whereby students try their hand at such activities and experience some aspects of period lifestyle guided by historical interpreters, albeit sometimes with less stringent standards of authenticity.

Photographs of living history exhibits are increasingly used in historical textbooks to illustrate aspects of daily life [Alcock, J.P. 2001 "Food in Roman Britain", Stroud: Tempus] . Living history requires thorough research on the part of the museum staff, volunteers and interpreters.

Notable living history museums

* Colonial Williamsburg in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States
* Conner Prairie in Fishers, Indiana, United States
* Carroll County Farm Museum, in Westminster, Maryland, United States
* Frontier Culture Museum of Virginia in Staunton, Virginia, United States
* Heritage Park Historical Village in Calgary, Alberta, Canada
* Historic Cold Spring Village in Cape May, New Jersey, United States
* Jorvik Viking Centre in York, England
* Murton Park / Yorkshire Museum of Farming in Murton, York, England
* Old Salem in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States
* The Old Town, Aarhus, Denmark
* Plimoth Plantation in Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States
* Skansen open air museum in Stockholm, Sweden
* Sovereign Hill in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia
* Old World Wisconsin Wisconsin Ethnic Heritage, Working Farms, 600 acre site in Eagle, Wisconsin United States
* Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan, United States

See also

* American Civil War reenactment
* Buckskinning ("Rendezvous")
* Combat reenactment
* The Company of Chivalry, UK-based 14th century reenactment group
* Experimental archaeology
* Living History Australia
* Nova Roma
* Open air museum
* Society for Creative Anachronism

References

External links

* [http://dmoz.org/Recreation/Living_History/ "Living History"] at the Open Directory Project
* [http://www.medievalcentre.org The Medieval Centre] 14th living history group and future open air museum , in Lafayette, LA.