For many people the term 'Living History' means a battle re-enactment or the re-creation of a military camp, be it from the Tenth to the Twentieth century. Occasionally the term is applied to steam rallies, falconry displays or even morris dancing. This article will argue that this a term more appropriately applied to specific technique of historical interpretation -- not a catch-all phrase covering ever thing from mock battles to craft displays. The term 'Living History' was first used bv the US National Parks Service in the 1960s to describe a form of historical interpretation, in which a realistic simulation was made of life in the past by costumed performers in original or reconstructed settings. These settings were usually domestic and covered a time-span from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth centuries. By 1974 there were 800 full-time museums or other sites in the United Staatcs using some form of the technique many of them based on National Par Service guide 'Keep It Alive! Tips on Living History Demonstrations'. [1]
The roots of living history can be traced to the world's first open air museum which was established at Skansen in Sweden 100 years ago. Shortly after the museum opened, its founder Artur Hazelius, began to feel that without activity what was being presented was only a dry shell of the past. This lead to a programme of peopling the site with appropriately dressed staff. "We want to exhibit folklife in living-style". [2]
This policy was enthusiastically embraced in the United States and by the early years of this century many period houses in New England had what were then called 'custodians in homespun'. By the 1920s restoration projects at sites such as Greenfield Village and Colonial Williamsburg were under way. These extensive and costly projects were funded by wealthy Americans such as John D. Rockefeller Junior and Henry Ford. Ford, who never said 'history is bunk', stated that the sites should aim to show "American life as lived" and that "by looking at things people use, which reflect the way they lived, a better and truer impression can be gained than could be had in a month of reading". [3]
Following the Second World war there was a vast expansion in the number of open air museums in the United States most of which agreed with the sentiments expressed by Freeman Tilden in his work Interpreting Our Heritage. "Architecture and furnishings are much we admire and draw conclusions from, but we must find the art to keep them from seeming to have been frozen at the moment of time when nobody was home". [4]
That art is Living History and has become the tool of certain social historians and museum educationalists whose aim is to make history more accessible. Among the earliest examples oi the use of this technique in Britain by museums was Wigan Pier where Peter Lewis employed a small team of actors who used a mixture of scripts and improvisation to role play a variety of characters in settings appropriate to the year 1900. Here "heritage with a difference" as it was called offered performers who were "trained to record authentically the sight, sense, smell and feel of the past'. [5] This idea was also taken up by the Museum of the Moving Image where actors functioning as costumed guides were stationed in appropriate galleries and adopted an historical persona. Here the plan was to use performers "to look at the social and political background to the moving images".[6]
The approach at the Blist Hill site of Ironbridge museum was rather different as the decision was made not to employ actors, but to train a team of full-time and volunteer demonstrators in a variety of craft and performance skills and allow them to deal with visitors without the use of role play. An approach sometimes called Third Person Interpretation. There are of course many other sites currently experimenting with Live Interpretation as a seasonal or, more rarely, full time method. Most of these experiments rely upon the use of actors as an extension of Theatre-in-Education or, like Ironbridge, are based on craft demonstrations.
Because of their approach these projects do not make use of the full potential of Live Interpretation and have been limited to specific aspects of the method rather than the full recreation of a past environment. Sadly we do not yet have a site such as Plimoth Plantation in the United States where the goal "is to recreate a true and complete portrait of life in the Plimoth Colony in the year 1628. The staff has painstakingly researched every detail of clothing, speech, work habits, house construction, furnishings, diet, livestock, family life, and any other manifestations of life that the visitors to the plantation may encounter. Interpreters bring these details to life and give them a physical and social context by acting out roles of actual Plimoth settlers". [7]
One British group which has however made use of the North American model of first person interpretation in a domestic environment, whilst also attempting to deal with many of the criticisms levelled at live interpretation is History Re-enactment Workshop (HRW). Established ten years ago the group specialises in domestic recreations from the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.The group does not work full-time or at a single location, but instead stages events at a variety of suitable sites in England and Wales. To date these have included the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, Sussex, Gainsborough Old Hall, Blakesley Hall for Birmingham Museum Service and Oakwell Hall for Kirklee Museums.
Encouraged by enthusiastic curatorial staff, many of whom had been to sites in North America, the group took the decision to adopt the approach taken at plimoth and to adapt it to existing British sites. At each of these sites, therefore, group aims to interpret the site not to interperet in the site. "In this context, the Village [site] is viewed as a material assemblage which must be used dynamically, not passively, toconvey to the visitor, first, a sense of the physical world of [the period], and then, of the culture which existed in that environment. This method in no way denies nor de-emphasizes such abstract institutions as government, religion or family life, yet such concepts must be developed interpretively within the context of the physical environment". [8] More simply the aim is to turn a house which could be lived in into a house which is being lived in. The focus of interest is always day to day activities not major national events which, to ordinary men and women are of secondary importance to their lives,conditions and relationships. For this reason the group took the decision never to portray famous people or to stage battles, both because such attempts tend to be unconvincing and battles do not reflect ordinary life experiences.
Because of the peripatetic nature of the group's work a great deal of liaison is required between the curatorial staff at the site and HRW. The purpose of this is to agree how the site is to be used and the emphasis of the event, having of course established that the form of interpretation is appropriate. Following this comes a period of research, often months, using the resources of the site, local history libraries and institutions like the Public Record Office and British Library. This culminates in the production of a pack of information for each of the participants which includes details of recent national and local events, the local economy and agriculture and for each interpreter a biography based on wherever possible an original person. The aim is to provide a complete mental map, which includes detailed local historical and geographical information and gives each individual the idea of how they fit into the hierarchy of the community only part of which will be represented physically. Much of this information will in the end never be called upon, but contributes to the body of knowledge necessary to function in a given role. Frequently it will be necessary for the role player to pretend ignorance of detailed historical information and of the economic developments and social forces shaping society. The group also holds practical, dramatic and theoretical workshops, to ensure that the members of the group can develop the trust they need to work together as a team and to reinforce skills and knowledge required to be a convincing and natural character.
Although many of the sites used by the group are equipped with tables, beds and seating the house will need to be furnished with a wide variety of replica domestic artefacts, tools and other items to ensure that it can function as a home which can be lived in. The number of items needed is daunting and demands a good deal of careful research, because they need to be functional and to stand up to the most careful of inspection by visitors with specific knowledge. In the kitchen, for example, a full range of domestic appliances is required, many of which are not normally needed for display unless they can actually be used for demonstration cooking, as at Oakwell Hall. Inventories are the single most valuable resource for the process of deciding what is necessary, although there are still certain items which are not made as replicas. We are fortunate that thus far the group has been limited to furnishing a relatively humble property. Price, storage and transportation could otherwise prove impossible barriers. Even so thousands of pounds worth of pottery, glass and other vessels have been commissioned by the group. Each of these items must be a replica of Museum Quality and the group must be prepared to dispose of it if subsequent research proves that it is not historically accurate.
In addition to the artifacts he or she will use each interpreter needs to be provided with clothes which are functional and historically accurate for period and social position. In order to carry out a full daily routine they should be able to dress, shave or make up, to comb their hair and prepare for bed. For travelling or outdoor work, coats, scarves and gloves will be required. Purses and pockets need to have letters, combs, money and trinkets. Many of these will rarely be seen, but if the clothes are to avoid becoming costume they must function like the real thing. Finally time needs to be spent teaching the interpreter to wear the clothes correctly and not to compromise them with modern mannerisms and gestures. Hats are worn indoors, aprons to protect hard wearing but difficult to clean woollen fabrics from dirt and gloves and sword to convey status and rank which must be correctly understood.
The basis for every event is the actual range of activities that would have been carried out in a house of the period. The timetable is largely governed by food preparation, meals and the activities required to ensure that the property functions as a 'home', such as washing, dairying or brewing. Outdoor activities depend upon the farming activities appropriate to the time of year, no 'artificial' programme is required. However to ensure that the visitor does not miss what are among the most interesting aspects of the day, the historical clock is set two or three hours behind the real one. This means that the early visitor will be able to see labourers working at seven in the morning, servants preparing the house for the day and even the family in process of getting up washing and dressing.
Initially we were reluctant to show such apparently mundane activities as these and felt that what was required was more formal or even 'staged' events. Experience has proved that for the bulk of visitors what they find interesting is the 'ordinary" or familiar. How does the process of getting washed, dressed and made-up for a seventeenth century gentlewoman compare with today? What personal and potentially embarrassing duties did a man-servant do? How was water for washing heated and even where do people go to the toilet in the middle of the night? Discussions between younger visitors and their older relatives about common experiences are some of the most valuable results of these questions. Many young people are not aware of the implications of living in a property without central heating. "Why do men wear hats indoors?" Or that every drop of water comes from a well or stream. In this way the very simplicity of the form of interpretation acts as a starting point to other questions and speculation which otherwise would never be voiced. By finding answers to these questions a visitor will achieve a sophisticated understanding of historical change. Another result of the fascination in these activities is that the visitor spends longer in the site than during days on which conventional interpretation is employed.
Some visitors to the recent event at Oakwell Hall stayed all day resulting serious crowd control problems, especially at meal times, which tend to be the most popular activity. During this time frequently hours rather than minutes, no attempt is made to fill the site with unrealistic amounts of activity to meet the needs of visitor flow. For that reason household activities only take place if they are correct for the time of year or day of the week, we do not seek to cram the site with spinning, weaving, corn dolly making or dyeing if there is no historical basis for the process. Activities such as baking, brewing or laundering could never take place on the same day in a modest household, while dairying cannot be done at a time of year when the cows are not producing milk! Following the same rule the group does not 'Station' interpreters in rooms just to ensure they are occupied for the visitor. Bedrooms are empty for much of the day and the dining room cannot be used at the same time as the parlour in a seventeenth century house. It has however proved accurate and convenient to employ the rule that the correct day of the week is used for the date, because in the 1690s what is today Saturday and Sunday was Monday and Tuesday.
On some occasions it has also been useful to emphasise a particular theme or aspect of the past such as family, work patterns or community. The success of these largely depends upon the ability of the visitor to compare his or her own experience with a similar, but subtly different, experience three or four hundred years ago.The re-enactment of a funeral of 168-4 at Blakesley Hall which culminated in the reading of the original will provided a focus for a great deal of discussion about the modern attitude to death and that of the seventeenth century. The event also focused the public's attention on the way in which historical evidence, the inventory drawn up on the death of the owner in 1684, had been used to restore and furnished property.
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