PART II
In a small town in Washington State, the authoress, Mrs. Sarah Chrisman lives with her husband. I will refer to them as living historians rather than re-enactors. To me, re-enactors, while no less dedicated or devoted to their craft, in general need an audience. At the end of the day, they change out of the frock coat and corset. A living historian attempts, in vain I might add, to live the past even when no one is about.
My husband and I study history, specifically the late Victorian era of the 1880s and '90s. Our methods are quite different from those of academics. Everything in our daily life is connected to our period of study, from the technologies we use to the ways we interact with the world.
In her opening paragraph reproduced above, Mrs. Chrisman lays out her position clearly and without doubt or hesitation. Frankly, I agree with her statements as someone after my own heart.
I am a passionate student of late Victorian studies as I noted. While trained in academia, I too find its methodology limiting at best and suspect at worst in achieving a deeper understanding of what life was like back then. I hope I made clear in the opening paragraphs of this essay the value to which I hold living history methods as a supplement to historic research. The author made several statements in her article which I found very pertinent and will comment on them in due course. However, the tone in which she wrote this piece, how she phrased and made her points, and the imagery she used, made it appear to me that in describing her journey into living history, Mrs. Chrisman was actually writing a love letter to the 1890s.
This lead me to have serious reservations.
Foremost among which was what I believe to be a mischaracterization of one of the driving forces behind the industrial revolution. Mrs. Chrisman wrote, in regards to using living history as a technique:
...helps us understand the culture that created them – a culture that believed in engineering durable, beautiful items that could be repaired by their users.
Followed in the next paragraph by:
Much of modern technology has become a collection of magic black boxes: Push a button and light happens, push another button and heat happens, and so on...Few Americans have even the foggiest notion what makes most of the items they touch work...
In the first quote above, Mrs. Chrisman completely misses what the Industrial Revolution was all about. The Victorians wanted, via the Industrial Revolution, access to consumer goods that were affordable and available to all classes. Yes, the upper classes could get beautiful and durable items. But for the vastly more numerous lower classes, the Industrial Revolution made it possible for people to have access to such items. It is nice to pretend one is from the moneyed classes. But for the vast majority of people in the late Victorian times, in fact much like today, they made do with what they could afford; and thanks to the Industrial Revolution, a lot more was available and affordable than would otherwise have been the case.
The second quote further illustrates the "love letter" tone pervading the entire piece. Ironically, this highlights the need, indeed basic requirement, for living history to be coupled with vigorous research. Here also a romanticized image of the Victorian era is offered up. In truth, the Victorians were the first people to have really new gadgets...Even push button ones! And they loved them. It even became a matter of status. Conveniences like electricity were modern and the new fashion. Only the old fashioned still utilized gas. The Victorian era was not a haven from consumerism. In a very real sense, the Victorians invented consumerism with the Industrial Revolution. Images of English country life, while picturesque and even restful, do not do the topic under consideration a service. This is what I meant at the opening of this essay when I discussed mindset. In the quotes above, the author does not exhibit a needed foundation in popular thinking of the time. By "popular," I do not mean "famous," I mean "of the people."
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Concludes in PART III.
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