These posts all strike a familiar chord with me, since I participated in Civil War reenacting for a decade, and still participate in living history programs with the NPS; in fact, the battlefield where I work at just had its annual "Moonlight Tour" a couple of weeks ago.

I find one very effective way to present a "first person" living history event, where the reenactors act like they are in the time period, is the "ghosted scenario", where participants ingore the tourists, and the tourists are told that the reenactors cannot see or hear them. Trying to do first person with the aforementioned wags that try to trip someone up can be frustrating and pointless, and other people who are there to actually get something out of the program won't. I've dealt with a few in my time, and I have heard countless stories from other rangers and reenactors of "dialogues".

I've seen some very bad history at Civil War reenactments, and some very good programs as well. You can't judge all renfaires, reenactments, etc. by one "bad apple", but those of us who participate in such events and take our impression of a soldier, civilian, etc. should attempt to be as accurate as possible, unless you are doing something "just for fun", such as a renfaire.

That being said, as someone who makes his living with history, I sometimes worry about the "quasi-history" in movies, on television and at renfaires, Civil War reenactments, etc. Yes, enjoy life, don't take it so seriously, but the thing that worries me is that many visitors to these kind of events will never read a history book about the subject, and will base their knowledge of the Civil War, etc. on what they see alone, which makes a bigger mess that we in the history field have to attempt to clean up.

Just my thoughts...

Cheers,

Todd