I could write for days on this one subject, so instead I'm going to narrow it down to just some personal experience on one topic. I've spent a lot of the last few years studying women's 18th century shoes. There's very little published information on them (next to none), so it's all first hand accounts and surviving examples that have to be collected together to make any meaning. In this process I also learned how to actually make the shoes and proceeded to wear them on a daily basis working in an 18th century town, doing both as a re-enactor. Knowing how these shoes are made and how they are worn gives me insight to surviving examples others don't have. I know when a stitch is unusual, or when some alteration was clearly done to address a problem I too have had. I can date shoes within a few years based solely on how the sole was attached (sometimes even by region). I also know about how long a pair of shoes lasts, at least on my feet. Something that matches up to documentation of how often shoes were purchased (helping us to know we aren't missing information or reading truth into satire). And how to recognize wear patterns in originals (if the shoe was too big/small, or if they had a medical issue). This can tell me not just something about the individual wearer, but on a larger scale can help us understand how the fit of shoes was back then. Were women trying to wear a smaller size to make their feet look smaller? Did they actually switch the left and right back and forth to extend the wear? Were they uncomfortable? Did they prevent women from doing certain activities? Did their method of walking differ from ours?

I also can't cut apart every pair of shoes I want to examine. Some the internal support the museums have stuffed them with won't even be removed. So I have to "guess" how they were made or how the inside looks. I know what evidence shows on the exterior based on different techniques now. Once you put the insole in, that's all hidden and is only determinable by small shadows on the sole. Therefore, I know how a shoe was constructed, and from there how thick the hidden sole is (they thin the edges for illusion), and from there about how long of life the shoe would have had or how it would have felt to be worn and therefore what it's intended purpose might have been. There's a pair of shoes at the Bata Shoe Museum that are from the mid-18th century. They're made from wool broadcloth, which is very odd, and the edges are left raw rather than being bound in ribbon. The uppers are stitched at a mid-level of sewing, not being too crude, but the actual shoe construction was clearly done by someone who usually makes mens shoes. The type of stitches done around the heel covers and other places is unique to mens shoes. It is not the most efficient or the nicest looking stitch compared to what is normally done (having done both, I know the time it takes). It seems they were made in a place and time where supplies were low and imports were not as regular as they should have been OR were specially made as a memorial item from uniform cloth (though still without access to a women's shoemaker or proper binding). These shoes clearly have an unusual story, something clarified at least a little by knowing those details only a maker would understand.

I worked for several years as an "interpreter" at two different historic sites in central Ontario. I have mixed feelings on the practice, and I think I'll just jot down some point form thoughts.

• Visitors are probably 70% just people who want to get their kids out of the house. They don't care about history. They want you to distract their children with dubiously historical crafts and games for an hour or so.

• The front line of interpreters are high school and university students who have little knowledge of the material. Packaged materials that should be read (and frequently aren't) are handed out, most of the information given is some form of hearsay taken from the more senior interpreters. Many interpreters smoked marijuana while working since there were fires everywhere that covered the smell. Many interpreters would just make stuff up when asked a question they didn't know the answer to. Site politics were dominated by pointless gossip and incestuous internal romances.

• The historic sites themselves are condensed versions of the actual thing, designed for moving tourists around conveniently, with lip service to the historic layouts.

• Visitors have absurd pre-conceived notions of the past that it is difficult to work through without coming across as a know-it-all (even though that's what you are there for). People generally think people in the past were idiots. Visitor questions can be so stupid that it bit the staff in the butt when management learned we were compiling their dumbest questions in a book.

• The management were often clueless about the actual workings of the sites and were obsessed with crap like purchasing animatronics and organizing holiday specials. The mid-level supervisors were some of the most thoughtful and intelligent people I know, with a great respect for the material and the "ideal" of instructing people.

• Trying to stay "in character" is an impossible task. You end up in absurd logical loops and speaking in future-perfect trying to answer people's questions.

• Occasionally you get great conversations with passionate, knowledgeable visitors. This is the highlight of the work. It is very rare.

Living in South Texas, I had the opportunity to do reenacting for the Texas Independence War, but unlike most I gravitated to the Mexican side because of the uniforms (very Napoleonic) and because they always need Hispanic reenactors for the Mexican army.

Being a reenactor, there's a lot more safety that would be absent on the battlefield. One year they had us turn in our bayonets because the pavement at the Alamo was slippery from drizzle. They don't allow you to use the ramrod and firing is always done at a thirty degree angle to ensure that it there is anything in the barrel, you are safe.

With this aside, I learned more about the experience of Napoleonic Warfare than I could from a book. From the weight of a Brown Bess to the mindless activity of Marching, it gave me insight to what it was like, in just a minor way, to be a soldier of the era. More so I understand combat much better simply by doing it.

Other smaller things happen, such as being told how to hold arms when a light infantryman over a line, learning that I load my musket like a Frenchman (placing powder in the pan before pouring it into the barrel), and realizing how poorly distributed the weight on a Bess is.

Another year, I was given cavalry musket Bess (shorter than a standard infantry musket but not as short as a cavalry carbine) and had difficulties firing it. Many things were tried, from messing with the pan, the peep hole, the flint, until it was figured out that the frission, where the flint strikes metal, was bad and didn't spark.

Another year I had trouble with a musket only to be told that it wasn't properly cleaned and it prevented the flash in the pan from going into the barrel.

I would implore anyone that can reenact in their focus to gain a better understanding of the small things. Little would I know that a Been gun would be easier to hold than a Brown Bess.

(also, the Charleville is the superior musket)

I don't have his books anymore, unfortunately (the dangers of borrowing from friends) but I loved reading Marcus Junkelmann's work on experimental archaeology in the 80s and 90s.

He's famous (well, in certain circles) for organising a month-long march over the Alps from Italy to southern Germany, by a small group in full Augustan-era legionary gear. They not only had mules to carry their tents but also ground their own grain, built a marching camp every night,^* and basically lived and acted as much as possible as Roman soldiers did.

Things I remember most distinctly from that book:

• The semi-cylindrical Roman Scutum in its leather cover makes for a perfectly serviceable make-shift bed, particularly on wet ground.
• The tunica greatly speeds up roadside bathroom breaks, or in good German, pinkelpause
• It is very difficult, bureaucracy wise, to take mules across borders, particularly if those mules are borrowed from the army. However, in practice local law-enforcement officials and border guards are more likely to want to have their picture taken alongside you than to try and bar your passing.
• On the downside, maintaining an authentic Roman diet is difficult in the face of friendly locals who have heard about you on the news. Moreover, trying to refuse their hospitality in favour of cooking hand-ground barley porridge would not only result in insulted locals, but would also lead to a very faithful re-enactment of a Roman mutiny by the other members of the group.

I firmly maintain that these things could not have been learned without experimental archaeology.

^* Scaled down, of course, 8-9 guys can't build a full camp. But they built as much of it as a single contubernium would have.

So there's a lot of great stuff here. I will add to it with one specific point, and one general point.

Specifically, armour studies are something that can benefit a lot from the experience of reenacting. Armour as it comes down to us is decontextualized - it is an object separated from its original use as personal protection, its shaping to the human body and from associated items like armour-undergarments. Armour is often displayed in a way in museums and in books that only makes that disconnect more pronounced. Moreover, very little armour actually survives, and that sample is not representative of what existed historically. Paintings and sculptures can help us reconstruct both context and lost items, but they are subject to material limitations and stylistic conventions that can make it hard to figure out what the original item depicted looked like. But bigger than this, without using armour as it was intended, or at least -wearing- it, everything that we say about how its form follows from its function is so much speculation. We can -say- that great bascinets restricted vision because they look like they did, but do we know that until we try one on? A solution to this is to reconstruct armour as well as we can and see what it's like, and then use it. And that's what people like Tobias Capwell (who built and jousted in a reconstructed 15th century English armour as a supplement to his doctoral thesis) or the interpreters at the Musee du Moyen Age do. At we learn a lot! Greast bascinets in the English style allow the head to move within them and offer decent vision. Range of motion within plate armour is very good. And I could go on! And this is very much where reenacting overlaps with 'experimental achaeology.' At their best volunteer reenactors can present the results of this experience to a public that isn't necessarily going to read a thesis published by a small academic press.

On a larger level, reenactors can help correct the aesthetics of hollywood, especially for eras like the Middle Ages where costumers (Wolf Hall Aside) feel free to do what they like. It's one thing to see the faded colors of a 600 year old painting, it's another to see just how vibrant dyes like weld, woad and madder can be on wool. Given that the aesthetics of the period are often reduced to 'the dung ages' by pop culture it's nice to show that not everything in the past was brown. Being consistently with materials shows a lot about past's economic life in a way that I think is telling - it is striking how materials like wood and horn and ceramics are used in circumstances where modern people would simply use metal. Being consistent with -amounts- of goods shows that this was a world where people had -fewer things- which is an important difference between past and present that people often elide over. And I could go on. There are just all these details that are presented to the eye that may grab someone's attention in a way that they don't when reading or hearing about them, especially once they are all together.

I work as an education interpreter for a museum in Alberta.

Unlike what I think a lot of other people here have experienced, my job is strictly to run structured programs for students. This separates it from what we call public or unstructured interpretation in a variety of ways. For some programs I have to do first person interpretation (in costume) and for others I do it like a tour guide would.

The students have clear outcomes that coincide with the education curriculum since they come here with their class. This means that they (should ideally) being learning or have learned the stuff we're talking about. The programs are centered around different grade level outcomes (I.e focus on the difference between past and present for grade 1's, impact of French Canadians in the development of Canadian history for grade 4's, understand aspects of the fur trade for grade 4 or 7's, etc). This means that there is a certain amount of knowledge student should be able to demonstrate that is very clear. For the public (regular everyday visitors) this is less clear.

This also means that you can focus on particular aspects that a teacher might have focused on in class. This makes it more engaging and meaningful for the students and easier to build or have certain stories/people come to life.

A lot of the exhibits that other interpreters use, at least where I work tend to limit themselves to demos. This makes it less obvious in how everything connects and tends to make it more of a "I saw someone do something" rather than "I experienced this". In contrast, because of how the programs are structured, students become much more immersed. They make real toys, attend a real school lesson, etc. And these are integrated with the tour portion of the program. This makes it less of a drop in to consume time, and more so focuses on helping kids really pretend they are in the past. Or at least gain a deeper understanding and are able to remember the activity they did rather than just watching someone do something or explain something. This is especially important for students who might have exceptionalities (struggle to read, hard to pay attention, etc) because it becomes active rather than passive.

In my experience I found that this was most effective for either people who were new to Canadian history (international students or recent immigrants typically) or for younger children (younger than grade 7). For the former, it becomes a great way to introduce them to some Canadian history and often is used to break stereotypes that many may have about Canada. In particular, racist perceptions of indigenous people. For the latter, the shift in the curriculum (less of a focus on local Canadian history and more into European history) in Alberta typically makes it difficult to engage older grades.

There are limitations of course. For example, the crafts or activities the kids do are simplified because they are children. It's not all 100% absolutely accurate, but the focus is to help kids understand what it was like in the past through an engaging and interactive way beyond what movies or books can do. Kids are usually also interested in looking and touching a lot. So good structured programming usually requires the kids focus on something as they go through buildings so that they are actively thinking as they go in. It goes beyond "this is information of X" and gives them a task to do. It's also really important for younger kids to be able to touch and smell things.

I'm not entirely sure of the value of interpretation for the general public. The short and often goalless nature of it seems unhelpful in educating people on a deeper level. Especially if they already have a good grasp of the history and you know, aren't 8 year olds. I find that adults tend to ask very specific questions (what was this placed called in X year, how much of Y was produced, etc) whereas kids tend to ask question about objects that they can see (why do you have X, what does Y do, etc).

A lot of the criticism mentioned is completely valid. Even for education there is a lot of focus on learning from what senior interpreters tell which is not always accurate. Although where I work we actually get paid to do research so this might create a different atmosphere. We also need all interpreters to be over 18 and people who apply tend to be from a variety of backgrounds. Not everyone is in history, the skill they really look for is good communication skills and presentation since a lot of the information is learned while on the job. The focus is really being able to convey the knowledge in a meaningful way. There is also a limit on the "bad" parts of history. Which is a shame, but I can't tell first graders about racist practices in the early 1900's because most of them barely understand race.

And of course parents who come with their kids are usually just there to amuse their children and usually don't benefit in the same way (or at all) as the structured educational programs.

It should also be noted that education programs are the real money makers. Most of the museum's revenue comes from the education programs. But they really don't have the same effect as an experience for kids to have fun when the museum isn't animated and alive.

I did some time as a historical interpreter, in costume but not portraying a character. It was sometimes a bit dizzying to the visitors, having the mix. I once heard someone near one of the craft shops in Colonial Williamsburg say, look, when I say how I am working on this wall, I really am working on this wall. When that man over there says he's Thomas Jefferson, he's really not Thomas Jefferson.

Re-enacting can also get focused on the stuff, the look...once a guy has done the deep research to be wearing a uniform with just the right kind of bayonet frog and facings, I have noticed he will be happy to talk about bayonet frogs and facings. And typically there is an avoidance of squalor, misery, uncomfortable things: any re-enacted march of Lee's army through Sharpsburg, MD ought to include the soldiers knocking on doors and accosting bystanders, begging for food, and musters for drill ought to feature at least a few soldiers laid low with camp fever, and maybe there should be a small graveyard...

But then, who would pay to come and see squalor and misery? This might have been why Colonial Williamsburg began using actors to represent slaves, and do staged scenes. Circa 1776 it had a very big slave population. If that was honestly portrayed, with slaves in rags constantly at work, no one would buy a ticket ( or if they did, they would be really creepy) . The only way you can deal with that honestly, and still get visitors, is with actors. And that's probably applicable to a lot of difficult topics, in other times. It has often happened that, digging through 18th c. documents, I have realized I would not have been able to stand being around most of the authors of what I was reading, or they me.

I'm not sure if additional questions are allowed on these threads, but I'll have a gander at it.

To reenactors: was being part of a reenactment more or less realistic than you initially thought it would be? Did this change the educational value of the reenactment - for better or for worse?