Reactions to Handler and Roth

Today’s readings were Stacy Roth’s Past into Present and Richard Handler and Eric Gable’s The New History in an Old Museum. Both texts are about ways of teaching history. Handler’s text focuses more on a scholarly anthropological study on new ways of teaching history at Colonial Williamsburg. In the first chapter of the book, he goes into detail about how up until the 1970s Colonial Williamsburg offered a glossed over view of colonial life. It focused mainly on white upper class males. Handler mentions that after the political and social movements of the 1960s and 1970s, people no longer wanted to see this idealized version and wanted to see a more accurate portrayal of life for all people, not just the advantaged ones. The current way that history is taught at Colonial Williamsburg now includes the negative aspects of colonial history more than it used to. Handler and Gable’s text is an outside study on reenactments. It looks at reenactments from a scholarly perspective instead of actually going into the methods used by reenactors.

Roth’s text looks at reenactments from a different perspective. Her book focuses on the methods used by the reenactors themselves. If Handler’s book is an outside view, hers is an inside view. She discusses methods such as first-person reenactments and third-person reenactments and the advantages and disadvantages to both. Her text is less of a critical study on how history is portrayed and more of a discussion on what reenactments are and can do. While both texts are of great value, I found Roth’s to be more entertaining to read. I though learning about the methods of reenactments more interesting than a scholarly critique of Colonial Williamsburg.

Reflections on Reenactments

When I first learned that we were going to be discussing reenactments in my women’s studies senior seminar, I first thought “why?” I didn’t understand how reenactments are at all related to women’s studies. But as I further looked at what reenactments are and what they do, I soon learned that they are very relevant. Usually when I think about the word “reenactments,” I think of reenactments of certain battles or other specific events in history. But upon further research I realized that reenactments can include a wide variety of situations. They can be a depiction of everyday life in historical times, a retelling of the events that happened in a crime scene or car accident so that people know more accurately what happened there. Reenactments can be powerful tools in showing people what history was like (or not like). Since reenactments are such powerful tools, we must examine how they are done. Often times history in inaccurately depicted; it is idealized and simplified. The history we learn about the U.S. for example often leaves out the injustices done to many people in this country. These include injustices towards women and non-white ethnic groups. That is where reenactments relate to women’s studies. We must reexamine how history is taught, including reenactments which claim to provide accurate portrayals of how life was in historical times. From this we can rediscover what was left out of or history classes and learn about the real experiences or groups left out of those classes, such as women.

In our class we had to find a local reenactment group. Most of the groups I found in my Google search were concerned with reenactment of Revolutionary and Civil war battles. I found one group called Colonial Women. Their site was a work in progress but said they are a living history group concerned with portraying the lives of common women in the 17^th century. I really wish there was more information on the website because this group sounds a lot different then the other ones I found, in that it focuses on women. I will have to check back later when the work on the website is finished.