Here is another different take on the subject: I think what periods of history that have been chosen by North Americans to re-create have been heavily influenced by movies, popular fiction and television. Take the SCA for example, one of the founding members is a very popular Fantasy writer. Both Ren-faires and the SCA began during a period of Fantasy fiction popularity, so to my mind there is no real surprise that the time periods chosen to re-create are more Medieval in flavour. Also hugely popular is the 'Western'. Western movies, books, TV programs abound, so no real surprise that some folks would love the chance to play Cowboy, ride a horse and wear a 6 shooter. Same to be said of the Civil war. It's all a very romanticised part of local history.
As a youngster, I could tell you that guys with swords and armour were from the Middle Ages, King Arthur was cool, I had piles of books of stories about that. There were movies and tv shows too. Tell me there is a group that dresses up and does Medieval things, fantastic, sign me up. Where's my horse and my sword? :-) The TV show Gunsmoke and my Grandpa's Louis L'Amour western novels were responsible for my (obviously shaky) grasp of American Western history. Tell me there is a group that gets to run around outside with tomahawks, black powder guns and horses, sign me up! Ask me anything about the 1700's and I would draw a total blank. There were no tv shows about that. First movie I ever saw on the subject at all was Dangerous Liasons, and the subject matter of the movie wouldn't have been much of an encouragement to find a group to recreate the period. :-) To make a long post short, we start with what we know, then expand as we learn. What drew us to these groups in the first place was a very idealized romantic notion of 'history', whatever we had seen up to that point we got from Pop culture. Now we know better. :-) Sheridan (I also think that some history we are still too close to, my home province of Alberta just celebrated its 100th anniversary of being part of Canada. My family has lived here for just over 90 years. Europe's history always seemed far more interesting to me in comparison, because it's Old.) _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
