Reenacting

Relations between historic sites and reenactor groups can be stormy or super — it depends in part on clear expectations on both sites. Click here for Tyler Putman’s Reenacting Packet. It’s a guide for best practices that will help both parties get the most out this special kind of onsite living history programming.

Feel free to download this and share it widely! And let us know what you think!

1st and 3rd Person Interpretation

If you are a historic site or museum , one way to engage visitors, is through 1st or 3rd person interpretation.To best first your institutions needs, you may want to know what the difference is between 1st and 3rd person interpretation. According to Stacy F. Roth the distinction is that 1st person interpretation is a character based on the someone from the past, think Rosa Parks and Frederick Douglas. While 3rd person interpretation is not bound to a particular character and is thus interpreting how a person or people would live. For more key terms by Stacy F. Roth click here for a glossary of terms complied from her book, Past into Present: Effective Techniques for First-Person Historical Interpretation.

Here a list of suggested books to help with developing 1st and 3rd person interpretation programs:

  • Living History: Effective Costumed Interpretation and Enactment at Museums and Historic Sites by David B. Allison
  • Telling History: A Manual for Performers and Presenters of First-Person Narratives by Joyce M. Thierer
  • Interpreting Difficult History at Museums and Historic Sites by Julia Rose

Perhaps your historic site or museum could use some assistance interpreting and telling diverse stories.  Read bellow for suggested resources on interpreting more diverse histories.