Newest Era

How to Run a Reenactment - Introduction to Reenactments and Reenactors, Part 1

Author(s)
Deb Fuller 1 ✉
Publication Date
EXARC Journal Issue 2019/1
Reenactments, meaning special events that use outside costumed interpreters, are a great way for sites to engage visitors and host memorable programs that build a following. Planning and executing a reenactment can be a daunting challenge for a site that has never hosted one. Like any special event, you have to make sure you have the staffing, resources, and logistics to handle the event...

Prickett's Fort State Park (US)

Member of EXARC
No

Prickett’s Fort State Park, located five miles north of Fairmont in Marion County, features a reconstruction of the original Prickett's Fort. This historical park commemorates late 18th-century life on the Virginia frontier. The fort was built to defend early European settlers of what today is West Virginia from raids. 

Perched on a small rise overlooking the confluence of Prickett’s Creek and the Monongahela River, this rustic log fort is a re-creation of the original Prickett’s Fort of 1774, which served as a refuge from Native American war parties on the western frontier of Colonial Virginia. Built in 1976 by the Prickett’s Fort Memorial Foundation, the “new” fort serves as a living history site where interpreters recreate late 18th century lifestyle through period attire and demonstrations of a variety of colonial crafts.

Moscow Ethnographic Society (RU)

MES -  Московское этнографическое общество (under supervision of its founder Yury Gabrov) researches in ethnology and anthropology, gives lectures in various related fields. We organize public or private events, such as living history, demonstrating and teaching traditional knowledge and techniques (in cooking, arts, crafts, music, weaponry and economy) from the Stone Age onwards. We unite people who do the same, share our experience in conferences, publications and social media. Usually festivals is our thing.

Our projects include:

Heritage Hill State Historical Park (US)

Member of EXARC
No

Heritage Hill State Park is a living history state park devoted to the preservation of buildings and artifacts and the interpretation of the history of Northeastern Wisconsin and its people from 1672 to 1940.

One area in the park commemorates the fur trade. Its strategic location between the Mississippi and the Saint Lawrence Rivers made “LaBaye” a logical place for a trader to settle. By the 1720’s bands of voyageur canoes set out each spring from Quebec, the capital of New France, bound for the Northwest with a cargo of French trade goods. The French fur traders were reliant on the native groups for food, a trade route, hunting grounds, pelts, and companionship. Out of this companionship grew the Meétis culture, a mingling of French fur traders and the Indian culture.

Exchange Place - Gaines Preston Farm (US)

Member of EXARC
No

Exchange Place was once the center of a more than 2,000 acre plantation. It served as the stop for 19th century travellers along the Old Stage Road where Virginia currency was exchanged for Tennessee currency and tired horses were exchanged for fresh ones. "Exchanges" still take place today at the Exchange Place. Instead of exchanging currency, crafts made by local artisans may be purchased.

Exchange Place -- the Gaines-Preston Farm recaptures life in the early 1800s. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, nine buildings built between 1816 and 1851 are restored on their original foundations, including the main house, the spring house, the school house and the smoke house. 

Historic Huguenot Street (US)

Member of EXARC
No

In 1677, a group of Huguenot families established a community in the Hudson Valley of New York in the hope of creating a home where they could worship as they chose.  In 1894, their descendants formed what is now Historic Huguenot Street to protect their legacy in the buildings, objects, and stories they left behind.

In 1677, a group of Huguenot families established a community in the Hudson Valley of New York in the hope of creating a home where they could worship as they chose.  In 1894, their descendants formed what is now Historic Huguenot Street to protect their legacy in the buildings, objects, and stories they left behind.

Snake River Fur Post (US)

Member of EXARC
No

The Snake River Fur Post is a reconstructed fur trade post on the Snake River west of Pine City, Minnesota. The post was established in the fall of 1804 by John Sayer, a partner in the North West Company, and built by his crew of voyageurs. 

Sayer had been working for British fur trade companies since the 1770s in the Fond du Lac District, southwest of Lake Superior. When Sayer and his party arrived in the area they were welcomed by the local Ojibwe. The Ojibwe recommended Sayer’s party build a post on the banks of Ginebig-ziibi. The post included a rowhouse with six rooms that included living quarters, a storehouse, and a room where trade was conducted. The rowhouse was enclosed by a stockade with a single entrance. On April 26, 1805, the North West Company party left the Snake River Fur Post and returned to Fort St.

Crossroads Village & Huckleberry Railroad (US)

Member of EXARC
No

In 1967, local individuals and organizations realized that many structures of historical importance in the Flint area were being destroyed, and plans for the construction of interstate highways and urban development would necessitate the demolition of additional buildings. There was also a realization that rural skills, equipment, and crafts were being lost.

In the following years, several buildings were donated and moved to the present site. Eventually, ideas to create a farm museum and preserve buildings of historic importance merged into the concept of a rural village. Impetus came with the realization that the nation’s bicentennial was fast approaching. The plans for this hypothetical Crossroads Village evolved from the common characteristics of rural villages in Genesee County as depicted in the 1873 Atlas of Genesee County. The Village, dedicated July 4, 1976, became a reality.

Lincoln's New Salem (US)

Member of EXARC
No

Lincoln's New Salem State Historic Site is a reconstruction of the village where Abraham Lincoln lived from 1831 to 1837. The village was abandoned by about 1840. Although he never owned a home here, Lincoln was engaged in a variety of activities while he was at New Salem. He clerked in a store, split rails, enlisted in the Black Hawk War, served as postmaster and deputy surveyor, failed in business, and was elected to the Illinois General Assembly in 1834 and 1836 after an unsuccessful try in 1832. 

Twelve log houses, the Rutledge Tavern, ten workshops, stores, mills and a school where church services were held have been reproduced and furnished as they might have been in the 1830s. The furnishings, including many articles actually used by the New Salem people of Lincoln's time and others dating back to the same time period, were assembled and donated to the state by the Old Salem Lincoln League.

Lincoln Log Cabin (US)

Member of EXARC
No

Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site, part of the Abraham Lincoln National Heritage Area, preserves the 19th-century home of Thomas and Sarah Bush Lincoln, father and step-mother of the 16th president of the USA. 

Abraham Lincoln was a lawyer living in Springfield by the time his parents moved here, but his burgeoning law practice often brought him to Charleston and the farm, especially during the 1840s. Abraham Lincoln also owned a portion of the farm which he deeded back to his father and step-mother for their use during their lifetime.