How would you rate your own authenticity?

[billwatson]

Re: How would you rate your own authenticity?

Victorian era gentlemen generally had manners. When they were addressed, they acknowledged it and responded in kind. Dress yourself up all you want, but some folks need a bit of work there. There's a lot more to a good impression than wearing the latest "designer reenacting" fashions.
Just my $.02, thankee kindly.
Rich

That's fine for anyone portraying a gentleman. What about the rest of us bog Irish?



Bill Watson
Stroudsburg, Pa.

[Noble Pelican]

Re: How would you rate your own authenticity?

Rating your authenticity seems to me to be a sort of multi-faceted issue -- there's the quality of your main impression, where you might have the gear and the mindset nailed. But what about secondary impressions?

To my mind, in terms of my gear, most of it is fine at this point -- for a lower class impression I'm ok, better in a Southern impression than a Northern one. Middle class is a stretch for me -- but I can manage shabby genteel pretty well. Upper class at this point is completely out of the question.

My knowledge of material culture is pretty sound, but I sometimes have difficulty operationalizing it. I can babble with conviction on a lot of topics.

In the abstract, I understand the Southern concept of "being a mannerly person means that you never back someone into a corner where they are embarrassed -- always give them a graceful out." But my Northern directness tends to trip me up in moments of stress, and I'll speak when sometimes I should just smile and nod.

I also don't have the period farming skills that should go with my impression -- I can't hitch or saddle a horse, drive one, or plow. I need to learn how to load and care for a gun -- though my aim is pretty good if someone else loads. I can milk a cow, though I've not done so for quite a while, and I've never attempted milking a goat. I've never been to a hog butchering, salted or smoked meat or made sausage. I'm learning to spin (thank you Terre Lawson!), but the current results are uneven. My sewing is very basic, patching and darning are pretty good. My crochet and tatting nonexistant. I'm pretty good at making a fire, but if it's a small stove I sometimes have difficulty keeping it going once I've gotten started -- I get too distracted with cooking and forget to keep stoking it. I'm a pretty fair cook and baker.

I need to know more about farming, especially tobacco, cotton, indigo, rice the main crops of the South. I especially need to know how these would be done on a small scale, since I don't suspect that I'll ever develop a plantation mistress impression.

I need better luggage and a means to keep the equipment I've got with me in the field more organized. I want to learn more words to songs, especially hymns. I need to read and know my Bible more. I want to learn Spencerian script and I'd love to learn the banjo.

I guess in terms of structuring a poll, are they always only one question? What about one that had a line for rating your gear, another for material culture (however you define that), a third on how developed your persona before the war is, and a fourth on ability to operationalize all that in the field?

Since this is a poll on the authentic campaigner board, what about moving from the "hardcore/progressive/farb" rating scale and going to a number rating. Say a 1-10 rating where 1 was most thorough, don't need to work on this much at all" and 1 was "starting out and trying to get a handle on what I need to know to make some better decisions this time around."

Food for thought,
Karin Timour
Atlantic Guard Soldiers Aid Society
Email: Ktimour@aol.com

Karin,

You make some very good points. Material culture is not the only important thing that needs to be learned.
You wonder how many people realize the importance of a working persona. Having worked at a historical park for a few years, I became quite the woodworker, so I use that as my persona as to what I have been doing before the war. Not only have I researched the subject of woodworking in the antebellum time period, but have purchased original draw knives, planes, etc. which I use for fun projects around the house and for when I decide to do a civilian impression. Just buying the stuff is nice, but actually learning to use these items is better.
Looking the part is great, but not knowing the economy, trades, and lifestyles of the years and for the areas we portray will make a person look awful silly when the public asks you something more in depth than "how do you know when you are shot?" or "do you get paid for this?"
Keep up the good work.

Richard H. Holloway
Captain, Vance Guards
19th LA. Vols.

[KarinTimour]

Re: How would you rate your own authenticity?

Dear Richard:

Thank you for your kind words -- and I know just what you mean about the enjoyment to be had in using period tool and techniques in the ways they were designed to be used. I can also list so many ways that that I fall short of Bill Watson's "Would you, if plunked down in the 1860s be recognizable as an escapee from an asylum?" test.

And in the words of an old song "the pleasures not the winning, it's the loving of the game."

Sincerely,
Karin Timour
"The Stories in the Socks" Conference on Women and the Civil War, Richmond, Virginia, June 2004
Period Knitting -- Socks, Hats, Balaclavas
Atlantic Guard Soldiers' Aid Society
Email: Ktimour@aol.com

[Jake Hill]

Re: How would you rate your own authenticity?

I would say mainstream moving into progressive, because the unit I joined led me down the wrong road to terrible sutlers. :( But I started talking to a hardcore unit and great guilt fell over me that I was doing the wrong thing. They took me under their wing and are teaching me. My heart is in the right place my checkbook has to catch up now so I can obtain the proper gear. I hang my head in shame that in one point in my life I was a farb. But this is all in the past and I have progressed greatly from what I used to be.

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: How would you rate your own authenticity?

Hallo Kamerad!

While the definitions and applications of "Farb" are not always uniformly agreed upon, and can mean different things to different people-

One passing observation on Farbism and Farbery views that a so-called "Farb" holds to these:

1. I know that I am "wrong."
2. I don't care that I am "wrong."
3. I am pefectly content and happy doing what it is I do.
3. Don't tell me what I don't want to know.

Most everyone, unless they are extremely fortunate to fall in with a PCHA unit, or the right mentor(s), first commences their Journey down the Path at a so-called "Farb" level of kit, impression, and activities. (Including myself...)

The DIFFERENCE is, is that the "Farb" that remains there...
(Which may be entirely fitting and proper for thier Mental Picture and the CW Hobby they are in.)

Curt-Heinrich Schmidt
Cognito Ergo Sum Mess

[M_Kupsch]

Re: How would you rate your own authenticity?

In addition, there is just a vast differences in approach to reenacting between us and the mainstreamers/farbs. I would essentially break it down into two philosophies. The mainstreamer/farb only wants to "play" Civil War soldier. We, on the other hand, want to be that Civil War soldier and that is part of why we are so specifc in what we wear and how we conduct ourselves at events. Their whole motivation is different than ours and this is what allows them to be content with less than authentic uniforms and equipment, much less the 21st century items found in their camps.

I also think that many mainstreamers equate being "hardcore" with being miserable in the field. Well, I guess that is a part of the experience because that is part of soldiering. Part of soldiering is also learning to make do with what you have and doing it in bully fashion. They might understand what we are all about if they could realize we are not trying to be or searching to be miserable for the sake of just being miserable, but are in a quest for the holy grail of the Civil War soldier's experiences.

[hireddutchcutthroat]

Re: How would you rate your own authenticity?

I also think that many mainstreamers equate being "hardcore" with being miserable in the field. Well, I guess that is a part of the experience because that is part of soldiering. Part of soldiering is also learning to make do with what you have and doing it in bully fashion. They might understand what we are all about if they could realize we are not trying to be or searching to be miserable for the sake of just being miserable, but are in a quest for the holy grail of the Civil War soldier's experiences.

Its is ironic that they see it that way. I have been doing campaign style living history since 1991, and I can be just as comfortable in the field, as I am anywere else. Besides hauling all that junk too and from an event and setting up that big tent looks exausting.

[SouthernFed]

Re: How would you rate your own authenticity?

I guess I must be honest if I go too a H/C event like TAG I like to feel I am at least a progressive. At a mainstream I would say I am a mainstreamer with a progressive mind set. At a MS event I see things that upset me but sometimes you just have too look away and blow it off. Lets all go forward.
Ron Orange
SouthernFed

[southron_98]

Poll

I know I hate seeing grops with darken Desert Boots or modern glasses or their families in the middle of a miltary camp.

Gary,

Please note that this is your second warning about not signing your full name to your posts; there will not be a third.

Scott McKay, moderator
Authentic Campaigner Forums

[tenthmo]

Re: How would you rate your own authenticity?

I started out as a FARB. At my very first event, Makanda, Illinois, March 1980, I wore a sack coat made from US NAVY blues, US NAVY issue boondockers, a forage cap made for $8, and a pair of Wrangler jeans. Later I upgraded to clothing from C&D Jarnigan. I attended many city and county festivals in those early ‘80’s. Festivals that can be best described as being of the “dog and pony show” variety. In Missouri, I’ve attended festivals held at Lone Jack, Pilot Knob, Lexington, Glasgow, and Athens. All these “mainstream” events have a scripted battle around a town festival. I have attended a few living history events such as Wilson’s Creek and Pea Ridge. I also attended mega events out east such as the 125th anniversary reenactments of Bull Run, Shiloh, Perryville, Gettysburg, and Franklin.
Since 1994, I have grown tired of running around a field and blowing cartridges. For the last 10 years, many of us in the Midwest have a preference for Living History events. So in some regards, I have progressed. I have updated my impression. Many of us have civilian attire and are adept at doing Missouri State Guard or common citizens of the area. However, after the sun goes down, many of us look to popskull for entertainment.
The best reward I’ve gotten over the years, however far I’ve progressed, is in the development of close friends. Whatever my faults, I count myself honored to have friendships that have lasted 24 years. I am 51 years old , but look forward to mingling with my pards whatever the event.

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: How would you rate your own authenticity?

Hallo Kameraden!

Just on the side of clothing and gear...

My first "outfit" consisted of:

1. Vinyl billed kepi
2. Modern underwear
3. Modern cotton shirt made from a modifed Nehru pattern, white plastic buttons
4. Powder blue Levi Jeans
5. Surplus police department, dark blue, winter coat wool made into a blouse by my wife from a pajama top pattern
6. Off white wool gym socks
7. Dyed black Hush Puppy "desert boots" (the crepe soles had to be redyed each time they were worn)
8. Navy Arms folded leather envelope called a cartridge box
9. Navy Arms cap box
10. Leather store belt blank with lead backed US plate (my 3rd best item)
11. White canvas haversack made by my wife
12. Original bullseye canteen covered in WWII gray blanket wool, white cotton strap sewn by my wife (2nd best item)
13. Original M1855 socket bayonet in an original post War Peabody rifle scabbard (best item)
14. Navy Arms mixed model "M1864 Springfield" out of the box
15. Modern orange nylon backpacker tent, with yellow nylon pegs
16. Modern sleeping bag
17. Modern flourescent light

My current "outfit" consists of:

1. None of the above.

And therein lies the difference.

Curt-Heinrich Schmidt
Driven By the Quest To Step Out of Time Machine In 1862 and Not To Be Taken As Anybody or Anything Different Mess

[Pvt.CLC]

Re: How would you rate your own authenticity?

I started out as FARBY as one can get except i owned a pair brogans....I started off with Servant's stuff and did a few events. After a while i noticed the polyester in my depot Forgage cap and began talking to a few guys who did Hardcore Events. so i began getting better stuff to my impression.

I would rate my self as a low progressive upper mainstream reenactor. I personally try to be as authentic as i can with the Money that I have. I own nice Period underwear with Family Herloom Material and they feel like silk! :D I have nice gators,s&s 2 bag Back pack, decent lethers and my all time faveroite Dirty Billy Fez. while my uniform isnt as authentic as the origionals i try to work on it and eventually when i have the money i will pay for a non-farby Uniform.

it is funny to me how I see some units show up at a reenactments saying they "really" portray a union encampment at battles. At getysburg which my unit attened..we where one of the only all dog tent company there. I am still convinced that the adverage private didnt carry a A tent from Virgina to Pennslyvania to fight at a undetermined place, and or had the time to set it up. I also see many put up there there cots and there farby rail road lantern on a metal racks. and some of the confedrate units at these events is almsot as bad. Ive seen Huge Wall tents for privates, and an assortment of furnature and goods that wouldnt have been in a 1863 army on campain. oh well....
-Chris Conboy

[Lone_Rebel87]

Re: How would you rate your own authenticity?

Man I would have too say I'm a middle to upper class mainstreamer workin my butt off with my limited funds to progress towards a more authentic portrayal.......I wish I'd done a whole lot more research and found this lovely site back when I first started...woulda saved me alot a trouble and money but oh well I'm getting slowly pulled out of farbopia and trying to drag the guys I started out with along by their shoelaces.

(I'm getting there )

Jordan davis

[Pvt.CLC]

Re: How would you rate your own authenticity?

I also noticed how after i learned what is farby and not I seemed to have gone on a period craze...i mean how many 17 year olds like me, search through web pages and pour through sutlers at events (or the reenactor mecca) and look at cloth and produts offered....its addicting and I can not wait to buy the correct kersey wool and wool yarn and get my authentic uniform... :D

[David Lanier]

Re: How would you rate your own authenticity?

I started re-enacting in 1996. I learned hours of old songs from my mother, who learned them from her grandmother (born in the 1880's). I sleep in a dog tent and play the old songs on a Wunderlich banjo. I call myself "progressive" because I'm always working on improving my impression (until now by scanning old photos). Many of my ancestors fought (and some died) in the War. In a way, I'm doing this for them, to understand their motivation. I'm reading these posts to pick up pointers.

Although I teach Greek and theology, I have always been interested in history. I grew up on a Civil War battlefield, near Peachtree Creek in Decatur, Ga. Used to play in the old Union trenches. Found minie balls, horses' teeth, and finger bones.

I always appreciate it when someone takes the time to correct my impression. If I have done something "farbisch," I work to correct it.

David Lanier
6th North Carolina State Troops