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Historical Re-Enactment and the Internet

© Megan McConnell

Almost 10 years ago when I first started doing historical re-enactment, the Internet was only just coming onto the scene.

Research was done by spending hours in the library (often with hordes of other re-enactors) or by visiting museums (if you were lucky enough to have one that had pieces relevant to your period there). Contact with other re-enactors was by letter, telephone or via the occasional visit.

Groups were very insular – with little or no contact and exchanging of ideas with others on a regular basis.

And then came the Internet and changed the very nature of re-enactment. Historical re-enactors became one of the first community groups to see the full potential of the Internet and overnight newsgroups and mailing lists sprang up – some time period or group specific – others more generalised.

Ideas started to fly around the world with the speed of e-mails – and inter-group communication became a regular thing.

Websites were developed – some with highly spurious information – others with well-researched information. All of a sudden, information was available to people who had never had access to it before. Re-enactors were logging on in droves – in fact the only group who spend more time on the internet looking for information on their hobbies than re-enactors tends to be embroiderers (and I do both!).

This closer contact has made the re-enactment movement truly international – and re-enactors learned that whatever period they portray, there are issues and ideas that are common to all groups (and a good thing it is, otherwise I would not be able to write this site).

As with everything, though, there was a bad side. Websites with wildly inaccurate information were uploaded, and there was a tendency for re-enactors to believe that if it was on the net then it HAD to be correct.

Re-enactors tended to spend more time on the internet looking for tertiary documentation, and ignored the wealth of information available in books: often information that was much better researched and more accurate than that available on the web.

It has taken a number of years for re-enactors to learn that the WWW does not mean true, and for old habits of checking and cross checking to come back into vogue.

But what else has the Internet done for our hobby?

It has fostered a feeling of friendship around the world. Re-enactors now have friends who re-enact not only in other groups, or time periods, but who are on the other side of the world as well.

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