History and Temporal Tourism
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
"SO YOU WANT TO BE A RETRONAUT?”: HISTORY AND TEMPORAL TOURISM Tiffany L. Knoell A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May 2020 Committee: Jeremy Wallach, Advisor Kenneth Borland Graduate Faculty Representative Esther Clinton Thomas Edge © 2020 Tiffany L. Knoell All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Jeremy Wallach, Advisor In “So You Want to Be A Retronaut?”: History and Temporal Tourism, I examine how contemporary individuals explore and engage with the past beyond the classroom through nostalgic consumerism, watching historical reality television, visiting historical sites or living history museums, handling historical objects, and, in many cases, participating in living history or historical re-enactment. The phrase “make America great again” taps directly into a belief that our nation has been diverted from a singular history that was better, purer, or even happier. What it ignores, though, is that the past is fraught for millions of Americans because their history – based on generations of inequality – is not to be celebrated, but rather commemorated for those who died, those who survived, and those who made their place in a nation that often didn’t want them. To connect to that complicated history, many of us seek to make that history personal and to see a reflection of who we are in the present in the mirror of past. For this project I conducted 54 interviews of subjects gathered from a variety of historically significant commemorations and locations such as the 2013 and 2015 memorial observances at Gettysburg, PA, and sites at Mount Vernon, Historic Jamestowne, and Colonial Williamsburg, VA. I also attended re-enactments at Gettysburg, PA, Conneaut, OH, Huntington Beach, CA, Grand Rapids, OH, and Zoar, OH to observe and interview subjects. From the interviews, four levels of engagement emerged: level 0.5, or nostalgics; level one, or day trippers; level two, or retronauts; and level three, or dual citizens. For each of these groups, the past is a destination that calls to them and they are ready to travel, whatever form that travel might take. iv To Michael, Jon, Alex, Kat, Britta, and the multitude of cats we’ve loved in this house v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I thank my family: Michael, Jon, Alex, Kat, and Britta. Every one of you has listened to my successes and failures, my breakthroughs and breakdowns, and I love you all without measure. Thank you for loving me through this process. To those academic mentors and advisors who saw this process to the end, thank you. I owe endless thanks to Dr. Jeremy Wallach, Dr. Esther Clinton, and Dr. Thomas Edge. As my students would put it, you came in clutch. My unending gratitude goes to all those who offered their homes and their listening ears during my field research: Mike and Katie Sliter, Max Bramel and Nanette Hatzes, Esther and Henry Covington, Geoff and Erica Smitman, Corrigan Edmundson, Martin and Angela Zimmann, and Elizabeth Collins. Many thanks also go to Michael Knoell and Gary Powell (and Liz Pearse) as my transcriptionists. Without your work, this would have taken so much longer than it did. To all those who shared their time and experiences with me as interview subjects, I can say in all honesty that this dissertation would not have been possible without your assistance. I would like to give my warm regards to the 46th Pennsylvania Regimental Band, the 18th Virginia Mounted Cavalry at Huntington Beach, California, the Civil War Heritage Foundation at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Marit Knollmueller, and Betsy Bayshore. In particular I thank John Spaziani for his almost tireless efforts in securing interviews with living historians and permissions for my observation of closed tactical maneuvers at the Zoar Civil War Days event that concluded my field research. To those friends and fellow travelers, my love and thanks: Dr. Derek Sweet, Kerbie Minor, Aaron Brown, the “In A World…” guys (Matthew Bartlett, Jalani Hunter, Matt May- vi Day, Derrick Perry, Adam Robertson, and John Wilson), the Herd of Cats, Rizwan Oskoui, Beck Jenkins and all who have lent their support and strength when I didn’t have enough of my own. Finally, my thanks to my students from Fall 2016 to Spring 2020. You often taught me more than you realized. Thank you for sharing a classroom with me. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………..... 1 Methodology ...........................................…………………………………………. 15 CHAPTER I. LEVEL 0.5: NOSTALGIA ............................................................................. 23 All The Memory That’s Fit To Print: Victoria Magazine.......................................... 29 The Buyable Past: Companies Selling Us Who We Think We Were ....................... 38 CHAPTER II. LEVEL ONE: LIVING HISTORY IN THE LIVING ROOM: HISTORICAL REALITY TELEVISION ...................................................................................................... 45 A Brief History of Historical Reality Television ....................................................... 52 The Past: Iron Age Village ............................................................................ 52 The Present: BBC and PBS............................................................................ 53 From PBS to DIY: How Did That Change the Program and the Message? .. 63 Case Study: Colonial House ..................................................................................... 64 How Has Failure Been Incorporated Into the Genre? Victorian Slum House ........... 74 CHAPTER III. LEVEL ONE: DAY TRIPS INTO THE PAST: TEMPORAL TOURISTS GETTING OFF THEIR COUCHES .................................................................................... 78 Day Trips Into the Past .............................................................................................. 86 Mount Vernon ...............……………………………………………………. 87 Colonial Williamsburg ....………………………………………………….. 90 Slavery, Interpretation, and the Public ........................................................... 96 Intermezzo: Carrying an Identity – Seeking to Make It Personal .............................. 102 viii Not Just Trying It Out – Trying It On: Visitors and Second Person-Interpretation .. 108 Gettysburg, Pennsylvania – Pickett’s Charge ................................................ 110 Fort Meigs, Ohio – 1813 Patrol ..................................................................... 111 Conner Prairie, Indianapolis, Indiana – Follow the North Star ..................... 112 CHAPTER IV. LEVEL TWO: RETRONAUTS: AMATEUR LIVING HISTORIANS AND RE-ENACTORS ............................................................................................................ 120 Living Historians ...................................................................................................... 132 Re-enactors ............................................................................................................ 140 When Bodies Don’t Fit – Making Spaces For Women ............................................. 144 Cross-Dressing and Trying to Pass in Male Units ......................................... 144 Social Re-enacting or Vintage Events: History and Aesthetics ..................... 146 CHAPTER V. CONCLUSION .............................................................................................. 153 BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................. 157 APPENDIX A. SIGNED CONSENTS AND COMPLETED INTERVIEWS ..................... 171 ix PREFACE I met a time traveler during a visit to Boston in 2012. I’d visited Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market, both sites of significance in early Bostonian history. As I meandered my way back to the subway station, I caught sight of a tall wooden soldier standing at attention on a sidewalk outside of a pub. A group of tourists jostled one another, trying to stand next to the figure for a photograph. At first, I thought little of the crowd or the establishment but, being a good traveler, I decided to take a picture of a quaint figure outside an equally quaint tavern. As I focused the viewfinder on the image, I noticed a figure that most definitely did not belong in modern-day Boston. The man was framed in the window, wearing a black tricorn hat and a handsome red officer’s jacket and, as I watched, I saw that he was quite real. He and his wooden counterpart occupied opposite sides of the window frame, with the wooden soldier in the present and, for a moment, the living soldier appearing as a specter from the past. I took two photos before crossing the threshold of the pub to indulge both my personal and scholarly curiosity. The pub, The Green Dragon Tavern, holds a “revered,” so to speak, place in American history as the documented meeting place of Bostonian revolutionaries, but the present Green Dragon is a facsimile of the original that was demolished in 1854. Likewise the British soldier with whom I spoke was also a facsimile, committed to recreating a historical subject – a member of His Majesty’s 1st regiment of Foot Guards. When I asked about why he engaged in historical re-enactment, he explained that he sought a way to connect to history, trying to know the people of the past through slipping into their clothes, if not their skin. Like me, this time traveler was filled with curiosity about not only those historical events that make up our national narrative