You've found reenactor.Net — the world-wide, on-line home of historical reenacting!
Historical reenacting is a great hobby!! And here on reenactor.Net, you will find information about historical reenacting all around the world. Now, you're probably thinking "You mean like the Civil War stuff?" Well, sort of... ANY time period you can think of is reenacted today and we cover them all! So look through the site and maybe you'll find something that interests you enough to get into it. The links are broken down into what we call "Time/Areas" or simply "T/A's." Each of the T/A's are run by an Assistant Webmaster who is active in that period and holds a great love for it.
Not only will you find links to individual unit websites, but also those of overall "parent" organizations. Eventually, each T/A will include a reading list and overall links to other sites which pertain to that period of time.
What is "Reenacting?"
"Reenacting" or "living history" is a hobby where the participants try to portray people of the past. Some people just have a hard time conceiving of this, they ask DO they pay you?" NO! How do you know who wins or who dies?" Some battles are scripted out as to the end, some are called "tacticals" and may have judges or rules as to what happens. Some events are just "living history" (as they are so called), these usually being set up for the public. Many reenactments aren't even done for the public, but instead for us, the reenactors. WWI and WWII events are usually of this type.
"I still don't get it!" Probably the best explanation I have ever heard was this: Imagine your most favourite movie. Imagine being able to "step into" that movie — that's a lotlike reenacting. And no, we don't have a script, or anything like that. Our actions are usually just us trying to live in that time period.
If you like history, you'll probably like reenacting—one thing to remember though, you WILL feel what it was like. This isn't like sitting in an arm chair in your living room — in reenacting, you will feel the dirt, the wind and the rain, the sweat, the wool clothing :-0 (yep, wool—surprisingly comfortable!). You'll learn what period shoes felt like. How the gear was carried; what was comfortable and what wasn't. Often you'll get to try period recipes for foods you've never even thought of. The Romans for example, loved to combine tastes that to us, in the modern world would be (and are) considered weird — pancakes with pepper come to mind. However, when you try these foods, you'll find they aren't bad, just different. Often different in a good way (WWI turnip jam was NOT in a good way though ).
So look around, pick something that interests you and jump on in — the water's fine!
reenactor.Net Needs You!
In the past, r.Net has had donation drives for different things... although mainly for the server bill (it used to be hideous back in the old days before hosting came down). Nowadays, we have the server handled, but find that we once again need to pay a programmer to help keep r.Net on an even keel.
Once more into the breech...
Through the kind help of our friends, reenactor .Net has stayed up over the years and with your help, we will be able to continue the stuff we do ;-) To all who have helped out in the past, THANK YOU!!! If you'd like to donate to reenactor.Net, we appreciate your help!.
To help out, please go here and read more.
And, please, visit the reenactor.Net honor wall... this is a page that lists those who have donated money to help keep "the lights on" here on r.Net. If you would like to help out and donate, please use this button or the ones on the upper right.
reenactor.Net's Online Living History Forums
I've wanted to do Forums for awhile now, but it was either too much coding, or I would have to use someone else's system (i.e. ezboard or something — meaning we had no control over how it was run) or just whatever. I am happy to say I've found something that set up well and is expandable. There is very little there yet, but there will be soon. And, if you're signed up for one time period, you're a member in them all. This works well if you do more than one time period or are just interested in what's going on in reenacting. It's a nice place on the web — not some place for a flame war.
So anyway, the link for the Forums is right above — click it and sign up. And yeah, YOU yourself need to post too, for there to be stuff there to read — reenacting, it ain't just another arm-chair hobby!
Hope you like it... Marsh
P.S. look for more changes at r.Net coming up to make it easier and better for you, the reenactor.
Check out the NEW additions to the site page We try to post the additions along with the date so you can figure out what's new. (okay, so sometimes (often) we don't get around to updating this page as much as we need to... hope to work on that in the future...)
Events
To help you find upcoming events, we also have a calendar section which is constantly being updated by our visitors and the event organizers.
Meet Our Staff!
Click HERE to go to our Admin Page and meet the Staff.
Movie Work
If you're interested in using reenactors in a production or you're a reenactor thinking about doing movie/film work, read this
Do you Want to Start Your Own New Unit or
Living History Group?
Then check out this page we have added, written by Matt Amt of LEGIO XX! This article really details what you need to do and how to make the new unit work out right!
Yep! You too, could have your reenactor/historically-related businesses ad here, on reenactor.Net. We have a variety of different combination's to place your banner and text here on reenactor.Net, from a single ad on up to whole ad campaigns to reach your reenactor customers! Click on the banner to check out our pricing.
Books!
Visit Marsh's Reenactor Bookstore!(also, we have book areas in each time/area... We are working hard to consolidate this all). If you are looking for books, music CD's or videos about any particular time period, please visit reenactor.Net's on-line store. What does this mean? Do we have a store... Can you come in and yell at us — nope, it means we are an "Associate" of Amazon.com! Each of our Time/Areas has (or will have--only a one or two don't have a reading list) a Reading list with links to books at Amazon.com and Amazon's mobile apps (Android, iOS) Each of our Time/Areas has a Reading list with links to books at Amazon. This is one of the ways you can help keep reenactor.Net going — the pittance we receive from Amazon when you buy a book through us!
Anyway, soon we'll have this all redone again, Amazon has come up with a newer, better way to help us build our web bookstore. Sometimes it's hard to find books in a time period we don't do, so... if we don't have something that YOU believe we should, TELL US! :-) If you have any questions about our On-Line Store, please view its F.A.Q. page.
reenactor.Net's Featured books:
(Click the banner above to go read
more about Charles Spencer)
The first book here, was written by my wife's great aunt and is a good read.
The Journey was written by 83 year old, first time author, Jeanne Spencer (now sadly passed) and is an extraordinary chronicle of her 57 year marriage to the late Charles Spencer. They married shortly before America's entry into World War II, which Spencer fought as an 8th Air Force bombardier. Horribly wounded on a mission against Bremen, Germany on November 26, 1943 Spencer was awarded the Nations second highest award for Military valor the Distinguished Service Cross. After spending 2 years undergoing extensive plastic surgery both in England and at a U.S. Army hospital near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, Lt. Spencer was discharged from military service in 1946.
The Journey tells all this, together with the couple's remarkable post war story, as they settled in Jeanne's native Kansas, raised 2 sons, and served God through Chuck's Vocation as a Baptist minister and Chaplain of the Kansas State Soldiers Home near Dodge City. After Chuck's death in 1998, Jeanne continued to live in Dodge City, where she played the organ at the First Baptist church every Sunday and taught an adult Sunday school class, and made clothes for the children of needy families.
A book by a good friend of ours,
Dr. Jenny Thompson! All about reenactors... Jenny has been writing this book for many years and has finally finished it.
I got my copy and read it right through. Fun to try and figure out who is who (Jenny changed the names to protect the foolish) Also, I was amused to see myself quoted a few times ;-)
Fort Defiance Colonial Mu... by Karl Helweg
