I started out doing living history from the perspective of a professional historian and instructor. In my case, I had a lot to learn about material culture and the history of the "everyday" and mundane physical culture of the different periods. I'm still learning as I go.
I was fortunate to have input from people who'd done things for quite some time, and new a great deal. To my mind, after six plus years of doing the 1830s, I'll say that I see a few issues: 1) the money factor. We all have to economize, and while the linen may be absolutely better and more convincing, many of us balk at the cost and opt for, say, cotton canvas. 2) Our stuff is nice and clean and little used. In the really existing early 19th century stuff was subject to continual hard use and meticulously repaired, patched, and made right again. 3) Material scarcity. Fact is, not everyone got all the stuff that they sere supposed to! There was a lot of material scarcity and things were constantly adapted or gone without. 4) Our ancestors were far more pragmatic than we give them credit for. There are any number of descriptions of folks from Old Europe being scandalized by the clothing and hair styles and general comportment of Native Americans/ Amerindians. But there are very similar accounts of people in the Americas going about in scanty attire, and adapting to the local conditions. This one seldom sees in living history. There are lots of paintings showing men in Texas and along the Mississippi wearing shirts open at the collar/ front, a pair of trousers, and nothing else. But woe betide anyone dressing that way at a living history event! "A properly dressed man wore high-waisted, tight pants, a shirt, a cravat or neck-cloth, a vest, and a tail coat or frock coat and hat!" This is indeed "proper dress" like you'd wear to a formal gathering or to have your portrait painted... Doesn't mean that is what people wore outside when it is hotter'n blazes!
Small wonder that so many living historians in the U.S. South keel over once or twice from the heat! We're a bit whacko when it comes to being "decent" and showing the public the degree to which status was tied to clothing and dress, and that people had to protect themselves from the sun and elements through covering up most of their skin and anatomy. But I think we tend to overdo it. Last, 5) we are inevitably PC and PC, which is to say "period correct" but also "politically correct." None of us can go full-on 1830s without being driven away by angry reactions... People of the 1830s were fastidiously polite, but also capable of being very coarse, vulgar and combative. They drank whiskey and gin constantly. They were capable of being loud and boisterous and obnoxious. So none of us, really, can go fully into the period without alienating and even rankling our modern-day interlocutors. Some of the period slang would be a tremendous addition to a living history persona, but it is also easily misunderstood by the general public.
In my case, I've tried my level best to put together a New Orleans Grey impression. The problem is that while intellectually we know that these men acquired jean wool work clothes, civilian roundabout jackets, trousers, and seal-skin travelers or hunting "Elmer Fudd" caps, along with lots of militia leather equipment and muskets and .54 caliber rifles, one faces the obstacle of having to make all of that stuff by hand since no one makes it "ready to wear." If I had my druthers, I'd try to re-purpose some sort of Confederate-era gray or butternut jean-wool jacket, but since I have limited resources, time as well as money, it was simpler to acquire a gray War of 1812 militia uniform! Same for headgear... Much easier to acquire the model 1825 forage cap than try to make a faux-seal skin cap, since seal skin is a no-no these days. I'd thought of horse hide, or some kind of fur to approximate, but again, time and resources intervene. The result, of course, is a somewhat dated and even inaccurate portrayal of these combatants. The inaccuracy is then accentuated by my advancing age, overfondness for beer and concomitant paunch, and physical condition, etc. That, and my wife absolutely
hates the authentic male hair styles of the period!
I think this is something that causes a brou-ha-ha with living historians: There are people entirely willing to devote the necessary time and resources to getting everything "just so" while there are others who would rather "get by" with something easier and less time-consuming. And then this becomes a source of division.
