History Alive 2018

In the Queensland Re-Enactment World, June heralds the annual event History Alive. I have been attending for a number of years with my group RIFF (Re-enacting Independently For Fun) and this year was no different. We play part of a massive two-day timeline event. Our group is an open period group, so we can do any periods that we choose.

Our longest running period is Regency, and this year we again dug out our Regency kits to spend the Saturday of the event dressed in our 1800s finery. We pass the day with handcraft activities, card and letter games, picnic luncheon and picnic games. It’s a pretty relaxing way to spend the day and the weather was just beautiful for it. This time, I wore my Yellow Gingham Muslin transitional dress. I’ve only worn this dress once previously so it was lovely to be out and about in it again.

For the Sunday of History Alive, our group jumped forward about 90 years in time to the 1890s where we portrayed Queensland Suffragettes, marching and petitioning for the vote. Our set up is an information stand with a petition. There were a number of petitions put forward to the Queensland Government in the 1890s, so I recreated one for members of the public to sign up and help us win the vote. It was actually wonderful how many young children came up to say that they had been learning about Queensland Suffragettes in school. It’s not something that I ever learnt about in my schooling days so it’s quite marvellous that this piece of history has made it into our schooling system. But this was the last year that we plan to do Suffragettes. Thankfully the costumes were simple this year – I just had to open up my costume tubs and pull out my skirt, blouse and hat. Unfortunately I took along the wrong set of stays so it was quite a challenge to lace my waist down enough to fit the skirt. It’s amazing how a different shaped corset can make the difference in your costume fitting or not.

I am looking forward to History Alive next year, I’m planning to convince the rest of my group to try out a new time period. We have somewhat discussed it, but it is high time. It gets a bit stale doing the same thing year in and year out. I enjoy the research part of re-enactment and tackling a new period gives us the opportunity to try new things and to make our display more interesting to the attending members of public.

Suffragettes at History Alive

Once again, June brought to us that annual Re-enactment event at the historic Fort Lytton in Brisbane, History Alive. For those who don’t know, History Alive is a timeline event run by the re-enactment community in Queensland. We all collaborate to put on period displays and encampments for the public for one weekend each year. This year, unfortunately, the weather took a turn for the worse and we were rained out on Sunday and sent home amidst the bursts of showers. There was three inches of water pooling through the eating area, the fields had turned to slush and the entry roads became slippery mud puddles.

But despite the wet turn of the weekend, Saturday was a beautiful sunshiny warm day. I was re-enacting with my group RIFF (Re-Enacting Independently For Fun). I started out the morning with three of my fellow members dressed as Queensland Suffragettes from the 1890s. We greeted the public at the gates, asking them to join the cause before proceeding to march the grounds with the call “Votes For Women”.  (PS: I'm the blonde one below)

By midday, we had switched back 100 years to the regency period and joined the remaining members of our group for a picnic lunch and games. 

I had a wonderful weekend, event though we were only able to participate for the one day, but there will always be other opportunities to get the kit out and spend time in our costumes. I thankfully was able to re-wear my costumes this time, but there were a couple things that I did have to make in the lead up - two regency petticoats (as I tore my old one last year), one tablecloth (it always gets dirty on the first day), 1890s blouse (the one I wore last year is actually a 1900s style one). But I'm incredibly pleased with how the blouse looked - it was a fabric grab from my stash and butchering two patterns to get something with the correct shape and seamlines for the period. Let's just hope that when next year comes around I am a bit more organised and don't have to make anything new the weekend before. 

Suffragettes at History Alive

To round out History Alive, we fast forward around 100 years overnight to the Australian 1890s to debut our new period and display - Suffragettes. Australia was the first country in the world to give women the vote AND the right to run for parliament in 1902. This pegged our timeline to 1894 - 1897 when the women of Queensland first organised the Women's Equal Franchise Association and collected over 11,000 signatures over the whole of our state to present to parliament. We chose to present to the public a market stall selling "votes for women" pins, home baking and giving out information flyers while collecting signatures. 

I spent a lot of time trying to recreate the petitions for the public visitors to sign should they choose, and we were really surprised by the number of signatures that we got. I also made banners and a flag to set up our site and help give the atmosphere. Not to mention the mass amounts of printed material that I had on hand to give out.

We also made time for a protest march around the grounds where we managed to ruffle a few feathers, despite the fact that women were given the vote in Australia over a 100 years ago. And thanks to facebook, I have a few photos to share of our march. 

 But doing a new period meant a whole new outfit to wear. I decided to use a few inspiration images and aim for a more tailored look that a lot of suffragettes decided to wear - blouse, skirt, vest, jacket and hat. I was lucky enough that I had enough brown suiting fabric that I could make a skirt and jacket, while my vest was made from scraps and my blouse came from stash. I even managed to dig out some fabric for a new corset and petticoat. It felt great to be able to make a costume without having a huge amount of expense. I think the only purchase that I made towards it was purchasing a spoon busk for my new period corset (which I will put up in another post).

All in all, it was a successful day and I'm glad that we finally got to be suffragettes. And Queensland ones at that. It made our display just that much more relatable. And I am really looking forward to doing it again next year. We are even starting to plan a few more elements that we can add to our interaction with the public.