Tag: american history

A March Through Time: The Continued Appeal of Re-enactments

How do spectacles like historical re-enactments help place us at the scene of a major historical event? By using sensory stimulation, historic sites ensure visitors keep coming back (in time) for more.

By Serena Ypelaar

I love military re-enactments. There’s just something about showing up at a historic fort and catching sight of thousands of redcoats, canvas tents, musket fire and cannon blasts that offers pure indulgence for any history buff, especially one who grew up in the Upper Canada region. I’ve been involved with the history of the War of 1812 since I was a kid, having slept in the soldiers’ barracks at Fort York (Toronto, ON) twice for Girl Guides camp. Later, as a teenager, I started volunteering at the Fort; I also wrote my IB Programme thesis on Tecumseh’s Indigenous Confederacy before and during the War of 1812.

During the bicentennial commemorations of the War of 1812, I could be found at the Battle of Queenston Heights, the taking of Fort George, and the Battle of York re-enactments. It’s been six or seven years since I last attended an event, so when I returned to Fort George yesterday it felt like a long-awaited homecoming.

Re-enactors at Fort George National Historic Site, 13 July 2019. Photo: Nicholas Ypelaar

These kinds of events tend to draw a huge crowd, for obvious reasons – the performances are almost like 200-year-old action movies. People love loud bangs and smoke, music, and (I say with a wry smile) violence – all of which are sensational elements of performance. Complete with lemonade served in a corked glass bottle, regimental fife and drum corps, and a sutler’s row, the immersion level at Fort George yesterday was off the charts.

Military re-enactments offer the sights, sounds and smells of battle, which, though a dynamic and exciting prospect, should also be treated with respect. The Battle of Fort George re-enactment included a lament performed by the musical corps to honour the victims of the war who fought and died at the site – as well as Indigenous peoples who supported either the British or the Americans and yet were not compensated with their promised outcomes. Certainly, military conflict isn’t actually something to shout “huzzah!” about – it’s a grim product of colonial interests. But by portraying early military combat at the original site of its happening, interpreters and re-enactors can educate visitors on the scale, impact, and ongoing legacies of battles.

American troops attempting to invade Fort George. Photo: Nicholas Ypelaar

Re-enactment is an active form of interpretation which immerses the visitor and offers what I call a “passive” visitor experience – passive in a way that indicates that on-site interpretation is excellent. The more organically information is presented to me as a visitor, the less I have to work to picture the historic site in use – meaning I can be passive during the learning process since I’m provided with plenty of interpretation and storytelling. I don’t even need to read text during a re-enactment – I’m shown, not told, what happened. The spectacle aspect creates emotional reactions, and the impressive visuals are what I remember. At the Battle of Queenston Heights re-enactment, when British-Indigenous leader John Norton (Teyoninhokarawen) emerged to lead the Mohawk warriors into battle, the audience applauded its heartiest – something which intrigued me, and which I haven’t ever forgotten.

There are numerous complicated perspectives in the War of 1812, and it can be a lot to grasp. What I found excellent at this year’s Fort George re-enactment was the commentary provided throughout. When the two interpreters first started narrating the battle, I thought it would be annoying, but it was actually so informative. I learned tactical insights about what was happening on both sides – the invading American contingent and the defending British & Indigenous forces. Visitors from both sides of the border had come to attend, and I found that hearing the context imparted valuable knowledge to the audience, myself included. It also demonstrated the re-enactors’ commitment to authenticity, as actions such as “flanking” the invaders were explained, and so on. It gave the battle meaning, and I felt confident I could then share my tactical understanding of the history with others in the future.

Re-enactments animate historic sites, meeting visitors where they’re at – in the 21st century. I didn’t have to struggle to picture the broad expanse of grass as a battlefield because it became one, simulated before my eyes. I was transported into the early 19th century, with historic vendors selling historic wares and wearing historical clothing. And the re-enactors themselves get to explore historical research in a thoroughly hands-on way – stepping into the soldiers’/warriors’ shoes and living history.

That’s why I jump at the chance to go. I get to witness history … or at least the closest thing to it.

Interpreting the Zapruder film

55 years after the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, we still have much to learn about the famous Zapruder film, which captured the incident in Dallas.

Warning: contains mention/images of graphic violence and may be disturbing for some readers.

By Serena Ypelaar

November 22, 1963. John F. Kennedy greets the public in the presidential motorcade as he heads toward Dealey Plaza and the Texas School Book Depository. As the car turns off of Elm Street, onlookers gathered along the side of the road cheer, clap, and wave to the President and his wife, Jacqueline.

The next few seconds would drastically change the future – and believe it or not, they were caught on film.

The Zapruder film (graphic content) preserves those moments when JFK was fatally shot, and it’s hence been scrutinized closely for decades. Abraham Zapruder was an ordinary U.S. citizen who happened to be in the right place at the right time, unknowingly documenting a tragic event that would go down in history.

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Screencap taken from the Zapruder film.

You might think there’s nothing of value to gain from watching the murder of a political leader, but in this context that couldn’t be further from the truth. Zapruder wasn’t to know that the U.S. government would seize his short film when the Warren Commission was launched to investigate the assassination – he was merely recording the event for himself, on a Bell & Howell home movie camera.

There are others who filmed the assassination, but I want to focus on Zapruder’s close-range footage for its interpretive value.

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Abraham Zapruder’s camera, which is now held in the U.S. National Archives. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

I mentioned that viewing the murder was crucial rather than gratuitous – and now I’ll explain why. JFK’s suspected killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, was shot dead by nightclub owner Jack Ruby before he could be extensively questioned or tried for the murder. This turn of events spawned boundless conspiracy theories, including ones in which Oswald was not the shooter, or that government(s) or other third parties were behind the assassination.

Oswald is alleged to have fired the shots from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. His own whereabouts and location have been intensely analyzed in order to place him at the scene of the crime: the source of the gunshots. To find and prove the source, the Zapruder film is an invaluable piece of evidence.

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President John F. Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald. Source: Psychology Today

Analysts and scientists have hypothesized on the trajectory of the bullets entering and exiting President Kennedy’s body. While many have opposing views on their path and therefore their source location, the point is that without Zapruder’s film, the investigation would have relied instead on subjective witness testimony.

However, discrepancies were perceived between witness testimony and the film’s contents. In an editorial for the New York Times in 2007, Max Holland and Johann Rush assert that Zapruder’s film was initially misunderstood because it seemed to show only two of the three shots believed to have been fired:

The majority of witnesses in Dealey Plaza heard three shots fired. Lawmen found three cartridges in Lee Harvey Oswald’s nest … Yet Zapruder’s film captured only two shots clearly. As a result, the film has been scoured for evidence of another shot, presumably the first one fired at the president. Research has yielded contradictory findings.

But what if Zapruder simply hadn’t turned on his camera in time?

Holland and Rush state that Zapruder commenced filming but turned off his camera when waiting for the President’s limousine to come into view. They suggest that he didn’t turn it back on again until after Oswald had fired his first shot. Viewing the film as incomplete therefore answers a question that loomed large over the Warren Commission investigation: why did Oswald miss the closest shot but prove such an accurate sniper in the two shots following (at 190 and 265 ft. respectively)?

“About the time the car got near the black and white sign, I heard a shot,” a key witness, Amos L. Euins, had said. Holland and Rush argue that it was the sign itself that blocked Oswald’s view of Kennedy. Sure enough, in watching the Zapruder film we lack the first shot but see the next two – after the President passes near a large sign. Startlingly, of the three shots fired, Zapruder managed to document the two that found their target.

The film, we realize, does not depict an assassination about to commence. It shows one that had already started.

The Zapruder film is central to the historical record of Kennedy’s assassination, as is careful analysis. The angles from which one can interpret the film prove that despite its overwhelming value to those trying to understand the event, it provides only a limited (though crucially significant) slice of what happened that day, contingent on a man’s choices of when to record … and his inability to know what was about to happen.