Different Shades of Buff

When I wrote about “American Revolution buffs” yesterday, I was primarily drawing a distinction between them (us) and academic historians. But, though “buff” means a particular color of cloth when it comes to Revolutionary War uniforms, history buffs come in many different shades.

There are the general history buffs who read lots of books or even documents, attend lectures and events, and sometimes translate that knowledge into speaking and writing for other laypeople. A century and a half ago, these people were called “historians.” But then history became an academic discipline, with benefits (rigorous training and methods, salaries to support research and writing time, resources for publication, &c.) and drawbacks (the insularity of and within the academy).

Another group consists of material-culture buffs, who can be classified in two overlapping categories: reenactors and collectors. The knowledge some of these folks accumulate is amazing. And their stuff—they invest their salaries in museum-quality artifacts and hand-made recreations worth hundreds of dollars. As buffs, they’re enthusiastic about that knowledge and usually glad to share it.

Reenactors live aspects of the past, too. They know how to shoot eighteenth-century muskets and all the upkeep those guns need. They study drills manuals and actually try them out. “Living historians” know what it’s like to sew ladies’ stays by hand and to wear those stays. A political historian can write many articles about John Adams and never ask how his breeches hung; a reenactor trying to provide an accurate impression of an eighteenth-century gentleman needs to know that.

Yet another group of history buffs are the genealogists. They tend to study linear—or lineal—slices of history rather than the horizontal swaths of a single period. I remember attending my first meeting of genealogists at a library several years ago; as I introduced myself, I heard a murmur from all directions: “What lines? What lines?” In other words, what family names was I researching? I had to explain that I was using genealogical techniques and sources to look for links among Revolutionary Bostonians, and I didn’t really care about their ancestors or descendants. But I could do that only because genealogy buffs had produced and preserved so many resources.

Finally, there are indefatigable data-gatherers like Philip Lampi, who collected election results from the early republic from newspapers, and George Quintal, Jr., author of the National Park Service report on Patriots of Color in 1775. Those gents spent days in front of microfilm readers on their own time and their own dime before the larger historical community recognized the value of their work.

Public historians usually recognize the value of working with well-informed history buffs. The questions they pursue may be quite different from those of academic historians, as I discussed yesterday, but the knowledge base is complementary. And these days, with Congress squeezing the National Park Service budget and other museums competing for scarce resources, the energy and knowledge of self-made experts is crucial to preserving and communicating history to the public.

I also think it’s valuable for academic historians considering the gap between scholarly and popular history to understand something buffs are not: they’re not the public.

TOMORROW: The popular audience.

[Image from the terrific 18th-Century New England Life website.]