ABSTRACT
1900 House, a reality TV program that in 1999 on BBC 4 and PBS, was meant as “an experiment in living history,”1 in which a late twentieth-century family would spend three months in a reconstructed Victorian environment. While the show borrowed its codes from history museums and historical reenactment, it brought in a new dimension: the “period” rooms of 1900 House extended through television into British and American living rooms. By merging historical and reality TV conventions, 1900 House introduced a new way of accessing history to millions of viewers. This curious encounter between the historical and the modern sheds new light on “history” as it was understood by television producers, the show’s participants, and its audiences: what kind of history, exactly, is being displayed and reenacted here? How does it fit into debates about the various forms of public or popular history, especially on television? How does the format of the show impact these perceptions? By entirely re-creating a “historic site,” and by immersing a family of history amateurs in this setting, 1900 House introduced a radically new method of revisiting the past and producing alternative knowledge, at the crossroads of reenactment, spectacle, and documentary.
