"Frankly, Scarlet, I don't give a damn" The romance, the plantations, the splendid homes, and the wonders of the hoop skirt, airy and light weight; the fun and frisky wiggle of a bustle; hair coiffed into precise and shiny ringlets, topped with bonnets and tight haberdashery. Lovely ladies sipping mint juleps from their swings on grandiose porches, admiring their rhodendrons.

Perchance it is the human condition to fantasize and relish periods of great conflict and drama. Both sides now at least have uniforms, so the enemy is recognizable, as opposed to the Revolutionary/Colonial time. Ignore the humanist ethic conflict of slavery.

It is a testament to film makers, that one movie, "Gone with the Wind", can motivate so many to want to recreate this era. Many girls want to wear Civil War dresses to prom, and the men's costumes are so easy that they oblige.

Like pirates, renaissance, western, fairies, and, medieval, the Civil War period attracts a year round cadre of afficianados and re-anactors. We have all the uniforms, from cavalry to generals, North to South.

We also have all the children's costumes that they need for the Arizona state required Living History events. As a mom, I have seen first hand how great costuming and props result in a better grade. We all want to be entertained.

Abe Lincoln, General Grant, General Lee, Wild Bill Hickcock, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Nathanial Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Walt Whitman, Monet, Manet, Whistler, Wagner, Giuseppe Verdi, Mendel, Louis Pastuer, Charles Dickens, and Johannes Brahams lived in this time period.