For this week's assignments we were asked to find examples of blogs that are used in different ways for the study of history. In the lesson, the focus was on the different ways that the blog can be formatted. However, while I was looking at various history blogs, I also picked up on another way to categorize different ways that a blog can be used. This categorization focused on the blog themes, rather than the format. I found two main categories for blog themes:
1) Blogs focused on a specific aspect of history. These subjects include specific time periods, a major historical event, a single country or location, or an aspect of history (such as food history, women's history, etc). Some of these include:
Life in 19th century Paris - https://victorianparis.wordpress.com/
Ancient foods - https://ancientfoods.wordpress.com/
Scandalous women - http://scandalouswoman.blogspot.com/
2) Blogs focused on a specific way of telling history. This includes themes such as "little-known history," "on this day in history," etc. Examples of this style are:
Stuff You Missed in History Class - https://www.missedinhistory.com/
Today in History - https://todayinhistory.blog
BackStory (understanding the history behind today's news) - https://www.backstoryradio.org/blog/
For someone looking to begin a historical-focused blog, the first thing the blog author must do is find a unifying theme that he/she wants to write about. There are many factors that impact what theme a historian might choose. If the historian is creating the blog for a specific organization or publication, the theme will likely be determined by the mission of their employer. For example, if the historian works for a Civil War battlefield, the blog for that battlefield should focus on presenting the history of that site.
If a historian is not creating the blog for an organization, the theme will likely be determined by the historian's own specialty or the audience they are hoping to cultivate. A narrow theme like those in #1 above will have a smaller segment of the population that is interested, but those readers might be more devoted to the subject and likely to keep reading. This type of theme also allows the historian to dive deeper into a particular topic than can be done with a blog that has no particular historical focus.
A broader theme based on a way of telling history, like those in #2 above, is likely to attract a broader audience. The articles in this type of blog tend to be less in-depth and do not require extensive knowledge or research from the author. These types of blogs are great for reaching the broader public with historical knowledge, rather than fellow historians.
The other part of our assignment was to find historians or historical organizations to follow on social media. As a historian and a museum professional, I already follow many historical organizations online. Unfortunately very few of these organizations use their social media as a platform for furthering their educational missions. Many of the organizations I follow use their social media for updates about the organization itself, rather than for educating the public about the history that the organization was founded to disseminate to the public.
The Tenement Museum (https://www.facebook.com/TenementMuseum/) in New York, NY, is one example of a historical organization that does a wonderful job of using their social media to further their educational mission. They post frequently, and almost all of their posts cover themes related to the history that their museum was created to discuss.
Chick History (https://www.facebook.com/chickhistory/) is another organization that does a good job of using their social media to further their educational mission, rather than only posting about the organization itself. Chick History is a non-profit organization that was founded to provide resources for educators wanting to teach women's history. On their social media they balance posting about events that the organization is hosting with sharing interesting articles and news stories about women's history.
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