Grand Dames

I may be wrong about this, but I think that Lisa Spangenberg of Digital Medievalist: Scéla and Esther MacCallum-Stewart of Break of Day in the Trenches qualify as Grand Dames of the History Blogosphere. They've both just surpassed five years of history blogging. Only N. S. Gill at Ancient/Classical History, who has surpassed, and Dorothy King, the PhDiva, who is almost (gasp!)seven years old, and Baraita's Naomi Chana have greater longevity. Chana passed five last September. Shana Worthen and Betsy Newmark of Betsy's Page will surpass the five year mark in May. Another Damned Medievalist at Blogenspiel and Cliopatria's Rebecca Goetz will pass it in July. In blogospheric terms, we're really talking ancients and seniority here.* When they began, Invisible Adjunct hadn't yet been born.

Some Grand Dames, like Spangenberg, take no note of birthdays. Others, like MacCallum-Stewart, recall them with an amusing recap of some of the wounds."... over the years," she says that her blog

has been regularly misunderstood, flamed, was used to help get someone sacked (because there was swearing in the soldier's songs and she linked to my site - hence 'unsavoury content'!!!), misquoted elsewhere, plagiarised elsewhere ('neighbours, you are tedious'), the cause for an ex to claim that he only knew he'd been dumped by reading it (totally untrue - I'd done it the week before!), and sometimes, heavily edited against my better judgement, this latter so much so that my old site had a system of 'hidden' entries on it. Which seems totally bizarre, given that a weblog is meant to be an expression of voice.

That's just part of her notes toward an article about historians who blog, blog writers and their audiences. Given her experience, it should be a corker. The notes are already a fascinating read.

*I'd be happy to hear of other female history bloggers who belong in this sacred circle. I thought perhaps Elisabeth Carnell, but I couldn't find her archives to determine"her age."