The whole gang here at Historiann HQ wish you and yours a quiet, ad-free holiday of your choice this spring. I’ve had such an overwhelmingly positive reaction about my decision not to provide content for free at sites that are run by advertising dollars that I thought today I’d also direct your attention to other ad-free and content-rich history blogs. Most of these are group blogs, except for The Way of Improvement Leads Home, which is run by the indefatigable John Fea of Messiah College:
- Tropics of Meta: historiography for the masses! Mostly modern U.S. history, California history, media studies, race, and gender.
- Nursing Clio: a group blog on gender, sexuality, and the history of medicine
- U.S. Intellectual History: big-tent intellectual history as it’s written and taught by junior and emerging scholars.
- African American Intellectual History: same as above, with a focus on black intellectuals from the eighteenth century to the present.
- Religion in American History: a group blog on the obvious, with contributors who cover the richness of American religious history from the colonial era to the present.
- The Junto: a group blog on early American history by historians based in North America and Britain.
- Borealia: a group blog on early Canadian history (First Nations/New France to Confederation, 1867)
- The Way of Improvement Leads Home: John Fea’s blog on early American history, American religious history, and early U.S. intellectual history. Fea is apparently a man unafflicted by hunger, thirst, or the need to sleep, as he’s just published yet another book, and he has a podcast now, too! (I am not worthy, but then, neither of most of you so we’re in good company.)
- Notches: A group blog on the history of sexuality, mostly European and North American.
Most of us who contribute to blogs like these have day jobs, or are madly finishing dissertations, or sometimes both. It’s honest labor, and we do it because we love history and refuse to believe that it’s irrelevant for understanding the world as we have inherited it. Peace, my sisters and brothers!
In case this wasn’t enough for you, here’s the recipe for bunnies in blood that we’ll be having for dessert this evening, courtesy of my generous mother-in-law who is a brilliant chef and pastry chef too.
For the bunnies: Sprinkle 1 envelope of gelatin in 1/4 C of warm water to soften; sit cup in hot water bath to fully dissolve. Meanwhile, heat the heavy cream, sour cream, and sugar in a double boiler until hot and thoroughly melded together. Whip the cream cheese. Mix creams into the cream cheese and stir in vanilla. (I also add a pinch of salt.) Pour into rabbit-shaped moulds; makes about 4 cups.
There will be blood: Heat 10 oz. frozen raspberries (thawed) with 2/3 C sugar in a small saucepan, stirring constantly; bring to a simmer and boil for 3 minutes. Sieve seeds out of sauce & refrigerate.
To serve: Warm moulds briefly in 1-2 inches of hot water to release the bunnies. Spatter some “blood” on a small plate and put a bunny on top. Voila!
Historiann 
Happy to you too! This would be “shortly-after-New Year” if we switched back and forth between the Julian and Gregorian calendars the way we do clocks. Where you gonna get a rabbit-shaped mould on short notice, though? Are these standard issue Easter paraphernalia in some parts of the country?
LikeLike
Oh yum!!! I guess I need bunny molds.
LikeLike
Happy Seward’s Day, everyone (per Wikipedia, a legal holiday in Alaska on the last Monday in March to honor Secretary of State William H. Seward and signature of the 1867 Alaska Purchase Treaty): sorry I’m a bit late to the celebration. You might also enjoy the “ad-free and content-rich” weekly history podcast Past Present that started last September:
Disclosure: Neil and Niki are friends of mine. Click here for recent episodes.
LikeLike
Actually this year Pesach starts April 29 — since the Jewish lunar calendar tends to get out of sync with the solar calendar, every seven years we throw in a leap month to re-set, and this is one of those years. Happy to accept the greetings early, though! So here’s a historical calendar question: calculating the date of Easter has been a point of contention between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. This year Orthodox Lent just started last week and Easter is May 1, since the Orthodox Church insists that Easter must come after Pesach/Passover. I’m puzzled as to why the Protestants, especially the 16th century Anglican Church, did not jump into the fray and issue their own Easter calculations. It looks to me like they were just as happy to let the Catholics do the math, but there’s got to be more to it than that, yes?
All for ad-free intellectual discourse!
LikeLike
I don’t know why the Protestants left well enough alone. Probably because the Church of England was pretty much the same as Catholicism but with the King instead of the Pope? That was pretty lazy. It took a few centuries for them & even the sectarians to scrub out most of the Red Letter days in their breviaries.
It seems Jesuitical, as it were, to worry overmuch about the exact celebration of these feasts, IMHO, but I’m not big on religious feasts so YMMV. Seems like the historians who take all dates pre-1752 and then add 10 or 11 days to bring them up to the Gregorian calendar. Whatever! Too much futzing around with stuff that’s usually entirely trivial.
LikeLike
Actually, the extra lunar month is added in seven out of 19 years, in order to ensure that the spring holiday (Passover) happens in the spring. This was considered a requirement of the Jewish calendar based on the interpretation of a verse in Deuteronomy (sorry, don’t have that exact quote right now). Note that the Muslim calendar is also lunar-based, but does not intercalate extra months, therefore Ramadan can be at any time of the year. But why seven out of 19 years? why a nineteen-year cycle? Turns out that this is the Metonic cycle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonic_cycle) in which, every nineteen years, the stars are in the exact same place in the sky on the same day as 19 years ago, otherwise known as, your solar cycles lined up with your lunar cycles. The Jews did a lot of stargazing when they were exiled in Babylonia, lo these 2500 years ago. Still works. And Wikipedia notes that this cycle is also used to compute Easter. Who knew!
LikeLiked by 1 person
SHWIH: Stuff happens when it happens. Unless it doesn’t happen.
LikeLike
You are practically convincing me to get my own domain name and go ad free.
LikeLike