I have to be honest: I don’t spend a whole lot of time on my Tumblr dashboard.  I have a few Tumblrs that I enjoy, but they are mostly people that I’ve been following since I first joined and started my personal Tumblr a couple of years ago.  I’m a big fan of the longform writing that has gradually (and unfortunately) become scarce here on Tumblr. 

Although they don’t write purely history, I’ve always loved the writing of Anaïs, Elizabeth, Jamie, and Beatrice.  My other favorites are a few people that I’ve been following a long time (and I mean “long time” in Tumblr time, which would be two or three years) or who are real-life friends: Betsy, Jessica, Joshua, Alexia, JHeath, IrishMexi, and Slim.

When it comes to history, I love the stuff that Tuesday Johnson posts on drtuesdaygjohnson and tuesday-johnson.  The National Archives has some fascinating posts at Our Presidents (featuring contributions from the collections in the Presidential Library system), Today’s Document, the Archivist of the United States, and the LBJ Library.  I’m also a fan of a newer blog called Historical Nonfiction, which posts short historical tidbits from all eras.

Other Tumblrs that I try to check in with semi-regularly are publishers or publications such as W.W. Norton American History, The Paris Review, Politico, the Obama campaign’s official Tumblr, Millions and Millions, Longreads, Give Me Something To Read, the L.A. Review of Books, and The Economist.  There are a few others that I follow, but I’m not going to list all of them here.  If I follow you, whether you’re listed here or not, just know that you are special.

I really do wish that I could follow everybody who follows me, but it’s just not feasible.  I get messages frequently from people requesting that I follow them, but I’ll only do it if I’m actually interested in someone’s page.  What really interests me is if the Tumblr is mainly longform, original writing.  I’m not big on pics, videos, or reblogs, but I’m constantly impressed and inspired by original writing*.

*It’s hard to add footnotes in a Q&A message, but I need to point out that one sure-fire way for someone to get me to follow them is if they look like Paula Patton.  As I said, I mainly follow people who I know, have followed for a while, or post a ton of creative, original writing.  However, I also have a lot of Tumblr bandwidth available for following cute girls, and my weakness is for dark hair/dark skin.  Just thought I should add that for full disclosure.