On the Case: Explorations in Social History

R. Douglas Francis is a professor of history at the University of
Calgary and the co-author of Destinies: Canadian History Since
Confederation.

On the Case is a fascinating collection of articles dealing with case
files or case records as a means of enriching Canadian social history.
The collection is the outcome of a workshop of invited Canadian social
historians who are all involved in doing archives-based research with
case files. A “case file” is defined as “the records generated by
political, social, legal, and other institutions entrusted with the task
of categorizing and assessing certain populations, usually with the
purpose of supervising, treating, punishing, servicing, and/or reforming
individuals or groups deemed in some way deviants or victims.”

The types of case files used in the various articles are rich and
wide-ranging: psychiatrists’ reports, employment records, state
welfare records, Native Affairs reports, court records, capital case
files, patient forms of hospital and asylum doctors, and state security
files. Equally diverse are the individuals and groups studied through
case files. They include members of Protestant religious sects, the
elderly, Native farmers on marginal lands, merchant-ship sailors, single
mothers, refugee women, political activists, female hospital patients,
and people who have appeared in court: abused women, men arrested for
assault and murder, girls charged with delinquency, and men accused of
homosexual acts. What unites these studies is the historian’s desire
to use case files to enrich social history by shedding light on
individuals and groups that have been marginalized or overlooked in
mainstream Canadian historical writing.

The collection is divided into five parts, according to the type of
case files used and the issues raised. Karen Dubinsky provides a
thoughtful afterword in which she discusses case file history in the
light of the questions it raises about the discipline of history in
general and about the issue of how historians use evidence in
particular. In their splendid introduction, the editors discuss the
emergence of Canadian social history and how it has changed in focus
over time.

The most exciting aspect of this collection is the debate over the
historian’s craft. The editors provide the historical context for the
debate, while the contributors to Part 1 address the methodological
issues. Carolyn Strange and Eric Sager debate whether case files can
best be used on an individual or collective (statistical) basis, while
Steven Maynard and Gregory Kealey raise other interesting questions
about the use of case files as historical evidence. The remaining essays
provide concrete studies using case files that shed light on individuals
and groups about whom we know very little.

What is impressive about the collection is the clarity of the debate
and the absence of jargon. Readers will come away not only with a better
understanding of groups of people who are rarely mentioned in standard
history books, but more importantly with an appreciation of the
complexities involved in writing good social history in our postmodern
world.