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History Social History

On the Case

Explorations in Social History

edited by Franca Iacovetta & Wendy Mitchinson

Publisher
University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division
Initial publish date
Nov 1998
Category
Social History, Historiography, General, General
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780802081292
    Publish Date
    Nov 1998
    List Price
    $40.95
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780802043023
    Publish Date
    Nov 1998
    List Price
    $77.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442678071
    Publish Date
    Oct 1998
    List Price
    $97.00

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Description

Case files, records from all kinds of social, medical, governmental, military, and other agencies, become available to researchers once confidentiality is no longer in question. Such records are an important source for scholars in social history and related fields, providing insight not only into the lives of ordinary people but into the workings of the agencies that kept the records as well. Case files contain a wealth of information and challenge researchers by their complexity and the variety of approaches and methodologies their analysis demands. On the Case is a timely book intended to provide a forum for discussing the theoretical and methodological issues that case files raise. The book brings together theoretical debates, new research, and new research methods and offers compelling illustrations of the drama, conflict, and power relations that the case file can capture.

 

This collection of essays features some of Canada's leading social historians. Readers will encounter an impressive array of case files, including psychiatrists' accounts of sexual deviants, employment records of sailors, state welfare and Indian Affairs reports, court records, the patient forms of hospital and asylum doctors, and state security files. While the contributors differ in choice of subject and approach, they share a commitment to the progressive traditions of social history. They recover the voices and actions of people – not only of those with power but also of those who seemingly have none.

 

Case files have proved crucial to scholars developing such new fields of historical study as sexuality, gay and lesbian lives, and domestic violence, and have reinvigorated work in more established fields of history such as immigration, security and intelligence, and the modern welfare state. On the Case is unique in offering new research as well as guiding readers through recent debates and the various theoretical and methodological challenges created by case files.

About the authors

Franca Iacovetta is professor emerita of history at the University of Toronto, and a past president of the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians. A historian of women/gender, migration, and transnational radicals, she has published eleven books, including Before Official Multiculturalism: Women’s Pluralism in Toronto, 1950s-1970s. Award-winning books include Gatekeepers: Reshaping Immigrant Lives in Cold War Canada and the co-edited Beyond Women’s Words. She lives in Toronto.

Franca Iacovetta's profile page

Wendy Mitchinson is a Canada Research Chair in Gender and Medical History and a professor in the Department of History at the University of Waterloo.

Wendy Mitchinson's profile page