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To: h-labor@h-net.msu.edu Subject: Re: Mark Lause on Methodology On the value of quantitative methods for tracing 19th century mobility, Howell Harris wrote: > it'd _also_ > be wrong to adopt an attitude, as Mark seems to recommend, of > ultra-skepticism. What evidence does he have that the kinds of > people he says city directories and censuses _miss_ are more > representative, or significant, or whatever, than those they > hit? Simply put, there are a lot more missed than hit in the 1802 case I was discussing. There is no reason to believe that the one-fifth of the resident workers who made the city directories, etc. are representative. Conversely, the most plausible explanations for the difference between those "hit" and the four-fifths missed relate to things like property ownership, residential stability, etc.--considerations which should caution us against any generations based on the one-fifth. (Your question, btw, turns matters on their head: proponents of a method should demonstrate its worth in a particular query rather than to ask skeptics to prove a negative.) For what it's worth, I advise skepticism, not "ultra-skepticism". The issue's not whether to use the sources we have but what might be the most appropriate use. There are times and places where an approach might fit, and, where it does not fit, we shouldn't have problems using biographical data as anecdotal evidence. The matter runs to some deep issues. Few historians have any real qualms about saying that the application of social science methods has been overused and misused in our field (though many might prefer to say it in elevators rather than on the conference floor). The fact is that history embraced these methods as an acceptably plausible means of addressing some very difficult quetions because they were acceptably plausable in social science, and social studies, which gained ground through the last century at the expense of history as a discipline. (The preference of a corporate and bureaucratic world for statistics, social science and social studies hardly means that these are inherently better ways of getting at social realities.) I'd just suggest that no method of getting at past realities has any merit apart from the the avilability of adequate reliable sources. If we don't have them, we shouldn't pretend that we do. In solidarity, Mark L. Andrew H. Lee andrew.lee@nyu.edu Tamiment Library "Néant, la Mecque des bibliothèques!" New York University Jules Laforgue, Salomé 70 Washington Square South New York, New York 10012 (212) 998-2633 (212) 995-4070 (fax)
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