Crime scenes and case files: depositions, domesticity and death

This paper develops the topic introduced at the Histories of Home Subject Specialist Network seminar ‘Crime Scenes and Case Files: Sources for Studying Domestic Interiors’ held at the Geffrye Museum on 02 April 2012. From the research presented there by Bernard Jacqué on wallpaper using Parisian crime scene photographs, and the introduction to crime case files at The National Archives given by Chris Heather, I was able to investigate the available sources and develop an original and exciting methodology for researching home and domesticity in the twentieth century. This paper will describe the most useful collection of sources identified and the material they contain including photographs, plans, letters and rich descriptions of a variety of different types of domestic spaces. The presentation will show examples of these documents and images of specific dwellings, focusing on the period 1945-1969, highlighting the wide-ranging potential applications of the source. The paper will identify the contribution that this new source can make to themes in the historiography of home and domesticity in this period such as the privatisation of family life, DIY and companionate marriage, ‘austerity’ to ‘affluence’ and the impact of the mechanisation of housework.