Agency, Structure, and Explanation in Social History: The Case of the Foundling Home on Kephallenia, Greece, during the 1830s

There has developed recently a body of Self-reflexive literature on the methodologies and epistemological bases of social history (e.g., Zunz 1985; Lloyd 1988; Stearns 1988). Some critics have argued for a greater synthesis between social history and politics (Fox-Genovese and Genovese 1976; Eley and Nield 1980; Hochstadt 1982; Rabb 1981); others have focused more on the mode of social-historical disquisition (Stone 1979); still others have placed especial emphasis on the epistemological basis of historical explanation (Lloyd 1988; Giddens 1978; Abrams 1982). Much of the literature is programmatic. Very few of these works provide concrete examples of how their approaches can be applied. The primary purpose of this article is to furnish a case study that highlights the drawbacks to one type of social history while exemplifying the merits of another. In particular, I want to focus on the nature of the relationship between structure and human agency in social-historical explanation, using as my basis the foundling home established by the British Colonial Office on Kephallenia in 1824. Utilizing the data contained in the foundling register kept by the Greek Police Department at Argostoli over the years 1830 to 1834, I conduct statistical analyses similar to those performed by social historians working on comparable institutions elsewhere and thus place the Kephallenian case into a comparative European context.