| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.2

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Reinhold Kramer and Tom Mitchell. Walk Towards the Gallows: The Tragedy of Hilda Blake, Hanged 1899. (The Canadian Social History Series.) New York: Oxford University Press. 2002. Pp. viii, 318. $19.95.

The late nineteenth century is the most travelled ground in Canadian historiography. Triumphalist narratives have positioned it as a watershed in nation building, while less celebratory accounts speak of massive industrialization, rapid migration, class conflict, and fervent social reform. Reinhold Kramer and Tom Mitchell's book addresses all of these issues and more. It does so through the story of Hilda Blake, a servant who murdered her mistress in the small prairie city of Brandon, Manitoba, and was hanged for her crime. Kramer and Mitchell's choice of this story—and indeed the very form of the story—is in part a response to Canada's version of the "culture wars" that have been played out, in one form or another, in academic circles the world over. "We tell a story," explain the authors, "because only a story can expose the real workings of a culture, and only a story can express our protest against time" (p. 6). This book simultaneously confirms the interpretive possibilities of stories and reminds us why the subjective lives of ordinary people so often remain beyond the reach of historical scholarship. . . .

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