| Summary: | For centuries it was a crime to be without work or an income in Sweden. Those breaching this law were called vagrants and could be sentenced to forced labor. They stood outside of society in many ways as they were being criminalized. Society's view of them becomes clear by the laws enacted against vagrancy. The investigations that were made in creating the laws do not only say something about society's view of vagrancy, but something about the society itself. In Sweden we have a unique collection of investigations and referrals that are public records through Freedom of the Press. Committees and departmental records are public and contain a lot of information about the society in which they were created. The purpose of this Handbook is to show the access points which are available when you want to take advantage of the wealth of this material. Most of this material is stored at the National Archives in Stockholm and this is a guide to those documents. Between 1825 and 1965 seven committees were appointed and the guide will follow them from initiation to law. The Handbook is intended as a guide to documents legislation in general and to documents about legislation regarding vagrants in particular. Finally, it will show how to find documents on how the laws worked in practice, through the renovated court records in the archives of Svea Court of Appeal. This is a one year master´s thesis in Archival Science.
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