Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/25999 
Year of Publication: 
2007
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 1954
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
The use of height data to measure living standards is now a well-established method in economic history. Moreover, a number of core findings in the literature are widely agreed upon. There are still some populations, places, and times, however, for which anthropometric evidence remains thin. One example is 19th century African-Americans in US border states. This paper introduces a new data set from the Missouri state prison to track black and white male heights from 1829 to 1913. Where modern blacks and whites come to comparable terminal statures when brought to maturity under optimal conditions, whites were persistently taller than blacks in this Missouri prison sample. Over time, black and white adult statures remained approximately constant throughout the 19th century, while black youth stature increased considerably during the antebellum period and decreased during Reconstruction.
JEL: 
N31
J15
J70
I12
I31
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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