An anthropometric history of the Postbellum US, 1847 - 1894 [Elektronische Ressource] / vorgelegt von Matthias Zehetmayer

Matthias Zehetmayer

Informations

• Publié par: ludwig-maximilians-universitat_munchen
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 16
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

An Anthropometric History
of the Postbellum US,
1847-1894




Inaugural-Dissertation
zur Erlangung des Grades
Doctor oeconomiae publicae (Dr. oec. publ.)
an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München





2010



vorgelegt von
Matthias Zehetmayer






Referent: Prof. John Komlos, Ph.D.
Korreferent: Prof. Dr. Ekkehart Schlicht


Promotionsabschlussberatung: 17. November 2010



Mündliche Prüfung am 2. November 2010


Berichterstatter:

Prof. John Komlos, PhD (vertreten durch Prof. Ray Rees, PhD)

Prof. Dr. Ekkehart Schlicht

Prof. Dr. Joachim Winter




ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS


I am extremely grateful for the advice and support of Prof. John Komlos, for being such a
dedicated and enthusiastic mentor, and for awakening my interest in economic and
anthropometric history.
I thank Takeshi Amemiya, Olga Arnold, Jörg Baten, Ariane Breitfelder, Ted and Diane
Bright, Francesco Cinnirella, Timothy Cuff, Özgür Ertac, Michael Haines, Martin Hiermeyer,
Daniel Koch, Michal Masika, Ruth and Steve Nash, Linda Rousova, Michael Specht, Martin
Spindler, Marco Sunder, Marianne Wanamaker, Martin Watzinger, Tom Weiss, Andreas
Widenhorn, Gordon Winder, Dong Woo Yoo, Michael Zabel, and Barbara and Simon
Zehetmayer for helpful comments and conversations.
I would like to thank Prof. Ray Rees, Prof. Ekkehart Schlicht, and Prof. Joachim Winter for
agreeing to be on my doctoral committee.
I am also grateful to the seminar participants at the Economic History Association’s 2009
meeting and the faculty research seminar participants at the University of Munich for valuable
comments and suggestions. All remaining errors are solely mine.
I am very grateful for the support and encouragement of my parents who have made all this
possible.




i
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 1
References 7
1. The Postbellum Continuation of the Antebellum Puzzle:
Stature in the US, 1847 - 1894 9
1.1 Introduction 10
1.1.1 Historical Background 10
1.2 Data and Methodology 13
1.3 Results 20
1.3.1 Time Trends in Height 20
1.3.2 County and State Level Determinants of Height 32
1.4 Conclusion 41
References 44
2. Decomposing the Urban American Height Penalty, 1847-1894 48
2.1 Introduction 49
2.2 Data and Methodology 50
2.3 Results 54
2.4 Conclusion 68
References 71
3. Who is Your Daddy and What Does He Do?
Stature and Family Background in the US, 1847-1880 75
3.1 Introduction 76
3.2 Data and Methodology 77
3.3 Linkage Process 81
ii
3.4 Intergenerational Occupational Mobility 84
3.5 Re-estimating the Occupational Height Premiums 88
3.6 Family-Level Correlates of Height 92
3.7 Conclusion 96
References 98


iii
Introduction

Stature is an important measure of the standard of living, supplementing as it does other, more
conventional economic measurements, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and personal
income. It is an invaluable resource when it comes to times and places in which such
measurements cannot be made because the data are either unavailable or unreliable. In
contrast, height data from more or less distant times and places are plentiful, waiting to be
gleaned from documents featuring vital statistics on military recruits, students, convicts, oath
takers, passport applicants, runaway slaves, and even skeletal remains (Steckel, 1995).
Height is determined by a mixture of genetic and environmental factors - about 80
and 20%, respectively (Silventoinen, 2003) - but the genetic component’s preponderance
disappears when average heights of (homogeneous) populations are analyzed (Steckel, 1995).
Height summarizes an individual’s history of net nutrition. Since physical labor as well as ill
health take their tolls on the body’s energy, and the residual energy is used for growth, not
only nutritional intake but also energy expenditure matters (Fogel, 1994; Steckel, 1995).
Macronutrients and micronutrients that have a direct impact on stature include protein,
calcium, vitamin D, and zinc (Waterlow, 1994). Whenever a diet is deficient in calories in
general and in these nutrients in particular, an individual’s growth rate declines. However, if
provided with adequate net nutrition following periods of deprivation the human body is
capable of catch-up growth, and the normal growth period can even be extended by several
years. However, if deprivation prevails then stunting results (Waterlow, 1994; Steckel, 1995).
The most severe consequences of short stature are an increase in the risk of chronic diseases
and a decrease in life expectancy (Waaler, 1984; Fogel, 1994). Since height has an upper limit
and nutrient intake produces diminishing returns, stature is an excellent measure of inequality
as well (Steckel, 1995; Komlos, 2009).
1
thHuman height has been studied since the 18 -century, but it is only in the past 30
years that, thanks to research in the field of anthropometric history its status as an accurate
indicator of the biological standard of living has been established (Steckel, 1995; Steckel,
2009; Komlos, 2009). Between the late 1970s and 1994 papers dealing with human height
appeared at the rate of about five a year, most of the authors approaching the issue from the
vantage point of economic history or development economics; five were published in the four
most highly rated economics journals. Between 1995 and 2008 the number increased more
than fourfold, to 23.3 per year, among them 13 in those four journals (Steckel, 2009). Such a
dramatic increase clearly indicates that the study of stature is an increasingly significant
tributary to mainstream economics.
For economic historians, interested as they are in the economic forces that affect
thstature, the United States during the second half of the 19 -century - with the Civil War
(1861-65) as the pivot of an extended period of exceptional economic growth, urbanization,
and market integration - is a particularly fertile field of research. During the period under
consideration here (1847-94) GDP per capita grew 105% and industrial production grew
600% despite the war (Davis, 2004; Johnston and Williamson, 2008). A national economy
emerged as railroad and telegraph networks reduced transportation and communication costs
(Rosenbloom, 1990). Produce, lumber, and coal could now be shipped long distances, a
development that facilitated regional specialization and market integration (James, 1983). The
composition of the labor force changed from nearly 60% agricultural workers in 1850 to
fewer than 40% in 1899 (Lewis, 1979; Weiss, 1992). Farmers in the North and especially in
the Midwest had already begun to shift from self-sufficiency to commercial agriculture,
marketing their surplus (Atack and Bateman, 1984). There was also a shift from home
manufacturing and agriculture to factory production, which, with its crowded and unsanitary
working conditions, facilitated the spread of diseases (Costa and Steckel, 1997). Over the
2
thcourse of the 19 -century American cities grew dramatically, their share of the nation’s total
population increasing from about 6 to 40% (Haines, 2001), but public sanitation, water, and
sewage systems were rudimentary throughout much of the period (Preston and Haines, 1991).
It is therefore not surprising that urban death rates were 1.4 times that of rural ones (Condran
and Crimmins-Gardner, 1980; Haines, 2001). From the 1820s to the 1850s urban inequality,
as measured by Williamson’s (1975, 1976) urban inequality index of pay differentials by skill,
grew by over 60%; it then declined for about a decade, recovering only after the Civil War.
It is not surprising that such an eventful century has prompted a number of noteworthy
discoveries, chiefly that of the Antebellum Puzzle (Margo and Steckel, 1983; Komlos, 1987):
a pattern of declining heights despite rising per capita income, indicating that the biological
standard of living was not in conformity with the conventional welfare indicators in the first
thhalf of the 19 -century - despite an annual 1.4% increase in per capita output between 1830
and 1860 (Weiss, 1992). Exempt from this decline were an odd couple: the upper classes
whose wealth permitted them to eat well despite rising food prices; and male slaves, because
their owners had a financial incentive to feed them well: so that they could work with
maximum efficiency (Komlos and Coclanis, 1995; Sunder, 2007).
In the three essays presented here we draw on anthropometric data to better understand
this crucial transition period. Nationwide data on US Army recruits permit us to pinpoint, for
1the first time, the trends, levels, and determinants of height in the general population . To shed
further light on height correlates, we supplement this broad military sample with data at three
lower levels: county, city, and family.


1 So far, trends have been mostly based on extrapolation of local trends derived fro