The heights of French-Canadian convicts, 1780s–1820s

Alex Arsenault Morin, Vincent Geloso and Vadim Kufenko

Economics & Human Biology, 2017, vol. 26, issue C, 126-136

Abstract: This paper uses a novel dataset of heights collected from the records of the Quebec City prison between 1813 and 1847 to survey the French-Canadian population of Quebec—which was then known either as Lower Canada or Canada East. Using a birth-cohort approach with 10year birth cohorts from the 1780s to the 1820s, we find that French-Canadian prisoners grew shorter over the period. Through the whole sample period, they were short compared to Americans. However, French-Canadians were taller either than their cousins in France or the inhabitants of Latin America (except Argentinians). In addition to extending anthropometric data in Canada to the 1780s, we are able to extend comparisons between the Old and New Worlds as well as comparisons between North America and Latin America. We highlight the key structural economic changes and shocks and discuss their possible impact on the anthropometric data.

Keywords: Canadian economic history; Anthropometric history; Biological living standard (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I14 N31 O10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:26:y:2017:i:c:p:126-136

DOI: 10.1016/j.ehb.2017.03.002

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