Living Standards in Black and White: Evidence from the Heights of Ohio Prison Inmates, 1829 – 1913

Scott A. Carson and Thomas Maloney

No 1775, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: The use of height data to measure living standards is now a well-established method in the economic history literature. Moreover, a number of core findings in this literature are widely agreed upon. There are still some populations, places, and times, however, for which anthropometric evidence remains thin. One example is African-Americans in the Northern US in the 1800s. Here, we use new data from the state prison in Ohio to track heights of black and white men from 1829 to 1913. We corroborate the well-known mid-century height decline among white men in Ohio, found by Steckel and Haurin (1994) using National Guard data. We find that black men in Ohio were shorter than white men, throughout the century and controlling for a number of characteristics. We also find a pattern of height decline in mid-century similar to that found for white men.

JEL-codes: I12 I31 I32 J15 N31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Journal Article: Living standards in Black and White: Evidence from the heights of Ohio Prison inmates, 1829-1913 (2008)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_1775

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