Frederick Jackson Turner and the Westward Expanse: Changing Net Nutrition with Economic Development

Scott A. Carson

No 5869, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: A population’s average stature reflects its cumulative net nutrition and provides important insight when more traditional measures for economic well-being is scarce or unreliable. Heights on the US Central Plains did not experience the antebellum paradox experienced in Eastern urban areas, and statures increased markedly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Known for offering migrants economic opportunity, the Central Plains received migrant in-flows from Northern, Southern, and Eastern Europe, and US statures were the tallest in the World. Within the US, individuals from the South were taller than individuals from the North, East, and West. Whites were taller than blacks on the Central Plains where slavery was not the primary labor force, but whites were also taller than blacks in the American South where it was. Immigrants from industrialized Europe were shorter than black and white Americans but taller than Latin Americans and Asians.

Keywords: nineteenth century black and white stature variation; urbanization; US Central Plains (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 J11 J71 N31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp5869.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_5869

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Klaus Wohlrabe (wohlrabe@ifo.de).