Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T12:58:35.027Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Early Achievement of Modern Stature in America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Kenneth L. Sokoloff  and
Georgia C. Villaflor
Kenneth L. Sokoloff
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
Georgia C. Villaflor
Affiliation:
Harvard University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The military records used in this article, referred to as muster rolls or descriptive lists, are predominantly from the years of the French and Indian War (1756–1763) and the American Revolution (1775–1783), and pertain to the soldiers of the American Colonies. Such lists were compiled for most colonial military forces, typically by individual companies or regiments, and provided the basis for distributing supplies and payments, as well as for aiding in the identification of deserters. Since there was no standard format, the information appearing in the muster rolls varies widely. Lists have been retrieved that included for each soldier some, but never all, of the following information: place of birth, age, place of residence, occupation, height, hair color, eye color, complexion, place and date of enlistment, military rank, by whom enlisted, language spoken, term of service, pay scale, and assorted remarks relevant to military service. We have also colected a sample of U.S. Army muster rolls for those recruits who enlisted during the period 1815–1820. These lists are of a similar lature to those of the earlier era, except that they are much more uniform with regard to the information included. Very few individuals under the age of 16 enlisted in the military, making it difficult to utilize these data for studying adolescent growth spurts. Accordingly, the analysis of the height-by-age data in this article will focus on the terminal heights achieved.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 6 , Issue 4 , Fall 1982 , pp. 453 - 481
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1982 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

The authors are grateful to Allan Kulikoff, Edward Papenfuse, John Shy, Larry Wimmer, and many others for their help in the collection of data. They have benefitted from comments and criticisms by colleagues in the NBER Nutrition Project, as well as by Mary J. Dobson, Alan Green, Zvi

References

Baxter, J. H. (1875) Statistics, Medical and Anthropological, of the Provost Marshall General’s Bureau, Derived from Records of the Examination for Military Service in the Armies of the United States During the Late War of the Rebellion of Over a Million Recruits, Drafted Men, Substitutes, and Enrolled Men. Washington, DC: U.S. War Department.Google Scholar
Chalmers, L. (1776) An Account of the Weather and Diseases of South Carolina. London: Printed for E. & C. Dilly.Google Scholar
Cuthbertson, B. (1776) Cuthbertson’s System for the Complete Interior Management and Economy of a Battalion of Infantry. Bristol: Rouths and Nelson for A. Gray.Google Scholar
Easterlin, R. A. (1972) “The American population,” in Davis, L. E., Easterlin, R. A., Parker, W. N., Brady, D. S., Fishlow, A, Gallman, R. E., Liebergott, S., Lipsey, R. E., Norris, D. C., Rosenberg, N., Smolensky, E., and Temin, G., American Economic Growth. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Fogel, R. W., Engerman, S. L., Floud, R., Pope, C., Trussell, J., and Wimmer, L. (1978) “The economics of mortality in North America, 1650–1910: 79 description of a research project.” Historical Methods 11 (Spring): 75–108.10.1080/01615440.1978.9955221Google Scholar
Fogel, R. W., Engerman, S. L., Floud, R., Steckel, R. H., Trussell, T. J., Wachter, K. W., Sokoloff, K. L., Villaflor, G. C., Margo, R. A., and Friedman, G. (1982) “Changes in American and British stature since the mid-eighteenth century: a preliminary report on the usefulness of data on height for the analysis of secular trends in nutrition, labor productivity, and labor welfare.” NBER Working Paper 890.Google Scholar
Gould, B. A. (1869) Investigations in the Military and Anthropological Statistics of American Soldiers. Cambridge, MA: Riverside.Google Scholar
Henretta, J. (1973) The Evolution of American Society, 1700–1815. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath.Google Scholar
Jones, A. H. (1977) American Colonial Wealth: Documents and Methods, 3 vols. New York: Arno.Google Scholar
Karpinos, B. D. (1958) “Height and weight of selective service registrants processed for military service during World War II.” Human Biology 40: 292–321.Google Scholar
Mcmahon, S. F. (1981) “Provisions laid up for the family: toward a history of diet in New England, 1650–1850.” Historical Methods 14 (Winter): 4–21.10.1080/01615440.1981.10594050Google Scholar
Nash, G. B. (1979) The Urban Crucible: Social Change, Political Consciousnous, and the Origins of the American Revolution. the Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge: MA: Harvard Univ. Press.10.4159/harvard.9780674182899Google Scholar
Perkins, E. J. (1980) The Economy of Colonial America. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Tanner, J. M. (1978) Foetus into Man: Physical Growth from Conception to Maturity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census (1978) Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Vinovskis, M. (1972) “Mortality rates and trends in Massachusetts before 1860.” J. of Econ. History 32 (March): 184–213.10.1017/S002205070007546XGoogle Scholar
Wachter, K. W. and Trussell, J. (1982) “Estimating historical heights.” J. of the Amer. State. Assn. 77 (June): 279–293.10.1080/01621459.1982.10477796Google Scholar