IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/10993.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Fluctuations in a Dreadful Childhood: Synthetic Longitudinal Height Data, Relative Prices and Weather in the Short-Term Health of American Slaves

Author

Listed:
  • Richard H. Steckel

Abstract

For over a quarter century anthropometric historians have struggled to identify and measure the numerous factors that affect adult stature, which depends upon diet, disease and physical activity from conception to maturity. I simplify this complex problem by assessing nutritional status in a particular year using synthetic longitudinal data created from measurements of children born in the same year but measured at adjacent ages, which are abundantly available from 28,000 slave manifests housed at the National Archives. I link this evidence with annual measures of economic conditions and new measures of the disease environment to test hypotheses of slave owner behavior. Height-by-age profiles furnish clear evidence that owners substantially managed slave health. The short-term evidence shows that weather affected growth via exposure to pathogens and that owners modified net nutrition in response to sustained price signals.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard H. Steckel, 2004. "Fluctuations in a Dreadful Childhood: Synthetic Longitudinal Height Data, Relative Prices and Weather in the Short-Term Health of American Slaves," NBER Working Papers 10993, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10993
    Note: DAE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w10993.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. R. Rees & John Komlos & Ngo V. Long & Ulrich Woitek, 2003. "Optimal food allocation in a slave economy," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 16(1), pages 21-36, February.
    2. Coelho, Philip R. P. & McGuire, Robert A., 2000. "Diets Versus Diseases: The Anthropometrics of Slave Children," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 60(1), pages 232-246, March.
    3. repec:cup:jechis:v:60:y:2008:i:01:p:232-246_00 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Steckel, Richard H., 2000. "Diets versus Diseases in the Anthropometrics of Slave Children: A Reply," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 60(1), pages 247-259, March.
    5. Steckel, Richard H., 1986. "Birth weights and infant mortality among American slaves," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 173-198, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Logan, Trevon D., 2009. "Health, human capital, and African-American migration before 1910," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 169-185, April.
    2. Trevon Logan, 2015. "A Time (Not) Apart: A Lesson in Economic History from Cotton Picking Books," The Review of Black Political Economy, Springer;National Economic Association, vol. 42(4), pages 301-322, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Eric B. Schneider, 2017. "Children's growth in an adaptive framework: explaining the growth patterns of American slaves and other historical populations," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 70(1), pages 3-29, February.
    2. Steckel, Richard H., 2009. "Heights and human welfare: Recent developments and new directions," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 1-23, January.
    3. Eric B. Schneider, 2017. "Children's growth in an adaptive framework: explaining the growth patterns of American slaves and other historical populations," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 70(1), pages 3-29, February.
    4. Carson, Scott Alan, 2011. "Height of female Americans in the 19th century and the antebellum puzzle," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 157-164, March.
    5. Scott A. Carson, 2008. "Nineteenth Century Black and White US Statures: The Primary Sources of Vitamin D and their Relationship with Height," CESifo Working Paper Series 2497, CESifo.
    6. Scott A. Carson, 2008. "Geography, Insolation, and Institutional Change in 19th Century African-American and White Stature in Southern States," CESifo Working Paper Series 2434, CESifo.
    7. Kris Inwood & Evan Roberts, 2010. "Longitudinal Studies Of Human Growth And Health: A Review Of Recent Historical Research," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(5), pages 801-840, December.
    8. Scott Carson, 2009. "African-American and white inequality in the nineteenth century American South: a biological comparison," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 22(3), pages 739-755, July.
    9. Scott Alan Carson, 2020. "Net nutrition, insolation, mortality, and the antebellum paradox," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 77-98, July.
    10. Scott A. Carson, 2018. "In Support of the Turner Hypothesis for the 19th Century American West: A Biological Response to Recent Criticisms," CESifo Working Paper Series 6969, CESifo.
    11. Scott Alan Carson & Scott A. Carson, 2022. "Nineteenth and Early 20th Century Physical Activity and Calories by Gender and Race," CESifo Working Paper Series 10140, CESifo.
    12. Komlos, John, 2012. "A Three-Decade “Kuhnian” History of the Antebellum Puzzle: Explaining the shrinking of the US population at the onset of modern economic growth," Discussion Papers in Economics 12758, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    13. Sunder, Marco, 2013. "The height gap in 19th-century America: Net-nutritional advantage of the elite increased at the onset of modern economic growth," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 245-258.
    14. Logan, Trevon D., 2009. "Health, human capital, and African-American migration before 1910," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 169-185, April.
    15. Scott A. Carson, 2017. "Assessing Cumulative Net Nutrition and the Transition from 19th Century Bound to Free-Labor by Ethnic Status," CESifo Working Paper Series 6813, CESifo.
    16. Woitek, Ulrich, 2003. "Height cycles in the 18th and 19th centuries," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 1(2), pages 243-257, June.
    17. Scott A. Carson, 2008. "Geography and Insolation in 19th Century US African-American and White Statures," CESifo Working Paper Series 2229, CESifo.
    18. Scott Carson, 2011. "Demographic, residential, and socioeconomic effects on the distribution of nineteenth-century African-American stature," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 24(4), pages 1471-1491, October.
    19. Scott Alan Carson, 2013. "The Significance and Relative Contributions of Demographic, Residence, and Socioeconomic Status in Nineteenth-Century U.S. BMI Variation," Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(2), pages 67-76, June.
    20. Sunder, Marco, 2011. "Upward and onward: High-society American women eluded the antebellum puzzle," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 165-171, March.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • N3 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy
    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10993. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.