The Effect of Geography and Vitamin D on African American Stature in the Nineteenth Century: Evidence from Prison Records

Abstract

The use of height data to measure living standards is now a well-established method in economic literature. Although blacks and whites today reach similar terminal statures in the United States, nineteenth-century African American statures were consistently shorter than those of whites. Greater insolation (vitamin D production) is documented here to be associated with taller black statures. Black farmers were taller than workers in other occupations, and, ironically, black youth statures increased during the antebellum period and decreased with slavery's elimination.