The Short and the Dead: Nutrition, Mortality, and the “Antebellum Puzzle” in the United States

Abstract

Between 1830 and 1860 the United States experienced rapid economic growth but declining stature and rising mortality. Debate has centered on whether the American diet deteriorated in the mid-nineteenth century. Employing census and muster records, this article tests the hypotheses that adult height was positively correlated with local production of nutrients in early childhood and negatively correlated with local mortality conditions, urbanization, proximity to transport, and population mobility. Results indicate that antebellum economic growth was accompanied by an increasing nationalization and internationalization of the disease environment, which affected the health and longevity of the population. The Antebellum Puzzle refers to the apparently contradictory finding that while the era immediately preceding the American Civil War (1861-1865) was one of robust growth in the U.S. economy, adult stature decreased. Shorter stature is generally associated with an inadequate diet during crucial periods of human growth, specifically infancy and early adolescence, though it can also result from disease.1 Previous scholarly work suggests that the decrease in stature in the antebellum United States resulted from deteriorating environmental conditions, but there has been little empirical evidence linking the separate effects of diet and disease.2 This article