2. Human biology and institutional change

A theory for institutional change is vital in understanding 19th century Southern stature variation. Stature measures the difference between nutritional intake less work and other dietary claims of the physical environment, such as disease and inequality; when nutrition is restricted over prolonged periods, average stature is permanently stunted (Mamabolo et al., Reference Mamabolo, Alberts, Steyn, Delemarri-van de Waal and Leavitt2005). However, when environmental insults are short-run in nature, short-term fluctuations in harvest yields and food prices around a long-run equilibrium are not able to explain a prolonged decline in physical stature, and the human body has the capacity to make up for previous short-run privation once more bountiful times return, a process known as catch-up growth (Steckel, Reference Steckel1995). This phenomenon requires privation periods to be sufficiently long to permanently impair stature growth, making short-run disease and other biological disruptions less likely to cause permanent stature diminutions. Long-run institutional change is, therefore, a more likely candidate to explain stature variation than short-run biological disruptions.

Institutions influence economic arrangements, and political agents serve an important role in institutional change (Bush, Reference Bush1987: 1099–1103; North, Reference North1990; Hodgson, Reference Hodgson2009). Institutional change, in turn, is influenced by innovative agents who change the structure by which economic interaction is conducted, and 19th century agents for institutional change – Abraham Lincoln, Charles Sumner and Frederick Douglass–were essential agents in changing the structure of 19th century US labor markets. A theory for the process of how institutional change related to African-American biology is presented by Rees et al. (Reference Rees, Komlos, Long and Woitek2003), who propose a model for 19th century food and health resources to slaves. According to the Komlos–Rees model, when the price of cotton and other Southern crops increased, the optimal lifetime course of food and health resources increased (Komlos, Reference Komlos1998; Rees et al., Reference Rees, Komlos, Long and Woitek2003). However, once slavery was removed and slaveholders’ accumulated knowledge regarding proper health treatment over their slaves was eliminated, black statures would have temporarily decreased, only to recover once freed slaves adjusted to life beyond the paternalistic institution of slavery (Carson, Reference Carson2009). Therefore, long-run, prolonged institutional change was more likely than short-run economic and biological disruptions to be associated with stature variation.

3. Nineteenth century Tennessee

Tennessee's most distinctive 19th century features were its physical environment, central location in the South, politics, and culture. Tennessee's physical location and proximity to the Mississippi River were central to its economic development, transporting goods and peoples. The Mississippi River also represents access to trade, and individuals with close proximity to the Mississippi may have had been taller because close proximity to trade routes decreased transportation costs, increasing access to nutrition because net-trade imported more nutritious diets. If the Mississippi decreased transportation costs and facilitated a net-nutrition export, proximity to the river was associated with shorter statures because close proximity to the river allowed more agricultural surplus to be exported.

Tennessee's economic environment and biological conditions were influenced by its geographic features, and the geographic variation within the state represents promising proving grounds to test the effects of market integration with biological welfare. Tennessee's geographic areas were the Alluvial and Inner Coastal Plains, Highland Rim, Nashville Basin, Cumberland Plateau, Ridge and Valley, and Smoky Mountains regions (Figure 1), which had different income levels, economic development, and wealth. Tennessee's far western frontier was part of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain, which is the lowest part of the state and was formed by the Mississippi River. The Alluvial Plain averages less than 300 feet (90 m) above sea level and during the 19th century was the region within Tennessee that produced various agricultural crops with the use of a plantation gang labor system (Cochrane, Reference Cochrane1979: 70). The Inner Coastal Plain is also part of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain but does not border the Mississippi River, is higher above sea level, and is marked by small streams and rolling hills. The eastern border of the Inner Coastal Plain is the elevated region that surrounds the Nashville Basin, which lies within the Highland Rim. Like the Inner Coastal Plain, the Nashville Basin had rich farmland that sustained large-scale 19th century farming and cattle grazing. To the east of the Highland Rim is the Cumberland Plateau, where the elevation increases and is composed of rocky cliffs that are capable of sustaining large-scale mineral extraction. Between Tennessee's ridges are valleys sufficiently fertile to sustain small household farming. In Tennessee's far east are the Smoky Mountains, which rise to an elevation of 5000 feet (1520 m) and have abundant timber reserves but have land less conducive to agriculture. These regional comparisons create a unique opportunity to assess whether Tennessee fertile farmlands dominated the opposing conditions associated with the deleterious effects of disease that were prominent in low-lying regions that bordered large bodies of slow-moving water (Haines et al., Reference Haines, Craig and Weiss2003: 406–407; Carson, Reference Carson2008).

Figure 1.

Nineteenth century Tennessee regions

Note: Tennessee's Alluvial Plain consists of Lake, Dyer, Lauderdale, Tipton, and Shelby counties. The Inner Coastal Plain consists of Henry, Obion, Gibson, Crockett, Haywood, Fayette, Hardeman, Madison, Carroll, Weakley, Henderson, Chester, and McNairy counties. The Highland Rim includes Stewart, Benton, Houston, Humphreys, Decatur, Hardin, Perry, Wayne, Lawrence, Lewis, Hickman, Dickson, Montgomery, Robertson, Cheatham, Giles, Lincoln, Moore, Coffee, Warren, Cannon, Dekalb, Smith, White, Putnam, Jackson, Clay, Overton, Macon, Sumner, Franklin, and Campbell counties. The Nashville Basin includes Bedford, Maury, Williamson, Davidson, Wilson, Rutherford, and Marshall counties. The Cumberland Plateau includes Fentress, Cumberland, Morgan, Scott, Van Buren, Bledsoe, Pickett, Sequatchie, Grundy, and Marion counties. Ridge and Valley include Claiborne, Hancock, Hawkins, Sullivan, Washington, Greene, Hamblin, Jefferson, Grainger, Union, Anderson, Union, Knox, Roane, London, Rhea, Meigs, Mcminn, Bradley, and Hamilton counties. Smoky Mountains include Johnson, Carter, Unicoi, Cocke, Sevier, Blount, Monroe, and Polk counties.

Nineteenth century Tennessee is also politically unique in the American South in that it was the last Confederate state to secede from the Union and the first Southern state to rejoin the Union after the Civil War ended. While Tennessee was a slave-holding state, views toward slavery varied widely within Tennessee, and slave conditions reflected geographic variation associated with the slave economy. The Eastern mountainous region had few plantations that sustained large-scale plantation agriculture. Most slaves in Eastern Tennessee lived on small farms and were in direct contact with their owners, forming personal relationships, which may have led to better slave treatment and biological welfare in Eastern Tennessee (Cochrane, Reference Cochrane1979: 70). The western Alluvial Delta had many plantations that sustained large slave concentrations. Slaves on large Western Tennessee plantations had less direct contact with their owners, and therefore, may not have benefited from close relationships with their slave masters as experienced in Eastern Tennessee and disproportionately bore the costs of net food export to counties bordering the Mississippi. Tennessee's early legal codes toward slave ownership also guaranteed slaves food, shelter, clothing, and medical attention, suggesting that as Tennessee's markets developed, Tennessee's black statures may have varied similarly with white statures, because black treatment and material conditions were legally protected and were integrated with white biological conditions (Wahl, Reference Wahl1996). Nevertheless, Nashville had a thriving slave market, and Memphis was a slave-trading capital of the Southwest, suggesting that black material and biological conditions may have been comparatively lower in Western than Eastern Tennessee.

4. Nineteenth century Tennessee Prison data

The Tennessee State Penitentiary at Nashville opened on 21 September 1831. A then western frontier community, Tennessee lacked a permanent correctional facility, and residents in Nashville donated $2500 to purchase property in Davidson County for a state prison; building construction expenses were then covered by the Tennessee state legislature.

All historical height data have selection biases. The prison data likely selected many of the materially poorest individuals, although there were skilled and agricultural workers in the sample. While prison records are not random, the selectivity they represent has its own advantages in stature studies, such as being drawn from lower socio-economic groups, that segment of society most vulnerable to economic change (Bogin, Reference Bogin1991: 288; Cutler, Reference Cutler2004: 110).Footnote ¹ Together, over 30000 American-born male inmates from the Tennessee prisons were incarcerated between 1865 and 1922.Footnote ² Prison guards routinely recorded the dates that inmates were received, age at incarceration, complexion, nativity, stature, pre-incarceration occupation, inmate crimes, and the county in which inmates were originally incarcerated. However, like other Southern penitentiaries, enumerators did not record whether or not black inmates were slaves.Footnote ³ Because the purpose of this study is to consider US black and white male stature variation, females and immigrants are excluded from the analysis. All records with complete age, stature, occupations, and nativity were collected.

Fortunately, prison enumerators were quite thorough when recording inmate complexion and occupation. For instance, enumerators recorded African-American complexions as black, copper, and various shades of mulatto, from which race and ethnicity are inferred. Enumerators recorded white inmate complexions as light, fair, dark, and sallow. The white inmate complexion classification is further supported by the complexion of European immigrants, who were always of fair complexion and were also recorded as light, medium, and dark. While mulatto inmates possessed genetic traits from both black and white ancestry, they were treated as blacks throughout 19th century America and, when appropriate, are grouped here with black inmates.

Enumerators recorded a broad continuum of occupations and defined them narrowly, recording over 200 different occupations. These occupations are classified here into four categories. Workers who were merchants and highly skilled workers are classified as white-collar workers; manufacturers, carpenters, and craft workers are classified as skilled workers; workers in the agricultural sector are classified as farmers; laborers are classified as unskilled workers. Unfortunately, prison enumerators did not distinguish between farm and common laborers. Since common laborers may have come to maturity under less favorable biological conditions than farm laborers, this potentially overestimates the biological benefits of being a common laborer and underestimates the advantages of being a farm laborer.

Table 1 presents average heights and percentages for black and white males incarcerated in the 19th century Tennessee Prison by birth year, occupation, and nativity. Although average statures are included, they may be sensitive to compositional effects, which are accounted for in the regression models that follow. Blacks were a larger proportion of the prison sample than whites; 67% of the Tennessee Prison population was black. Occupations reflect socio-economic status, and while prison inmates typically came from the lower working class, there was a sizable share of inmates from white-collar and skilled occupations. White inmates were 150 and 174% more likely than blacks to occupy white-collar and skilled occupations, respectively. Even in agriculture, whites were more likely than blacks to come from planting and stock-raising occupations. Blacks were 21% more likely than whites to occupy unskilled occupations. Nativity within the prison was mostly from Southeastern states, which include Tennessee.

Table 1.

Tennessee adult stature by birth, occupation and nativity

Source: Date used to study black and white anthropometrics is a subset of a much larger 19th century prison sample. All available records from American state repositories have been acquired and entered into a master file. These records include Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Washington. Only prison records for inmates incarcerated in the Tennessee Prison are used in this project.

Note: Stature is measured in cm. Adult age is between 23 and 55 years. The occupation classification scheme is consistent with Ferrie (Reference Ferrie and 1997). The following geographic classification scheme is consistent with Carlino and Sill (Reference Carlino and Sill2001): New England = CT, ME, MA, NH, RI and VT; Middle Atlantic = DE, DC, MD, NJ, NY and PA; Great Lakes = IL, IN, MI, OH and WI; Plains = IA, KS, MN, MO, NE, ND and SD; South East = AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, VA and WV; South West = AZ, NM, OK and TX; Far West = CA, CO, ID, MT, NV, OR, UT, WA and WY. Stature difference is average white stature less average black stature. Proportion difference is white proportion less black proportion.

5. The comparative effects of 19th century Tennessee demographics, residence, and socio-economic characteristics on black and white stature

Black and white statures were related to age, socio-economic status, and birth cohorts; they were also related to nativity, residence within Tennessee and proximity to the Mississippi River. We test which of these variables were associated with 19th century Tennessee stature. To start, the stature of the ith individual is assumed to be related to race, age, birth period, occupation, nativity, and residence.

Dummy variables are included to account for how black, mulatto, and white statures varied by race. Age dummy variables are included for individual youth ages 14 through 22 years; adult age dummies are included for 10-year intervals from the 1930s through 1970s. Birth decade dummies are in 10-year intervals from 1820 through 1906. Occupation dummy variables are for white-collar, skilled, farming, and unskilled occupations. A Southeast nativity dummy variable is included to test the effects of Southeastern nativity on stature. Tennessee residence dummy variables are included to determine how statures were associated with residence within Tennessee and nativity.

Table 2 presents statures regressed on 19th century observable black and white characteristics. Table 2's model 1 presents stature regressions for the combined black and white samples. To compare how Tennessee biological conditions varied by nativity and race, model 2 reports regression results for only Tennessee-born males. Model 3 reports stature regression estimates for only white male characteristics, while model 4 does the same for blacks.

Table 2.

Tennessee stature by age, birth, occupation and nativity

Source: See Table 1.

Notes: The US geographic classification scheme is consistent with Carlino and Sill (Reference Carlino and Sill2001). See Table 1 notes for classification scheme. Each regression model is estimated using robust standard errors. *Significant at 10%, **significant at 5%, ***significant at 1%.

Three general patterns emerge when comparing 19th century Tennessee statures. First, 19th century proximity to water may have been related to stature in at least one of two ways. If agricultural output was more easily imported in counties with close proximity to major waterways, access to trade routes had a positive relationship with stature. Alternatively, proximity to rivers can be a drain on local resources because agricultural products can be more easily exported, thereby increasing the relative price of food and nutrition in food-producing counties, which is likely the case with Tennessee's agriculture during economic development. In this case, access to rivers would have a negative relationship with stature (Haines et al., Reference Haines, Craig and Weiss2003: 406–407; Cuff, Reference Cuff2005: 217). Tennessee black and white statures in the Alluvial Delta that shared a border with the Mississippi River were consistently smaller than those of individuals from elsewhere within the state and indicate that black and white statures were inversely related to market development (Craig and Weiss, Reference Craig, Weiss, Komlos and Baten1998; Wilson and Pope, Reference Wilson, Pope and Costa2003).

Second, using Table 2 birth decade coefficients, black and white statures declined throughout the 19th century (Fig. 2), indicating that black and white Tennessee statures declined with Southern institutional change from slave agriculture to a free labor force (Higgs, Reference Higgs1977). Rees et al. (Reference Rees, Komlos, Long and Woitek2003) hypothesize that Southern slave owners and overseers consciously controlled slave food and health allocations to maximize slave-owners’ wealth, and throughout the 19th century, Tennessee black statures decreased by over 2 cm. Failure of Tennessee black statures to increase during the late antebellum period suggests that Tennessee black statures were not as shielded from the deleterious effects of market integration as other blacks under slavery and is consistent with results presented by Carson (Reference Carson2008), and Haines et al. (Reference Haines, Craig and Weiss2010) who find that market-dependent free-blacks also experienced stature declines similar to those of whites. On the other hand, throughout the 19th century, white statures decreased by nearly 5 cm.

Figure 2.

Tennessee 19th century black and white stature Source: See Table 2, models 3 and 4. Note: Time represents birth year.

Third, 19th century farmers were taller than white-collar, skilled, and unskilled workers, due partly to the nearness of nutrients. Farmers traditionally had access to superior diets and nutrition, and 19th century farmers were taller than workers in other occupations (Sokoloff and Villaflor, Reference Sokoloff and Villaflor1982: 463; Margo and Steckel, Reference Margo and Steckel1983: 171–172; Komlos, Reference Komlos1987: 902; Steckel and Haurin, Reference Steckel, Haurin and Komlos1994: 170; Komlos and Coclanis, Reference Komlos and Coclanis1997: 441).Footnote ⁴ Farmer stature advantages were also similar in magnitude between blacks and whites to their counterparts in other occupations. That unskilled workers were also tall suggests that many unskilled workers were probably agricultural workers, who received more abundant calorie and nutrition allocations, and worked in environments conducive to stature growth.

Other patterns are consistent with expectations. After controlling for age, whites were nearly 2 cm taller than blacks, which is significant because modern black and white statures are comparable when brought to maturity under optimal biological conditions (Eveleth and Tanner, Reference Eveleth and Tanner1976; Tanner, Reference Tanner, Harrison, Weiner, Tanner and Barnicot1977; Margo and Steckel, Reference Margo and Steckel1982: 519; Nelson et al., Reference Nelson, Kleerekoper, Peterson and Parfitt1993: 18–20; Steckel, Reference Steckel1995: 1910; Barondess et al., Reference Barondess, Nelson and Schlaen1997: 968; Komlos and Baur, Reference Komlos and Baur2004: 64, 69; Godoy et al., Reference Godoy, Goodman, Levins and Leonard2005: 472–473; Komlos and Lauderdale, Reference Komlos and Lauderdale2005). Moreover, compositional effects cannot explain the black–white stature differential, which was due, in part, to whites’ access to meat and better nutrition (Margo and Steckel, Reference Margo and Steckel1982: 514–515, 517 and 519). Margo and Steckel (Reference Margo and Steckel1982) and Sunder (Reference Sunder2004) demonstrate that antebellum Southern whites were nearly 2 inches (5 cm) taller than Southern blacks, and adult male slaves were shorter than free Northern whites (Margo and Steckel, Reference Margo and Steckel1982: 519). Because the Southern social apparatus placed disproportional weight on fairer complexions, mulattos were also taller than darker pigmented blacks. Part of the black–white stature differential may, therefore, be attributable to racial disparity before and after slavery (Steckel, Reference Steckel1979: 374–376; Bodenhorn, Reference Bodenhorn1999; Carson, Reference Carson2008, Reference Carson2009).

Southern black and white statures varied considerably by nativity, and Southeastern males were consistently taller than individuals from elsewhere within the USA. Stature is positively related to nutrition, and the 19th century opening of the New South to agriculture increased Southern agricultural productivity (Higgs, Reference Higgs1977: 24; Cochrane, Reference Cochrane1979: 69–71). Before the War the South was self-sufficient in food production but became a net food importer after the War (Ransom and Sutch, Reference Ransom and Sutch1977). Blacks from the Great Lakes had access to dairy products and calcium and were taller than blacks from the Northeast and Middle Atlantic. Northeastern blacks, especially youths, encountered adverse biological environments and rickets may have contributed to shorter Northeastern black and white statures (Kiple and Kiple, Reference Kiple and Kiple1977: 293–294; Tortolani et al., Reference Tortolani, McCarthy and Sponseller2002: 62).

6. Accounting for the white–black Tennessee stature differential

To more fully account for the source of the white–black stature differential, a Oaxaca decomposition is imposed on the white–black stature differential (Oaxaca, Reference Oaxaca1973). Let S_w and S _b represent the statures of whites and blacks, respectively; α _w and α _b are the autonomous stature components that accrue to whites and blacks; β _w and β _b are the white and black stature returns associated with specific stature-enhancing characteristics, such as age and occupation. X _w and X _b are white and black characteristic matrices, and white statures are assumed to be the base structure.

The second right-hand-side element is that component of the stature differential due to differences in stature returns and for most characteristics was likely positive. The third right-hand-side element is the stature differential component due to differences in characteristics and is undetermined because whites probably had characteristics associated with taller statures. Hence, if white stature advantages were due to inferior black biological conditions, the stature returns to whites, β _w, will be larger than stature returns to blacks, β _b.

Using coefficients from the stature regressions (Table 2, models 3 and 4), the stature decomposition indicates that the majority of the white stature advantage arose from non-identifiable characteristics, such as better nutrition and higher socio-economic status that disproportionately favored whites (Table 3); however, the majority of the observable stature differential due to characteristics is associated with nativity, which also supports the market integration hypothesis. Observable characteristics beyond nativity, birth period and nativity contributed little to the white–black stature differential. Therefore, at North American latitudes, stature returns associated with nativity were the primary source of the white–black stature differential.

Table 3.

Nineteenth century Tennessee Prison stature Oaxaca decomposition

Source: See Table 2, models 3 and 4.