"Were People Shorter in the American Revolution?" Topic

"Time and time again, I'll hear the misconception that people were shorter back then. I've spent untold hours trying to convince people that just is not true. Well, not very true, at any rate.

Maybe thousands of years ago, people really were shorter. However, the average height in America today is shorter than people think, and colonial Americans also were not as short as people believe

Human heights vary greatly. However, in general, men are taller than women. There are also better records for historic male height because of military record-keeping. In modern America today, the average height for males ages 20 and up is 5'9.5". If you ask a guy who is 5'10" if he is short, he may say yes because, for some unknown reason, we have this societal expectation that guys are 6 feet tall. That just isn't true, though, since a 6 foot tall man is well above average height.

The average height for all women in America over the age of 20 is 5'4"…"
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Amicalement
Armand

So 15mm or 18mm;))

Hmm. I'm seriously unconvinced.
First, he loses points for "average." Mean or median? And a small shift in the median can mean serious differences at the extremes. Years ago, I toured colonial homes--mostly in and around Philadelphia--with a cousin who was about 6'2". Washington's Valley Forge headquarters was the only building in which he didn't have to duck his head on doorways. Same is true of Mount Vernon and Monticello, by the way. As for early modern Europe, in an un-remodelled house in Rothemburg ob der Taube, I had to duck, and I'm no more than 5'10" on a good day.

I think I'd also want to see a modern US result by ethnicities for comparison. There have been a few changes since the Continental Army was recruiting.

People have always been shorter the further back you go. Fun fact, Jesus was only 2'9". I'm 6'6"

Robert- I've talked with docents at L.I.'s Old Bethpage village about low ceilings/doors in old houses. They said it was more about making it easier to heat than about people's height. Now that makes sense in NY state, and my own travels
reveal that ceilings in old buildings in New Orleans are significantly higher than modern ones, to allow heat to rise.

Thank you Pan. Good point for ceilings, and I've noticed it in Victorian houses even in Indiana. But I'm not sure how much heat you save by clonking your head on interior doors. Surely, if you were getting six-footers on any sort of regular basis, you'd run the door frame right up to ceiling height to avoid Klingon forehead?

Washington was unusually tall for his age (6'1.5). Jefferson was even taller, by one inch. It is not necessary to stoop at Monticello; all the rooms have high ceilings. I can't remember stooping at Mount Vernon, but it seems unlikely Washington would have built a house where he had to stoop.

Colonial Williamsburg is largely a modern recreation. I have been told that entrances there were rebuilt to accommodate modern heights ( and perhaps avoid lawsuits).

I live in a turn of the century true Craftsman ( built 1911 ) and like Pan said, our doors are "standard height" ( 75") but my ceilings are 11' ( Mobile, Al ) 12-14 not uncommon in homes built around the sametime, heat rises and we're in the South.

My guess, if they were shorter than normal it had to do with their diet or not eating well balanced foods stunted their growth??

Ancient Egyptians were only 3 apples high. True story

I've read that up until about the early/mid 20th Century, when living conditions and access to better, and more consistent nourishment became available, average heights were indeed shorter, e.g. about 5'6" or so for males, and shorter for females.

Certainly, some even today, in my area bear that hypothesis out, since some are very short indeed.

Of course they were shorter back in the day. Why do you think Hadrian's Wall is only 2.5' tall?

Yes people were shorter- but before humans adopted agriculture they were taller too. Essentially adopting agriculture caused the average height to drop by about 5 or 6 inches. 10 millenia later we are finally returning to our "natural " average height. Though obviously theres variation depending on geographical area.

given that hunter-gatherers also have to do about half as much work to feed themselves as people in an agricultural society its a wonder that anyone thought farming was worth the effort- the current assumption is that there must have been an increasing population that needed feeding and that farming was the only way to cope even if it meant an overall reduction in everyones health. Personally I suspect the mass production of beer was probably a factor too…

Beer… and priests

Tango, I know that you're pretty indiscriminate with what you link to. But since you're an educated man, can you *please* avoid the ones that are clearly innumerate, unadulterated caca de vaca, por favor?

Caca de vaca?…. I don't get it… you said that this thread is caca de vaca?…

Amicalement
Armand

That extra height hasn't helped even out the extra girth!

Certainly any period clothes from the period that I have seen wouldn't fit me and I'm only 5'10"

About 10 years ago, a Professor John Komlos, an American who worked as an anthropometricc historian in the economic history department at the University of Munich, looked at the question of how Americans had lost their lead in height over Europeans. He identified poor diet, often combined with unemployment, and a lack of universal healthcare as the major causes, and traced the decline to the post-WW2 improvements in those areas among Europeans.

In 1775, the average American male was 5'9" – two inches taller than the average British male of that time; several British and German officers comment on the stature of American men during the AWI. Komlos links this disparity to the better lifestyle of even the poor in America – better access to food and medical care than the largely suburban poor of European cities. In 18th Century London, a poor 16-year-old male was 4'8", four inches shorter even than slaves in America and seven inches shorter than a Sandhurst graduate. The average American male has gone from three inches taller than the average Dutch man in the 1770s, to three inches shorter, and one inch shorter than his British counterpart. Komlos also noted the two-and-a-half inch difference between the poorest and wealthiest sections of Parisien society in 1789.

So people were shorter, but healthcare, diet, and general wealth, were all contributors to subsequent improvements.

Remember the thing about clothing from any period that has survived ,is that it survived from lack of use(of course there will be exceptions). So you shouldn't base your conclusion on that.
However -a real study by real academics (yes implying that the author of that travel piece is not in any way an academic )shows that the average male was shorter in the mid to late 18th century.
PDF link

As far as fitting surviving clothes, grtbrt, it also seems to be true of surviving armor. There is variety, but the median modern American male couldn't fit into the median set of plate armor by some margin.

I think Supercillius is right overall: certainly it's environmental. We don't have records far enough back to show any evolutionary effect.

Super ,
You beat me by about 10 mins – It was to one of his papers that I linked .

Hi grtbrt,

Sorry about that! My extracts were from an interview with a journalist that was published in a magazine – I downloaded the article but forgot to mark where it had been published!

Komlos used data from slave documents, indentured servants, height records from the Crimean War, personnel records from Sandhurst and West Point, Norwegian stats, and the Marine Society of London which trained children of the destitute for a life at sea.

No need to be sorry – I always enjoy reading your posts . Very informative .
Didn't he also use the records of the Saxon and French armies for one of his studies ?