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Demographic, residential, and socioeconomic effects on the distribution of nineteenth-century African-American stature

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Abstract

Nineteenth-century mulattos were taller than their darker-colored African-American counterparts. However, traditional explanations that attribute the mulatto stature advantage to only socioeconomic factors are yet to tie taller mulatto statures to observable phenomenon. Vitamin D production may also explain part of the nineteenth-century mulatto–black stature differential. Mulattos were taller than darker-pigmented blacks across the stature distribution, and higher melanin concentrations in darker black stratum corneums reduced the amount of vitamin D synthesized. The interaction with sunlight in darker-complexioned blacks was associated with larger stature returns for darker-complexioned blacks than their mulatto counterparts.

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Notes

  1. To address rickets in the US population, in the 1930s, the federal government advocated fortification of the US milk supply with vitamin D (Holick 2004b, p. 1679S).

  2. Many inmate statures were recorded at quarter, eighth, and even sixteenth increments.

  3. Insolation is an acronym for incident solar radiation and is a measure for sunlight energy received for a given surface area at a given time. If w equals watts, m equals meters, and i equals insolation, \(i=\frac{\emph{w}}{m^2}=\frac{k\emph{w}h}{m^2\cdot {\rm day}}.\)

  4. The primary source of vitamin D is the synthesis of ultraviolet B and cholesterol, and insolation is the primary source of ultraviolet B. Photosynthesis of vitamin D3 in the epidermis depends on season, latitude, time of day, and the amount of pigmentation in the epidermis (Lips 2006; Mawer and Davies 2001).

  5. Western African sites include Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso; Yaoundé, Cameroon; Bangui, Central African Republic; Accra, Ghana; Gambia, Gambia; Conakry, Guinea; Liberia; Nouakchott, Mauritania; Niamey, Nigeria; Freetown, Sierra Leone; and Dakar, Senegal.

  6. Insolation is not the insolation in the county that surrounds the state’s centroid but insolation in each county’s geographic center. The range of state insolation values extends from Maine’s minimum of 3.43 h of direct sunlight to Arizona’s maximum of 5.22 h of direct sunlight per day.

  7. The coefficient vector θ is obtained using techniques presented in Koenker and Bassett (1982) and Hendricks and Koenker (1992). Tests for covariate affects across the stature distribution are obtained using techniques in Koenker (2005, pp. 75–77) and Koenker and Bassett (1982).

  8. Average dark black stature was equal to mulatto stature in insolation at 4.8 h/day. However, average US insolation is 4.36. Using imputed values from Table 3’s models 7 and 8, dark black imputed stature at average US insolation is 170.40 cm. Mulatto stature at average US insolation is 170.86 cm. However, if darker black statures are observed at average African insolation levels, average dark black statures had the ability to converge, even exceed, average mulatto statures. Average dark black stature at African insolation (5.6) is 171.69 cm. Average mulatto stature at average African insolation (5.6) is 170.90 cm, which is a result of high dark black stature returns associated with insolation.

  9. Larger standard deviations for the 1850 and 1860 cohorts in Table 2 may be a function of changing statures from shifting labor market institutions in the south during these decades.

  10. Statures in the late nineteenth century probably increased with higher black incomes, and blacks in the postbellum period devoted a higher share of their incomes to food acquisition (Higgs 1977, pp. 102–105).

  11. Southern observers at the time reported that milk was fairly abundant in border states but in short supply in the Deep South (Kiple and King 1981, p. 83; Batan and Murray 2000, pp. 359–360).

  12. Dark blacks in the prison sample lived in states that received 4.37 h of direct sunlight per day compared to mulattos, who lived in states that received 4.32 h of sunlight per day, or blacks lived in states that received about 1% more insolation than mulattos. However, 37% of dark blacks lived in states that receive more than 4.8 h of sunlight per day, compared to only 33% for mulattos.

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Acknowledgements

I appreciate comments from two anonymous referees and participants at the Western Social Science Association and Social Science History Association meetings. Comments from Tom Maloney, Larry Wimmer, Peter Coclanis, Stanley Engerman, Jeremy Atack, Bob Margo, Harold Christianson, and Paul Hodges were particularly helpful. Craig O. Davis and Anita Voorhies provided excellent research assistance.

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  1. University of Texas, Permian Basin, 4901 East University, Odessa, TX, 79762, USA

    Scott Alan Carson

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Carson, S.A. Demographic, residential, and socioeconomic effects on the distribution of nineteenth-century African-American stature. J Popul Econ 24, 1471–1491 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-010-0324-x

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