The Social Science Library » Growing Incomes, Shrinking People – Can Economic Development Be Hazardous to Your Health? Historical Evidence for the United States, England, and the Netherlands in the Nineteenth Century

Growing Incomes, Shrinking People - Can Economic Development Be Hazardous to Your Health? Historical Evidence for the United States, England, and the Netherlands in the Nineteenth Century

Author(s)	Haines, Michael R.
Abstract	Historians have pondered the “antebellum puzzle” at considerable length, trying to resolve the question of why the physical stature of people declined during the 19th Century while national economies expanded rapidly during industrialization. This article analyzes how the growth of large urban areas in Great Britain, the Netherlands and the United States occurred with inadequate attention to sanitation and public health, which exacerbated the diseases that flourished when people from widely varying geographies lived in close proximity. Working people depended more on wages for their income and their nutritional levels were affected by fluctuations in food prices and greater inequalities in wealth and income. The phenomenon of shorter people did not meet the standard of the Malthusian crisis, which would have caused many more deaths, but it did reflect a biological response to lower standards of nutrition.
IssueNo	2
Pages	249-270
Article	Access to Article
Source	Social Science History
VolumeNo	28
PubDate	Summer2004
ISBN_ISSN	0145-5532
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Growing Incomes, Shrinking People – Can Economic Development Be Hazardous to Your Health? Historical Evidence for the United States, England, and the Netherlands in the Nineteenth Century

Social and Cultural History