title: The biological standard of living in 19th century Mexico and in the American West.
abstract: During the mid-19th century, the United States acquired Texas and large parts of Mexican territory with the vast Mexican-born population. This paper considers the biological standard of living of the part of this population that was incarcerated in American prisons. We use their physical stature as a proxy for their biological welfare. These data confirm earlier results which showed that adult heights tended to stagnate in Mexico during the late-19th century despite considerable social and political turmoil. While there is some evidence of a decline in height among youth, the decline is slight (<1 cm). As in other 19th century samples, farmers were the tallest. Americans were taller than Mexican prisoners by about 2 cm.
authors.affiliation: Economics Department, University of Texas, Permian Basin, 4901 East University, Odessa, TX 79762, USA. carson_s@utpb.edu
authors.forename: Scott Alan
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Carson
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001827:Body Height / Q000502:physiology*; D003415:Crime / Q000208:ethnology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006304:Health Status; D049672:History, 19th Century; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008800:Mexico / Q000453:epidemiology; D008875:Middle Aged; D009790:Occupations / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011329:Prisoners / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology