title: The heights of French-Canadian convicts, 1780s-1820s.
abstract: This paper uses a novel dataset of heights collected from the records of the Quebec City prison between 1813 and 1847 to survey the French-Canadian population of Quebec-which was then known either as Lower Canada or Canada East. Using a birth-cohort approach with 10year birth cohorts from the 1780s to the 1820s, we find that French-Canadian prisoners grew shorter over the period. Through the whole sample period, they were short compared to Americans. However, French-Canadians were taller either than their cousins in France or the inhabitants of Latin America (except Argentinians). In addition to extending anthropometric data in Canada to the 1780s, we are able to extend comparisons between the Old and New Worlds as well as comparisons between North America and Latin America. We highlight the key structural economic changes and shocks and discuss their possible impact on the anthropometric data.
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics, Queen's University, 94 University Avenue, Kingston, Ontario, K7L 3N6, Canada. Electronic address: arsenaulta@econ.queensu.ca.
authors.forename: Alex
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Arsenault Morin
authors.affiliation: Free Market Institute, Texas Tech University, Box 45059, Lubbock, TX, 79409-5059, United States. Electronic address: Vincent.Geloso@ttu.edu.
authors.forename: Vincent
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Geloso
authors.affiliation: Institute of Economics, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences, University of Hohenheim, Schloss Hohenheim 1 B, 70599, Stuttgart, Germany. Electronic address: Vadim.Kufenko@uni-hohenheim.de.
authors.forename: Vadim
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Kufenko
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001827:Body Height / Q000502:physiology*; D016208:Databases, Factual; D005260:Female; D049671:History, 18th Century; D049672:History, 19th Century; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011329:Prisoners / Q000266:history*; D011792:Quebec; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Anthropometric history; Biological living standard; Canadian economic history