[ExI] Interesting US farming history

Keith Henson hkeithhenson at gmail.com
Tue Aug 27 17:46:00 UTC 2019


===Antebellum stunting===

Food production grew through the period before the Civil war.
However, the population grew faster and income was diverted from food
to shelter.  The effect of lower food per capita was to permanently
stunt the growth of non-elite children of that era.  That the US had
suffered a food shortage during the industrial buildup was in conflict
with the prevailing view.  It took a third of a century between the
first publication about declining heights during the antebellum period
for the food restriction explanation to be accepted.
[[https://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/12758/1/Komlos-A_Three-Decade_Kuhnian_History_of_the_Antebellum_Puzzle.pdf]]

Keith


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