This paper considers the institutional arrangements and labor market forces that interacted in the construction of America's transcontinental railroad. The demand for Chinese laborers on the transcontinental railroad was a product of a complex set of relationships, including the transaction...

The Perpetual Emigrating Fund was a 19th century form of indentured migration that assisted European immigrants to America's Great Basin. Immigrants signed future contracts against their Great Basin labor to repay migration loans. The Fund encountered high monitoring costs to enforce contracts...

The use of height data to measure living standards is now a well-established method in the economic history literature. Moreover, a number of core findings are widely agreed upon. There are still some populations, places, and times, however, for which anthropometric evidence remains limited. One...

A limited amount of research has been done on the body mass index values of 19th century Americans. This paper uses Texas prison records to demonstrate that, in contrast to today's distributions, most BMI values were in the normal range. Only 21.5% and 1.2% of the population was overweight or...

The use of height data to measure living standards is now a well-established method in economics, and a number of core findings in the literature are widely agreed upon. There are still some populations, places, and times, however, for which anthropometric evidence remains thin. This paper...

This article considers the relationship between stature, race, institutional change, and proximity to urban centers during economic development. A new data set of male inmates from the 19th century Philadelphia County prison is introduced to compare black and white statures during...

Purpose – This study aims to consider the nineteenth century relationship between biological markers and employment. This relationship is also considered for different occupations and by race. Design/methodology/approach – Using a large source of nineteenth century Texas state prison...