We explore the rise and fall of pellagra, a disease caused by inadequate niacin consumption, in the American South, focusing on the first half of the twentieth century. We first consider the hypothesis that the South's monoculture in cotton undermined nutrition by displacing local food...

We explore the rise and fall of pellagra, a disease caused by inadequate niacin consumption, in the American South, focusing on the first half of the twentieth century. We first consider the hypothesis that the South's monoculture in cotton undermined nutrition by displacing local food...

This paper investigates the effect of a large negative agricultural shock, the boll weevil, on racial income gaps in the first half of the twentieth century. We draw on complete count census data to generate a new large linked sample of Black and white fathers and their sons. Fathers are...