Toward an anthropometric history of provincial France, 1780-1920

Abstract

A sample of 237,782 individual observations was obtained in four areas of France: rural Alsace, urban Alsace, Limousin, and Brie (Ile-de-France). Trends in the biological standard of living of conscripts born in these regions between 1780 and 1920 fit well with the recently estimated trends for other parts of Europe. While heights were relatively low, they did not decline much preceding the Revolution in 1789. During the first half of the 19th Century heights varied considerably both spatially and longitudinally, indicating the contrasting effects of modernization among the four areas. Conscripts from the least productive agricultural area, Limousin, were the shortest. Heights in Alsace remained essentially unchanged during the first half of the 19th Century, but those in Brie increased after 1820 and those in Limousin after 1840. The positive trend became more general after 1870, though Brie alone showed the considerable negative impact of the agricultural depression of the last quarter of the 19th Century. Heights diverged until 1850 and converged thereafter. In Limousin, the annual height of conscripts is positively correlated with the weight of cattle. By the early decades of the 20th Century, a marked, long-term increase in anthropometric growth had occurred in these four regions, as elsewhere in Europe. The regional estimates correspond well to the national trends estimated by Komlos and Weir except that they show the great local variation in height until the turn of the 20th Century.