A peculiar population: The nutrition, health, and mortality of American slaves from childhood to maturity
Abstract
The debate over the health and nutrition of slaves has focused on the typical working adult. Height and mortality data, however, indicate that the greatest systemativ variation in health and nutrition occured by age. Nourishment was exceedingly poor for slave childrenm but workers were remarkably well fed. The unusayal growth-by-age profile for slaves has implications for views on the postwar economic fortunes of blacks, the interpretation of findings of other height studies, and conceptions of slaveowner decision making, the slave family, and the slave personality.
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Racial and ethnic minority populations were excluded from civic participation and restricted in immigration and mobility, income and employment, marriage, and more, with substantial health consequences.
“These racial and ethnic minority populations were excluded from civic participation and restricted in immigration and mobility, income and employment, marriage, and more, with substantial health consequences Steckel (1986).”
From Civil rights as determinants of public health and racial and ethnic health equity: Health care, education, employment, and housing in the United States (2018) · cites this paper as Steckel (1986)
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Hahn, R. A., Truman, B. I., & Williams, D. R. (2018) · SSM - Population Health · doi:10.1016/j.ssmph.2017.10.006 · Cited by 115 · see citing works
- Authors
- Steckel, R. H.
- Affiliations
- The Ohio State University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Steckel, Richard H.
- Venue
- The Journal of Economic History
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 1986-09
- Volume
- 46
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 721-741
- ISSN
- 0022-0507 (ISSN-L)
- 1471-6372
- OpenAlex
- W2078532747
- Cited by
- 278
- References
- 21
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 31 · 2018: 30 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 11 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 9 · 2013: 3 · 2012: 5
- FWCI
- 15.67
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- The Journal of Economic History (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Historical Economic and Social Studies
- Social Sciences › Anthropology › Colonialism, slavery, and trade
- Social Sciences › Anthropology › Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies
- Keywords
- slavery, slave health, mortality, child nutrition, height, enslaved children, slave families
- MeSH terms
- Black or African American, Demography, Diet, Nutritional Physiological Phenomena, Statistics as Topic, United States, History, Modern 1601-
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