:>
> According to information published in "Questions & Answers"
> (Vol. 3, No. 6, December 1982) a bimonthly publication of the
> Department of Interpretive Education at Colonial Williamsburg,
> people were not significantly shorter in the eighteenth century.
> Records indicate that soldiers (white males) during the Revolution
> averaged only .63 inches shorter than army recruits in 1957 and 1958.
>
> Andree M. Mey
> Curator of Collection
>
 
Yes, thank you, some real statistics! As I said in my previous
post, assessing stature is complicated, and since the original question (if I
remember) had to do with 18th-19th century Americans, answers
about medieval suits of armor and Dutch beds don't apply.
 
Beds. "People slept sitting up" was another of those myths we
used to discuss at the Paul Revere House. I don't believe it.
People sleep curled up sometimes, and fit the available spaces,
and some wealthier people had feather beds, bolsters, pillows,
and all manner of upholstery on their beds that propped them in
whatever position they wished. Remember too that beds were
usually shared by several people. But sitting up?
 
Beds were custom made, not standard sizes as today. If space
was at a premium, smaller beds were better - or if you were
short, you didn't need a California king. At the Revere House,
the bed on display was within an inch of the size of a modern
double bed, but piled high with featherbeds, and people still
walked through and said "my, look at that short bed. Well,
people were shorter then."
 
There's a semi-famous passage from the traveller Madame Sarah
Knight, who stayed at a New England inn about 1704: "Anon I
heard another Russelling noise in Ye Room...Little Miss said
shee was making a bed for the men; who, when they were in Bed
complained their leggs lay out of it by reason its shortness..."
 
I've been reading ads in the Boston newspapers for the first
half of the 18th century - when runaway servants or slaves are
advertised for, heights are often given. These are not the
cream of society. Heights I've seen ranged from 4'9" for a
16-yr. old to 6'2". But then 18th century New Englanders were
among the healthiest and best fed people in the Western World.
 
We have been told over and over by museum guides and popular
books that people were shorter. It's something everyone
"knows". But it's time and place specific and shouldn't be
generalized as much as it is .
 
Please, is there a physical anthropologist in the house?
 
Sorry to be so crabby - this is a pet peeve of mine. And I'm
working hard on my dissertation on textiles in New England from
the 17th to the 19th centuries, and this stuff matters to me
 
Carol Ely
Virginia Discovery Museum
 
(all crabbiness is my own and not to be blamed on my employer)