[Sca-cooks] ELIZABETHAN KITCHEN

[Ron Carnegie]

>
> From: "Leah A. Montgomery" <mog_bane at hotmail.com>
> Date: 2003/04/22 Tue PM 10:57:47 EDT
> To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] ELIZABETHAN KITCHEN
>
>    I don't have any concrete evidence myself, but I do know that people have
> grown considerably just in the past 70 yrs or so. I remember talking to my
> mom a few years ago about all the people that wore larger size shoes, ie:
> 12-13-14 etc. She didn't think that this was possible and that they had
> changed shoe sizes. I asked her to name for me every single one of the
> people that she knew that was 6 foot or over when she was my age. She
> immediately rattled off one name and said that she would always remember him
> cause he was so much taller than every one else. He was only 6'1". Of
> course, I then rattled off about a dozen names, all of them over 6'1". How
> many people today are over 7 feet tall that would have had severe physical
> problems 20-25 years ago that don't have anything wrong with them?
>    I know that there are resources and studies out there that show just how
> much we have grown and height ratios compared to people of all time periods,
> I just can't find any right now.
>
>
>
> Leah A. Montgomery


    A quick perusal on the web well help in this matter, but what is more important is when to when, and what are you calling large height differences.  This is a common question where I work and at many other Historic sites as well.

   Height varies with time and place, it is NOT a general evolutionary increase.  There is a documented increase of average height for Americans over the last 50 years by about an inch and one half, but the average height of an American soldier fighting in the American Revolution was only and inch different from the average height of the American Soldier fighting in Korea.  That being said, through much of the 19th century the Average height declined though I do not have specific figures.  As far as people over 6 feet tall, apparently your mom would consider Colonial people to be guiants as I can name  three famous Virginia's of the period that were all taller than me.  Give me time for research and I could probably name a dozen.  (I am 6'2").

    As far as architecture, that is a tricky subject, as far more than comfort is considered when building, and our preceptions of comfort have changed.

    At work we do have several doors that are to short for me, we have several far taller than I need (people must have changed height as they walked through town).  Ceiling height here in the homes that have survived tends to be very high, far higher than most modern houses, though about the same as my turn of last century home.  Yet houses of the same period as these in Massachussetts often have much lower ceilings.  This is not because of a difference in height between New Englanders and Virginians, but due to climate differences.  I suspect if more poorer sorts of homes had survived in Virginia we might again see ceiling height differences as builiding costs also are altered.

   I have often heard the retort, "well then why are the beds so short".  Well even with the possible alterations in sleeping habits that I have heard bandied about, there is no original bed where I work (18th century) that is too short for my 6'2" height.  Most of them just appear short since they do not correspond with any of our modern bed dimensions.  (Much higher and narrower).

Ranald

R.Carnegie at verizon.net
"Argue for your limitations, and they are yours."
             R. Bach