Harvard Men Growing Longer and Longer According to Two-Year Investigation--Hips are Waning at Womens' Colleges

The present college generation of Harvard men whose fathers and grandfathers were Harvard men is one of the tallest groups in the world, averaging 5 feet 10 1-0 inches, and the annual increase in stature has been at the rate of about one inch every 32 years, over a period of 80 years, according to a two years' investigation just completed by the Department of Anthropology. The study was carried out by a graduate student in anthropology, G. T. Bowles, of Tokyo, Japan, under the direction of Professor E. A. Hooton, and received its financial support from Dr. J. C. Phillips, Associate Curator of Birds in the Museum of Comparative Zoology.

By using records left from measurements of 2000 Harvard students between the years 1870-80, he was able to secure extensive anthropometric records of about 400 pairs of fathers and sons. Medical examination records at Wadsworth House gave him another 1600 couples, in which, however, only statures and weights were recorded.

Since there were no records available to show the measurements of the mothers of Harvard men, Mr. Bowles discovered data on 501 mothers and their daughters who has attended Wellesley, Vassar, Smith, and Mt. Holyoke. The college daughters average 5 feet 4 8-10 inches in height. They are 1 1-10 inches taller and 7.25 pounds heavier than their mothers. Comparative data seem to indicate that this increase in weight has been going on for the last century. The daughters surpass their mothers in every dimension except breadth of hips, and in this dimension there is a superiority on the part of the mothers, amounting to 2.73 cm. or more than one inch.

From detailed measurement it is apparent that in the Harvard men all measurements have increased with the exception of head breath, breath of hips, and length of the upper arm. This means that Harvard men are taller and relatively more slender than their fathers, and have increased particularly in leg length, shoulder breadth, and thoracic circumference, but have decreased in hip breadth. The present evolution fervency is toward an accentuation of masculine characters of body build. As a matter for fact the same is true of the college daughters.