Article July 11, 1901 Issue

Women Growing Taller

Under the above heading the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser editorially breathes forth the following somewhat alarming sentiment:—

Charles Dana Gipson has made a discovery that may mean awful possibilities for the future. He declares that modern habits and diet on the part of the female contingent of the country are causing the girls of America to gradually increase in height, and that the average stature has increased at least two inches during the last ten years. We do not know that the girls will make any change in their food or their manner of life, and if they do not where is it to end? In the course of another century man will have to look up to woman literally, as he now does figuratively, and she will be the boss of the outfit, in fact as well as in theory. A nation of women over two yards in height on an average is not a pleasant possibility, but Gipson argues that it will be a fact in two or three generations from this. It is a subject to command the serious attention of statesmen and scientists.

But what can science or male humanity do about it? If it is the fashion or fad to indulge in lengthening diet, or to practise stretching exercise, the women will do it if it causes future generations of their sex to run up into the atmosphere like Jack's beanstalk. Mr. Gipson attributes this tendency to grow upward to the dietetic habits and outdoor exercise which prevail of late years, and appears to think it will keep on in the same direction. There is probably a limit to human growth, but that limit may not be reached till all American women will reach a height of six feet or over.

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