ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE MELTING POT—STEWART Spl 
that the bodily form of the descendants of the immigrants was differ- 
ent from that of the immigrants themselves. He said: 
It appears that the longer the parents have been here, the greater is the 
divergence of the descendants from the European type. 
These results are so definite that, while heretofore we had the right to assume 
that human types are stable, all the evidence is now in favor of a great plasticity 
of human types, and permanence of types in new surroundings appears rather 
as the exception than the rule. [1912, pp. 5, 7.] 
Incidentally, it should be noted that, owing to the dates of the 
work by Boas and Hrdlicka, the immigrants available to them for 
study were mostly from the southern and eastern parts of Europe. 
Soldiers—World War I yielded as one of its useful byproducts 
some measurements of the men drafted into the Army and also of 
those later demobilized. Because of the conditions of the draft, the 
Army necessarily included some recent immigrants and descendants 
of older immigrants. Analysis of these measurements by districts, 
therefore, gives a partial indication of the physical variation in the 
different parts of the country. The variation in stature among the 
first million recruits is shown in figure 11. In general, the areas of 
tallest stature are those least affected by recent immigration. The 
distribution of short stature is about what would be expected from the 
data already presented on immigration. Unfortunately, such data as 
were obtained during the Civil War were restricted to the northern 
States, and those for World War II are reported to have been de- 
stroyed.® 
In passing, some comment should be made on the limitations of the 
Army for anthropometric purposes. Such a group represents only 
the healthy young men within certain age and size limits. Obviously, 
therefore, it is not a random sample of the population. Also, the 
measurements taken thereon are quite restricted in number and are 
not always taken carefully. Even the additional: measurements on 
100,000 soldiers taken at demobilization in 1919 under the direction 
of anthropologists have the same limitations as to sample and more- 
over were intended for tailoring rather than for biological purposes. 
Clothing standards.—The mention of tailoring leads us naturally 
to another Government anthropometric project, namely, that carried 
out by the United States Department of Agriculture for garment and 
pattern construction.° The data used in the industry for the con- 
struction of clothing have grown up apparently chiefly by trial and 
®* Personal communication from Dr. George D. Williams, formerly in the Vital Records 
Division, Office of the Surgeon General. For Army anthropology see the reports by B. A. 
Gould (1869), Baxter (1875), and Davenport and Love (1921). 
7°The project was under the direction of Miss Ruth O’Brien, Textiles and Clothing 
Division, Bureau of Home Economics, and was carried out in cooperation with the Work 
Projects Administration. 
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