Historical statistics show that crises like wars, epidemics, or recessions are not passing incidents, but leave permanent marks on the well-being and future potential of human beings. Our project starts with individual level health data on generations of newborn and older children in the major Finnish cities of Helsinki and Tampere living through some of the most severe crises of the early 20th century. We link this with information on their later life outcomes, such as age and cause of death, occupation, and quality of residence. We include rare data on individual participation in civil conflict on different sides. We redescribe the experience and heritage of the civil war of 1918, the Great Depression of the 1930s, and WWII through birth weights, heights, maternal health, mobility and mortality. We show how Finnish men, women and children were connected to each other through gendered structures of power, livelihoods and reproduction, and how they became scarred people.

2023

2027