This dataset includes height data for convicts from Georgia State Penitentiary, Milledgeville, collected between 1817 and 1885. The place of birth (state, country or world region – e.g. Europe) of each convict is listed, as well as the county in which the conviction took place. The dataset also includes the occupation of each prisoner, and which crime they were sentenced for. Since this is a prisoner dataset, we have to be aware of the usual potential prison selectivity issues, although Komlos and Coclanis (1997) also discuss these by comparing the data to other samples from other institutional backgrounds. The original measurements were taken in British inches. The dataset includes both black and white Georgian prisoners and foreign-born convicts. Convicts not born in the “American South” make up 7.8% of all observations (3.4% were European-born, 3.1% from the Northern USA, and 1.3% from the rest of the world).