The ages of our founding fathers

[EatenByLimestone]

The Age of the Delegates in 1787

What makes the Constitutional Convention remarkable is that the delegates were demographically, economically and socially diverse.

teachingamericanhistory.org

Their average age was 42 at the Constitutional Convention. Some were in their 20s.

 

[EbS-P]

The Age of the Delegates in 1787

What makes the Constitutional Convention remarkable is that the delegates were demographically, economically and socially diverse.

teachingamericanhistory.org

Their average age was 42 at the Constitutional Convention. Some were in their 20s.

someone want to do the math and see how the average age compares to average life expectancy for the era and then compare it to the average age of our house chamber and current life expectancy. There was substantial young expertise in that cohort.

 

[Ashful]

Somewhere, a year or two back, I made a series of posts on the same subjects. Yeah, several were pretty young, but also several were pretty old.

A factor in the relative youth is likely the difficulty of travel between colonies at the time. Several days on horseback to reach Philadelphia from Portsmouth or Savannah was likely more appealing to an aspiring young lawyer with an inclination toward politics, than to anyone more comfortable late in their career. Heck, many of us treat air travel to industry trade shows the same way, with them becoming less appealing as we age, and that's at 600 mph speed with drink service. In at least a few cases, colonies actually had some trouble recruiting qualified candidates willing to attend, which again would favor the exuberant youth over the established late-career professionals.

As to life expectancy, that's a funny thing. It was indeed lower in the colonies than in most of historical mainland Europe, but I suspect that for the class of characters participating in the Continental Congress, life expectancy past 5 years was probably not that different than our own. These numbers have been historically driven by infant mortality and occupation (eg. working with draft animals or early industrial machinery was dangerous), but those factors would not have as much impact on the wealthier merchants and lawyers who made up most of the two Continental Congresses.

 

[stoveliker]

Indeed, I just happened to watch this video a few days ago. Don't know how reliable his info is, but ...

 

[begreen]

Here are the ages and occupations of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Some have multiple occupations. It's interesting to note that 3 list their occupations as "scientist". Ben Franklin, Thomas Jeffereson, and Robert Paine.

https://www.archives.gov/files/founding-docs/declaration_signers_gallery_facts.pdf