Recent developments in demography and epidemiology have focused attention on the links between events in early life and mortality later in life. Processes developing over the life course can only be studied with long-run longitudinal data, which is quite difficult to obtain. Historical demography is unusually rich in such data. Indeed, one might say that any longitudinal data set describing complete life histories (e.g. more than fifty years) must be viewed in a historical perspective, because changing epidemiological, economic, and social contexts may affect the impacts of early life conditions on later health. This article is a preliminary attempt to link together demographic events and economic characteristics across the life course from childhood to old age. We are motivated by a particular interest in the effects of early life conditions on old age mortality, but we also want to know whether experiences in childhood can be mediated by experiences in midlife.