On January 18, 1879, Anna Hanington Bates went into labor on her farm in Ohio. Standing close to eight feet tall, she had already endured one stillbirth, and the weight of this pregnancy pressed on her both physically and emotionally. When her water broke, the doctor observed an astonishing six gallons of fluid spill out. As the hours dragged on, he reached a chilling realization: the baby was too large.
His forceps could not fit around the infant’s head. The doctor resorted to placing a bandage around the child’s neck and pulling. The boy was born alive, weighing twenty-three pounds, and for eleven hours he lived. Then he died.
The child would later receive a Guinness World Record as the largest newborn ever recorded, but that recognition brought little comfort to a mother who had now lost two children. Anna’s extraordinary size had been with her from the beginning. Born in 1846 in Nova Scotia, she was the third child of Alexander Swan and his wife, both immigrants from Scotland. Some accounts suggest she weighed thirteen pounds at birth.
By age four, she stood over four feet tall and weighed more than ninety pounds. At fifteen, she reached seven feet and was still growing. Though never officially diagnosed in her lifetime, it was later determined that Anna had gigantism, a condition caused by a tumor on the pituitary gland that releases excessive growth hormone. Those afflicted grow rapidly, but their lifespans are often significantly shortened.
Anna, however, managed to shape a remarkably eventful life before that reality caught up with her. Her family, sympathetic to her condition, did what they could to accommodate her. When she outgrew her elementary school desk, her father built a larger one by hand. He also constructed an extra-large bed so she could rest as comfortably as her twelve siblings.
But he could not shelter her from the outside world. As news spread of the giant girl in Nova Scotia, people began visiting the family farm to catch a glimpse of her. Local newspapers published stories, and one paper referred to her as an “infant giantess. ” From an early age, Anna became a public curiosity.
The family, struggling financially as farmers, saw an opportunity. Anna frequently required new clothing and specially made shoes, both costly to produce. So they arranged for her to appear at local fairs as an attraction. Though some accused the family of exploiting her, most historians agree they genuinely cared and made sure she was safe.
When she was not touring, Anna looked after her younger siblings, read, and pursued artistic interests. She tried to live as ordinary a childhood as possible. She harbored a very normal dream: to become a teacher. But while staying with an aunt and attending school, she found the classrooms physically constricting because of her size, and people often stared at her, making her deeply uncomfortable.
That experience ended her teaching aspirations, but greater opportunities were on the horizon. In 1862, Anna relocated to America and took a position at the P. T. Barnum Museum as the “Nova Scotian Giantess.
” There she received tutoring and learned to sing and play piano. The museum offered her remarkable opportunities, including a payment of twenty-three dollars a week in gold, equivalent to about five hundred dollars today. She was provided a chaperone and could earn extra income from the sale of pictures of her likeness. Remarkably for the time, her contract allowed her to keep the rights to those images.
At the museum, she performed characters such as Lady Macbeth and participated in question-and-answer sessions with audiences, describing her experiences as one of the tallest women known to man. For Anna, this period was largely positive, as she finally controlled her own narrative rather than being merely displayed as a curiosity. In 1865, that world nearly killed her. Barnum’s museum caught fire in one of the most spectacular blazes New York had ever seen, and Anna was caught in the middle of it.
The stairwell was ablaze, and Anna, weighing nearly four hundred pounds, was far too large to fit through a window. With the help of eighteen people who carried her, she managed to escape. She had helped others flee before her, and in doing so almost doomed herself. Anna’s travels took her across Europe and the United States.
She met people who were also physically different and formed deep, lasting bonds with them. Her magnetic personality even brought her into the orbit of royalty. In 1863, while touring in Europe as an attraction, she befriended Queen Victoria. The two became unlikely friends.
After the queen lost her husband, Prince Albert, in 1861, she grieved deeply for the rest of her life, but her personal loss did not diminish her appreciation for other people’s love stories. Anna attracted many suitors over the years. She received numerous proposals but declined them all, uncertain whether men were genuine or merely interested in her money. Then, at a circus in Halifax, she met Martin Van Buren Bates, a man who also stood nearly eight feet tall.
They noticed each other immediately, and so did a promoter, which led to developments in both her career and her love life. The couple fell deeply in love and married in London in 1871, then began touring together with the circus. When word spread that Anna had found love, Queen Victoria decided to do something special. She gifted Anna a bridal gown made of one hundred meters of satin, fifty meters of lace, and embroidered orange blossoms.
Rumor has it the queen arranged for the wedding to take place at the Church of St. Martin in the Fields. Afterward, Anna returned to Buckingham Palace at the queen’s invitation and received a diamond ring. Martin received a gold watch.
The couple would meet with the queen at least twice more. A year after marrying, Anna and Martin purchased a farm in Ohio and built a house to accommodate their lofty statures. The main section had tall ceilings, wider doorways, and custom-built furniture. The back part of the home, however, was built to average size so that servants and guests could be comfortable.
Anna, who loved animals and disapproved of horse racing, made a point of taking in retired circus animals on the farm. In 1872, still newlyweds, the couple conceived their first child. On May 19, a baby girl weighing eighteen pounds died at birth. Six years later, Anna became pregnant again.
The second birth, on January 18, 1879, proved equally tragic. After eleven hours of life, the baby boy died. Martin later wrote that the child looked at birth like an ordinary infant of six months. The loss took an incredible toll on Anna.
She fell into a deep depression, withdrew from social life, and no longer wanted to tour. She later attempted to return to the circus but ultimately had to withdraw. During the late 1870s, the couple chose a quieter existence. By the spring of 1880, Anna spent her time solely on the farm, and she and Martin became more heavily involved with their local Baptist Church.
In 1888, after struggling with tuberculosis and thyroid issues, Anna died from heart failure during her sleep, just one day before her forty-second birthday. Martin erected a monument on her grave in her honor. A year later, he remarried and moved out of their Ohio home so that his average-sized second wife could be more comfortable. When Martin died in 1919, he was buried next to Anna and their baby boy.
To this day, Seville, Ohio, remembers the couple with an exhibit dedicated to their lives, and in Halifax, a museum is dedicated specifically to the giantess. Some of Anna’s descendants are still involved in curating and guiding tours for visitors. Throughout her life, Anna was often promoted as being more than eight feet tall. In reality, she stopped growing before reaching quite that height, standing at seven feet eleven inches.
The exaggeration became common in newspaper reports and persisted despite its inaccuracy. Records from the British Library show posters from her touring days advertising her as the largest woman in the world. She received top billing over Chang and Eng, the original Siamese twins, who were massive stars in London at the time.
Her placement above them as the headliner remains a testament that Anna Hanington Bates drew crowds as large as she lived.