Anna Haining Bates, the Nova Scotia-born giantess whose extraordinary stature made her a global sensation and whose life was marked by both triumph and devastating loss, died in her sleep from heart failure on August 5, 1888, just one day before her 42nd birthday, ending a life that historians now regard as one of the most remarkable and tragic of the nineteenth century.
Born in 1846 in Nova Scotia to Scottish immigrants Alexander and Ann Swan, Bates entered the world already defying expectations. Some sources suggest the newborn weighed thirteen pounds, an astonishing figure for the era. By age four she stood over four feet tall and weighed more than ninety pounds.
By fifteen she had reached seven feet and was still growing.
Although never officially diagnosed during her lifetime, medical historians later determined that Bates was born with gigantism, a condition caused by a tumor on the pituitary gland that triggers the release of excessive growth hormone. Individuals with the condition grow rapidly and typically face significantly shortened lifespans, a reality that shadowed Bates from childhood.
Her family, sympathetic to her unique circumstances, did what they could to accommodate her. When she outgrew her elementary school desk, her father built a larger one by hand. He constructed an extra-large bed to ensure her comfort alongside her twelve siblings.
But he could not shield her from the outside world, and as news of the giant girl spread, curious strangers began arriving at the family farm hoping to catch a glimpse of her.
Local newspapers amplified the fascination, with one publication dubbing her an infant giantess. From an early age, Bates became a curiosity, and her family, struggling farmers in need of financial support, recognized an opportunity. They began touring her at local fairs as an attraction, a decision that drew accusations of exploitation but which most historians agree was made with genuine care for her safety and wellbeing.
Despite the unusual circumstances of her youth, Bates attempted to lead a normal childhood. She cared for her younger siblings, pursued reading and artistic interests, and harbored a deeply ordinary dream: she wanted to become a teacher. While staying with an aunt and attending school, however, she encountered insurmountable difficulties.
Classrooms proved physically constricting, and the constant gawking of classmates made her deeply uncomfortable. The experience ended her teaching aspirations.
Greater opportunities awaited across the border. In 1862, Bates relocated to the United States and took a position at the P. T.
Barnum Museum in New York as the Nova Scotia Giantess. There she received tutoring and learned to sing and play piano. The museum offered her remarkable terms for the era: twenty-three dollars a week in gold, the equivalent of roughly five hundred dollars today, along with a chaperone and the ability to earn additional income from photographs sold of her likeness.
Remarkably for the time, her contract permitted her to retain the rights to those images, a provision that allowed her to exercise a degree of control over her own public identity. During her tenure at the museum, Bates performed characters including Lady Macbeth and engaged audiences in question-and-answer sessions about her experiences as one of the tallest women known to man. Historians describe the period as largely positive, as she was able to shape her own narrative rather than being reduced to a spectacle.
In 1865, catastrophe struck. Barnum’s museum erupted in one of the most spectacular fires New York had ever witnessed, and Bates found herself trapped in the midst of it. The stairwell was ablaze, and at nearly four hundred pounds, she was far too large to fit through a window.
With the help of eighteen people who carried her, she managed to escape. By most accounts, she had first helped others flee the flames before her own rescue, nearly dooming herself in the process.
Bates was widely described as intelligent and kind. As she met other people on tour who were physically different, she formed deep and lasting friendships. Her magnetic personality even attracted the attention of royalty.
In 1863, while touring Europe as an attraction, she befriended Queen Victoria, and the two maintained an unlikely bond.
She attracted numerous suitors and reportedly received many proposals, but declined them, uncertain whether suitors were genuine or merely interested in her money. Then she met Martin Van Buren Bates, a man who was also approaching eight feet in height. The two spotted each other at a circus in Halifax, and a promoter quickly recognized the potential.
The couple fell madly in love and married in 1871 in London.
Queen Victoria, who had fallen into a deep depression after the death of her husband Prince Albert in 1861, nonetheless retained an appreciation for the love stories of others. When word spread that Bates had found love, the queen gifted her a bridal gown made of one hundred meters of satin and fifty meters of lace, embroidered with orange blossoms. Rumor holds that the queen arranged for the wedding to take place at the Church of St.
Martin in the Fields.
After the wedding, the couple returned to Buckingham Palace at the queen’s invitation, where Anna received a diamond ring and the bridegroom a gold watch. They met with the queen at least twice more in the years that followed. A year after marrying, the couple purchased a farm in Ohio and built a house designed to accommodate their stature, with tall ceilings, wider doorways, and custom-built furniture.
The back portion of the home was built to average size for the comfort of servants and guests.
Bates was an animal lover who disapproved of horse racing and made a point of taking in animals retired from the circus. In 1872, still newlyweds, the couple conceived their first child, but the pregnancy ended in tragedy. On May 19, a baby girl weighing eighteen pounds died at birth.
Six years later, Anna became pregnant with a son. On January 18, 1879, her water broke, and she reportedly lost six gallons of fluid. The labor was agonizing.
As hours passed, the doctor reached a disturbing realization: the baby was so large that forceps could not fit around its head. A bandage was placed around the infant’s neck to pull him into the world. He weighed a staggering twenty-three pounds, and Martin later wrote that he looked at birth like an ordinary child of six months.
Tragically, the birth was doomed. After just eleven hours of life, the baby boy died. He posthumously received a Guinness World Record as the largest newborn ever recorded.
The loss of the second child took an incredible toll on Anna. She fell into a deep depression, withdrew from social life, and no longer wished to tour. Although she later attempted to return to the circus, she 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 the Baptist Church. In 1888, after struggling with tuberculosis and thyroid issues, Anna died from heart failure in her sleep, one day before her forty-second birthday.
After her death, Martin erected a monument on her grave to honor her. 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, however, he was buried next to Anna and their baby boy.
To this day, Seville, Ohio remembers the couple with an exhibit dedicated to their life together, and a museum in Halifax is dedicated specifically to the giantess, with some of her descendants still involved in curating and guiding tours for visitors.
Throughout her life, Anna was often promoted as standing more than eight feet tall. In reality, she stopped growing before reaching that height, but she came remarkably close at seven feet eleven inches. To further sensationalize the attraction, exaggeration of her height became common and lingered in newspapers despite the inaccuracy.
Records obtained from the British Library show posters from her touring days advertising her as the largest woman in the world, receiving top billing over Chang and Eng, the original Siamese twins, who were massive stars in London at the time.
Her placement above them as headliner continues to serve as a reminder that Anna Haining Bates attracted crowds as large as she lived. Her story, one of extraordinary fame, profound love, and devastating loss, remains one of the most haunting and human sagas in the history of human stature.