30240.
Miss Annie Jones, Bearded Lady.
Charles Eisenmann
30241.
Miss Annie Jones, Bearded Lady.
30242.
Miss Annie Jones, signed on verso.
30243.
Miss Annie Jones, Bearded Lady.
30244.
Miss Annie Jones, Bearded Lady.
30245.
Miss Annie Jones, Marion, Smith County, Oh, signed on verso.
30246.
Miss Annie Jones, Age 19, signed on verso.
30267.
Laloo.
30279.
“Big Eliza, the Kentucky Giantess.” Eliza Sebastian.
30282.
Unidentified Fat Lady and Family.
30283.
Amelia Hill, Fat Girl.
30284.
Maude Miller, born in NYC, age 26, weight 865 lbs.
30285.
Unidentified Fat Lady with girl.
30293.
Fred Howe, Age 17, Weight 365. Kentucky.
30294.
Compliments of Chauncey Morlan, Age 12, weight 687.
30311.
Mrs. A.H. Bates, Born August 6th, 1848. Height 7 feet 11 1/2 inches. Weight 413 Pounds. Capt. M. V. Bates, Born November 9th, 1845. Height 7 feet 11 1/2 inches. Weight 478 Pounds. The man on the right is Charles Eisenmann, the photographer.
Martin Van Buren Bates (November 9, 1837 – January 19, 1919), known as the “Kentucky Giant” was an American man famed for his great height. He was 7 ft 11 in. tall and weighed 475 lbs.
He began a big growth spurt at some time around the age of six or seven, and was over 6 ft. tall and weighed over 200 lbs. by the time he was twelve years old.
Upon the outbreak of the Civil War, Bates joined the 5th Kentucky Infantry Confederate States Army, as a private, in 1861. His ferocity in battle and imposing figure saw him quickly promoted to the rank of captain. Bates was severely wounded in a battle around the Cumberland Gap area and captured and imprisoned at Camp Chase in Ohio, although he later escaped.
He returned to Kentucky after the war. Before the war, his first occupation was as a schoolteacher. While the circus was on tour in Halifax, Canada, the 7-foot-11-inch-tall Anna Haining Swan visited. She and Martin soon got to know each other, and were married in 1871. The highly publicized wedding, at St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London, England, drew thousands of people to try to attend, due to both the uncommonness of the spectacle and the disarming good nature of the pair. Queen Victoria herself gave them two extra-large diamond-studded gold watches as wedding presents.
Martin and Anna moved to Ohio in 1872, settling in Seville. On 19 May 1872, Anna gave birth to a daughter, who weighed 18 lbs.and died at birth. The couple built a large house to accommodate themselves comfortably. He explains the next few years in his autobiography:
While in Ohio, I purchased a farm in Seville, Medina County. It consisted of 130 acres of good land. I built a house upon it designed especially for our comfort. The furniture was all built to order and to see our guests make use of it recalls most forcibly the good Dean Swift’s traveler in the land of Brobdingnag.
I had determined to become a farmer, so I stocked my farm with the best breeds of cattle, most of them being short horns. My draught horses are of the Norman breed.
My rest was not to last long, for the solicitations of managers, I consented to again travel. The seasons of 1878, 1879 and 1880 found us leading attractions of the W. W. Cole circus.
While we have during these years been blessed with many things, affliction again visited us in the loss of a boy, born on the 15th day of January, 1879. He was 28 inches tall and weighed twenty-three pounds and was perfect in every respect.
Anna Bates died on August 5, 1888. Martin ordered a statue of her from Europe for her grave, sold the oversized house, and moved into the town. In 1889 he remarried, this time to a woman of normal stature, Annette LaVonne Weatherby and lived a mostly peaceful life until his death in 1919 of nephritis.
30312.
Mr. and Mrs. Bates.
30313.
Anna Swan and Martin Van Buren Bates, husband and wife. The man on the right is Charles Eisenmann, the photographer.
30314.
The Three Sisters. Aama, the Giantess and Princess Josepha, Midget. The French giantess, Alma Bataillard (1876-1893) took the stage name of Lady Aama. Her advertised height was 8 feet, but in reality she was about 6′ 8.”
30320.
Shields Brothers, the Texas Giants.
30322.
Shields Brothers, the Texas Giants.
30323.
Twins born with right leg missing in circus, written on verso.
30333.
Walter H. Stuart, Boston, Mass. Age 34, 1885.
30337.
Lucius Norval Monroe was born into slavery on January 29, 1847 on a plantation in Virginia. A normal child at first, he began to suffer a “strange disease” of the left leg when he was eight years old. Within two years his condition “took possession of his right foot” as well. The disease was probably what we now call fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva; to this day, there remains no cure for it. Fully grown, the ossified man weighed but sixty-seven pounds and it was said that his limbs “ring like metal when struck”. It’s unclear exactly when Lucius entered show business, but by 1889, he’d already made a career for himself as a dime museum freak, competing directly with New York-born ossified man Jonathan Bass. Accompanying Lucius on exhibition were his faithful valet Mose (James Vanderhoo), and his manager Charles Smith, both of whom are shown in this photo,. Mose and Smith were charged with carrying the bedridden celebrity either in arms or on a litter. In 1891, while appearing at a museum in New York, Lucius was accidentally dropped by his companions and fell down two flights of stairs. He sustained fractures to his right femur and index finger, though because he couldn’t walk anyway his doctors elected not to splint either of the breaks.
30338.
Lucius Norval Monroe and his valet Mose (James Vanderhoo).
30346.
Charles Tripp, the Armless Wonder.
30347.
Written on verso “Charles B. Tripp. Woodstock Ontario Age 34 yrs. Mrs. Sarah Van Ross 622 North St. Meadville Pa. Sep. 1889.” Written by Tripp with his feet.
30350.
Written on verso “Thaddeus Fisher Benson, Ills. Charles B. Tripp Woodstock Ontario. Age 26 y’s.” Written by Tripp with his feet.
30352.
Unidentified.
30353.
Unidentified.
30365.
Ashbury Benjamin, the Leopard Boy. Born in Cape Town, South Africa.
30368.
Ashbury Benjamin, the Leopard Boy. Born in Cape Town, South Africa.
30369.
Unidentified.
30371.
Unidentified.
30372.
Mr. Fiji Jim and Fiji Annie.
30373.
Brahamin Caste Hindoo. Looks like they have signed their names at the top verso. Also written bottom verso is “People from East India Madras.”
30374.
Kankanika, Samoan Girl.
30375.
Band of Nubians, from the Soudan.
30376.
On verso is “??? South Sea Ilant.”
30377.
Todas Indians, or the lost children of Israel.
30382.
Zulu Warriors, Princess & Child.
30383.
Zamora, Triple-Jointed Wonder. Major Zamora was a dime museum performer in the late 1890s. Born in St. Johns, Zamora was a physical dwarf who specialized in feats of contortionism and enterology (squeezing into impossibly small spaces, or getting inside a sealed container without disturbing it) and, as an offshoot of this, was a feature escape artist before the advent of Houdini. He was billed, alternately, as “The Triple-jointed Dwarf” and “The Triple-jointed Wonder.” His ad hype claimed he was ‘triple-jointed’ in all the connections of his body. Zamora performed in circus acrobat tights, and sported the large handlebar moustache so common in men’s grooming of the 1890s. Zamora stood 32 inches in height and weighed 54 pounds. Zamora’s features were squeezing himself in and out of an oversized, but still quite small, bottle, and escaping after being tied, chained, handcuffed and locked inside a small, upright box. Zamora is referred to in Panorama of Magic by Milbourne Christopher, and in Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women by Ricky Jay. Zamora married Tina Goughman, who was billed as the “smallest living woman” and was 4 inches taller than the Major.
30393.
Written on verso “A cow I saw 25 years ago in New York.”
30399.
Alice Bounds and Mother. These individuals were afflicted with acromesomelic dysplasia, an extremely rare, inherited, progressive skeletal disorder that results in a particular form of short stature known as short-limb dwarfism. The disorder is characterized by acromelia and mesomelia. Mesomelia describes the shortening of the bones of the forearms and lower legs relative to the upper parts of those limbs. Acromelia is the shortening of the bones of the hands and feet. Thus, the short stature of affected individuals is the result of unusually short forearms and abnormal shortening of bones of the lower legs. The very short hands, fingers, feet, and toes are characteristic. These findings are apparent during the first years of life.
30400.
Two of the Shields Brothers with unidentified gentleman.
30401.
Unidentified man with his small horse.
30408.
Maximo & Bartola, Aztecs of Ancient Mexico. Máximo and Bartola (also known as Maximo Valdez Nunez and Bartola Velasquez respectively) were the stage names of two Salvadoran siblings both suffering from microcephaly and cognitive developmental disability who were exhibited in human zoos in the 19th century. Originally from near Usulután, El Salvador, the siblings were given by their mother to a merchant who promised he would take them to Grenada to be educated and exhibited. They then went through several guardians afterwards. They were eventually billed as “Aztec Children” and an elaborate story was constructed of how they were found in the temple of a lost Mesoamerican city. They toured the U.S. and Europe, appearing before various regents and dignitaries.
30410.
Barney Baldwin, Broken Neck Wonder, The only living man in the history of the world with a broken neck.
30411.
Barney Baldwin, Broken Neck Wonder, The only living man in the history of the world with a broken neck.
30415.
Capt. Rudolf Ivanovitch, The Nihilist Exile of Siberia.