Robert Wadlow, The Tallest Man in History

fee fie foe fum I smell the blood of an Englishman be he alive or be he dead I will grind his bones to make my bread these famous lines from the English fairy tale Jack the giant-killer say a lot about how Giants have been viewed in human history whether it's the Giants at the top of Jack's beanstalk or David going to fight the fearsome Goliath Giants have been viewed with fear terror because of their great size and suppose adversity and if that's your view of Giants than you might be surprised that a very real giant the tallest man in recorded human history Robert Wadlow of Alton Illinois otherwise known as the Alton giant was known to be nothing but gentle and kind the very opposite of the fairy tale giant this is his actual foot size and his giant size life is history that deserves to be remembered he was born February 22nd to 1918 and weigh the healthy eight and a half pounds but his body grew extraordinarily quickly he was a whopping forty five pounds by his first birthday Robert suffered from a condition called hyperplasia of the pituitary gland his rapid and extraordinary growth was due to a normally high level of human growth hormones in his body he was 6 feet tall by age 8 taller than his own father by age 9 and 8 feet tall by age 17 Robert would eventually grow to be 8 foot and 11 inches tall making him the tallest man on record Roberts parents and four younger siblings were all normal-sized it was said that the ceilings in Roberts childhood hum only cleared his head by half an inch though he drew attention everywhere he went Robert and the rest of his family did not seek out the limelight they treated him like a normal boy despite his differences and expected the same treatment from the rest of the world he went to school just like any other child even though the school had to have a desk custom-built for him when a bus driver once asserted that Robert must be more than 8 years old and therefore should pay a half fare Harold wah blow robert's father protested Robert was not yet three years old the bus driver offered to bet $10 and Harold told him to drive to the end of the block or Roberts doctor was and asked him the drive decided to forego the fair but in the future Herald paid the fair to avoid further scenes Roberts classmates recalled Robert is large but with typical emotions for a child his age one woman remembered Robert tripping in class and crying when he hit his head she said even though he was bigger than everyone else in the room the teacher kissed his head and he was okay afterwards he was the tallest boy scout ever topping seven feet four inches at the age of 13 a Master Mason by the age of 21 while the war the largest Masonic ring ever constructed a replica of the ring sits in the Alton Museum of History and art to illustrate its size a half-dollar fits inside the ring Roberts struggled to walk through doorways and climb stairs his family and friends said he had to turn sideways and shuffle upstairs because his feet wouldn't fit properly to walk up the normal way to ride in cars his parents had removed the front seat and Robert would sit in the back his long legs Lange the length of the car another member of Roberts family said his mere footsteps betrayed his size when he walked the back of his foot would hit long before the front causing a strange double footstep for each foot in addition to the tallest man in the world Robert also holds a record for the largest recorded foot size an extraordinary size 37 double-a in addition to his size related struggles Robert was the recipient of curious stares wherever he went and sometimes negative attention gentlemen thought he was too big to be real so they'd run up and kick him in the legs as he was walking down the street thinking they could knock him off his stilts one of Roberts family members later recalled that that was the only time she'd seen him lose his temper when he was attacked on the street but he didn't run off to the children or strike back his restraint and patience earned him the moniker the gentle giant he seemed to take the public's attention in stride remaining down-to-earth despite the stairs Robert told Time magazine in 1937 that it's not my fault that I'm this way I didn't have anything to do with my getting this way he also said 99% of the people are okay the other percent are just plain ignorant so why should I let them worry me usually he was simply gentle and kind his family said that he loved to pick wildflowers and the bluffs above the river and there where he lived a neighbor said of him as he walked to school he lit up the whole block as he walked you could just fill his love for other people when his church needed a new pipe organ Robert helped to raise funds he give autographed photos to everyone who contributed his brother recalled that chairing the fund drive to buy the pipe organ was one of the things that Robert was most proud of in his life a plaque marking robert's contribution to the Main Street Methodist Church hangs there today despite avoiding public attention most of his life Robert eventually agreed to a few appearances in the realing Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1937 he became a national celebrity appearing in the circus both at Madison Square Garden and Boston Garden a Time magazine article about Robert describes him as a hulking 8 feet 7 inches and said that the circus was billing him as the tallest human being since the dawn of creation he appeared in the main ring and not the sideshow because he wanted to avoid any association with being presented as a freak of nature the circus wanted him to wear a top hat and tails but he chose to wear normal clothes dr. Charles Dean Humbert examined Robert for the Journal of the American Medical Association and reported such physical curiosities as his nose was 2 inches wide and because Roberts fingers were double-jointed they could curl themselves up in bizarre positions he noted that Robert was still growing dr. Humbert also said Robert had little feeling in his feet and couldn't detect either heat cold or pain which would come back to haunt the Giant a few years later this is a part of the nature of his illness while his body kept growing he had the same number of nerves and blood vessels as the rest of us his heart had difficulty pumping blood to his extremities making his feet cyanotic essentially blew from lack of oxygen while his lungs have a larger capacity they still had difficulty providing enough oxygen for systems that were simply larger than a human body was designed to serve his feet although huge by any standards still were stressed to carry his extreme weight messages sent by the nerves in his feet had to travel a yard more to get to his brain than most people so he couldn't feel common things like a wrinkle in his sock or a rock in his shoe because of his condition Robert will continue to grow as he aged well past the time when normal human beings would have stopped growing but the examination was about more than shoe size in the same medical journal article dr. Humberts said Robert was apathetic unfriendly antagonistic claims that hurt Robert deeply Robert his family sued the doctor for $100,000 for libel in court Humber testified that Roberts pituitary disorder soured his attitude towards life after his parents friends and teachers took to the stand batching for Roberts friendliness the gentle giant himself said in court that the article made him cry after only 45 minutes of deliberation the jury rejected Roberts lawsuit saying that doctors had to be free to express what they observed Roberts family later said that they knew they would probably lose the lawsuit but they decided to bring it anyway because they want to show how much the doctor's words had hurt Robert and they wanted to demonstrate that he was different than he was being portrayed Robert signed on as a spokesperson for the International Shoe Company he made appearances at hundreds of towns of the country using the attention he naturally drew because of his size to sell shoes he always did his appearances in normal street clothes saying that his work was in advertising Robert preferred to travel by car after accidentally putting his elbow through the window of a plane he also received shoes crafted just for him in addition to the numerous appearances the company encouraged shoe stores to put replicas of Roberts shoes in the front windows and many did drawing the curious into the stores with the site one campaign had customers guessing how many times Robert shoe could hold for the record the answer was six thousand two hundred and fifty during his travels Robert visited the great sequoia trees in California where he reportedly said this is the first time in my life that I ever felt small and I liked it during that trip west he also visited Hollywood but declined to appear on any television shows towards the end of his life Robert used a walking cane although he did have extraordinary strength his size but great stress on his body and muscles the same pituitary disorder that causes enormous awe is also affected his strength he relieves some of the pressure on his legs with braces a wheelchair may have helped him but he refused to use one preferring to walk on his own Roberts travels came to an end after he fell ill following an appearance in a parade in Manistee Michigan on July 4th 1940 one of the braces he used to help him stand had rubbed the skin raw and the wound to become infected Robert didn't even know he was injured because of the numbness in his limbs the doctor examined him noted that the size of the infected wound would normally have been extremely painful but Robert didn't feel it at all doctors worked to save him about a blood transfusion an emergency surgery failed Robert had a high fever was bathed in sweat his last words were his regrets about missing his grandparents upcoming anniversary celebration Robert Wadlow the Alton giant died at 1:30 a.m. on July 15th he was only 22 years old it took a dozen men to carry Roberts ten foot six inch long casket because it weighed nearly a thousand pounds the casket was too big for the hearse and jutted out of the end of the car where was covered in dignified black cloth more than ten thousand people attended Roberts funeral his family had his casket entombed in concrete in a vault the cemetery in Alton Illinois because they feared grave robbers his tombstone is a simple affair and reads at rest in addition to protecting his remains the family burned many of Roberts personal belongings to prevent them from being collected or displayed in an undignified manner the old museum of history in art in Alton Illinois has some of Roberts belongings and they are careful to preserve his image as a gentle human being rather than someone to gawk at in fact the entire town of Alton seems protective of Roberts memory saying he belonged to Alton and could be himself there in the eyes of the rest the world he may have been a giant but in Alton they say he was one of us residents collected fifty thousand dollars to construct a life-size statue of Robert which still stands off a street in Alton visitors can compare how they measure up to the man who left such a large memory for such a short life my wife's grandmother recalls seeing Robert Wadlow in a grocery store in Belleville Illinois in the 1930s she said they had him just reclining on a couch where he encouraged people that touch his legs to prove that they were real and chatted about whatever came up although it seems a lifetime ago for her she said she'll never forget it that seems to be the story with Robert Wadlow once you met him you could never forget him in the end the story of the world's tallest human being as told by his family and many friends is much less about the world's tallest part much more about the human being one story that stuck out to me when he traveled back east to appear at Madison Square Garden he said his favorite part of the trip was visiting the site of the battles of Lexington and Concord I just loved history so much he said I couldn't agree more I hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy short snippets a forgotten history between ten and fifteen minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that thumbs up button if you have any questions or comments or suggestions for future episodes please write those in the comment section I will be happy to personally respond be sure to follow the history guide on Facebook Instagram Twitter and check out our merchandise on teespring com and if you'd like more episodes on forgotten history all you need to do you subscribe [Music]

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 758,156

Keywords: History, the history guy, illinois, robert wadlow, alton giant, us history, history guy

Id: Vk6ge4-XUMk

Length: 11min 56sec (716 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 21 2018