#20: Ella Williams: The Tallest Woman on Earth?

This photo may look fake, but it’s definitely real. This early 20th-century photograph is of Ella Williams, a woman who went by the stage name “Mme Abomah.” Ella was over eight feet tall and incredibly strong. Her natural stature and strength made her a celebrity in the late 1800s and early 1900s when she decided to join Frank Bostock’s traveling circus as a performer. 

As you can see, Ella really was extremely tall. This old photo shows her arm clearing the head of an average man with room to spare. Ella was born in 1865 in South Carolina, just 10 months after slavery was abolished. She worked as a cook before performing, although circus and vaudeville managers were always trying to recruit her from an early age. Ella’s act as “Mme Abomah” was inherently racist given the time in which she lived, but there’s no denying that she was a successful performer with a natural gravitas about her.