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In January 2016, a photograph posted to the image-sharing web site Imgur renewed interest in the Shields brothers, four men from Texas who made a living as sideshow performers in a circus due to their unusual heights. While the Shields brothers really did travel with Barnum & Bailey in the 1880s, and while it's also true that they were billed as the Texas Giants, their height has been a matter of dispute between relatives, historians, and P.T. Barnum. As shown in the above-displayed images, the Shields brothers were billed as standing between 7 feet 8 inches and just a quarter-inch shy of 8 feet tall. A description of Jack Shields from Getty Images states that all of the brothers were eight feet tall: Frank Shields' granddaughter Martha, however, disputed these claims in an article written for Slideshow World. For instance, Martha wrote that Shade, the shortest man in the above-displayed photo, was only 6 feet 6 inches tall. Martha explained that P.T. Barnum used platform shoes, tall hats, and a deceptively small ruler to make it seem as if the Shields Brothers were much taller than they actually were: An article in the Reading Eagle on 26 December 1926 backed up Martha's assertion that Shade Shields' height had been exaggerated: It's true that four brothers who were above-average in height were billed as The Texas Giants and traveled as sideshow performers in the 1880s. However, while the circus claimed that the performers were all close to 8 feet tall, it appears that their actual heights were only between 6 feet 6 inches and 7 feet.
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