Talk:John Rogan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.	Biography Portal
Stub	This article has been rated as Stub-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]
	This article is supported by the Science and academia work group.

This article has been automatically assessed as Stub-Class by WikiProject Biography because it uses a stub template. If you agree with the assessment, please remove {{WPBiography}}'s auto=yes parameter from this talk page. If you disagree with the assessment, please change it by editing the class parameter of the {{WPBiography}} template, removing {{WPBiography}}'s auto=yes parameter from this talk page, and removing the stub template from the article.

I have a question concerning the 8'9 height another article states that john f carroll was the second tallest after robert p wadlow carrolls height is given at 8'7.75 is this accurate? also the 8'9 height and 175# weight seems unbelievable is this accurate too?24.178.84.130 13:37, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I have a REALLY hard time believing he was only 175 lbs. at 8 foot 9. I have a friend who's 6'1 and 125 lbs. and he's a stick.

Lets cover all these concerns real easy-like. John Rogan was a black man at the turn of the 20th century. People know almost nothing about him, so it is obvious that he may be left off some lists.

Second, the 8'9" and 175 lbs is not that unbelievable if you see pictures of him. Plus he dies young ( I question the years on this article), so of course he had problems!!! If he had been of a different "ethnic orientation" he may have lived a few more years, but that was the Jim Crow years.

I think I covered everything. Have fun! Ainbro 07:52, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Can we get a picture or a photo? I am another skeptic that a person of 8'9" can weigh 175 pounds. --Trakon 06:54, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Rogan was in fact measured by a doctor from Philadelphia and a medical paper was written in 1899. However, his and the doctors claimed "height" (if he could stand, which he couldn't) is probably spurious. That said, John "Bud" Rogan was an interesting character, no doubt. He was a hard working farmer who was bed ridden for years in his teens by the insidious disease Acromegalic Gigantism. He refused offers for help and was suspicious of all doctors. While many of his giant contemporaries joined circus sideshows to pay for the substantual expenses involved(custom clothes, shoes, enormous appetite, etc), Rogan refused to be put on display, even though he could not stand or walk and needed the money. He instead went into business himself, moving into town. Every day he would ride his wagon, which he built himself, to the train station and sell his portrait to way-stayers and onlookers. Tragically, the disease that killed most giants before they reached 25 years old, caught up with him and he succumbed at near forty years of age. The prestigious New York Times newspaper carried an obituary on him. Mytg8 16:40, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

1980s Guinness editions had him at 8 ft 6 in (259 cm) with the footnote "measured in sitting position", so apparently this was no estimate. Later editions upgraded him to 8 ft 8 in (264 cm) with no explanation. I think the weight of 175 lb (79 kg) was included in some editions (for certain, I did see it in a Swedish edition), and indeed he looks downright skeletal in his pictures (tennessean.com, World's tallest people ever website), but even still the weight seems incredibly low – but perhas he lost even more weight prior to his death. --Anshelm '77 (talk) 15:33, 30 March 2008 (UTC)