‘In Full Voice’: Narrating the Giant Female Body in Heritage Practices

This chapter discusses the cultural afterlife of the freak show performer Anna Swan (1846–1888), who worked for P.T. Barnum in the nineteenth century American freak show. It explores the practices of the Anna Swan Museum in Nova Scotia, Canada, in relation to two examples of neo-Victorian fiction, The Biggest Modern Woman of the World by Susan Swan (1988) and Among the Wonderful by Stacy Carlson (2011). These texts are discussed in relation to questions about the professional and community museum and archive, national and local community claims over custody and ownership of historical figures, and the types of representation that emerge in both. Custodians of these community archives such as the Anna Swan Museum often distrust or are wary of heritage professionals’ intentions and wish to prevent the transfer of their papers and social memory to professional, non-community organisations, which, in turn, segments historical sources and cultural memory. However, the Anna Swan Museum does offer fresh perspectives to the canon of Swan’s afterlife, and shares similarities with neo-Victorian agendas.