Attilio Gatti-Coming soon- A new addition to Traveling in the Past!
Doing research on a grad school project, about the former automotive and tractor company giant, International Harvester, took me down an interesting path. In 1938, a famous Italian explorer, Attilio Gatti took two of the first RV’s ever built, by International Harvester, on a 15 month exploration tour through the Belgian Congo.
Gatti’s ‘38 expedition is the most famous of his, especially because of the giant International Harvester “Jungle Yachts” that he dragged through the jungle. His expedition was cut short by the looming threat of World War 2, and he briefly retired to Vermont, before heading out again in 1948 for another expedition into Africa.
Gatti was likely the most famous African explorer of his time, well arguably the most infamous I would say, but famous nonetheless. Gatti wrote over 30 books on exploration and travel, and collected dozens of widely distributed films and over 40,000 photographs. His films are still available to watch online (links later!), and they are certainly worth the time invested in my opinion.
This is just a warm-up post, to let you know what I will be posting about next! I am hoping to get it done in the next couple of days. This is a very fascinating subject because there are so many angles to look at. We can look at Gatti of course, but also the “Golden Age of the African Safari”, the popularity of adventurers in the 1920’s-50’s, International Harvester, the African people, the different interest groups sponsoring the expedition and etc. So there is a lot of ground to cover here, and this may be split up into a few posts.
Little is out there about Gatti’s early life, other than some obscure, and non-verified internet accounts. This is my first challenge, but I have stumbled upon droves of primary source material that I want to share with the world! Hang tight for the next couple of days, and I will put an interesting spin on this oft-blogged about subject.
Jesse
History on a Whim
Historian and Founder