Pt 1. Atillio Gatti’s “glamping” expedition into the Congo! P.S. Sorry this is late, explanation included!

Part 1: I apologize for the delay on this. Strangely enough over Father’s Day Weekend a tragic cat-biting incident happened to me. I was outside with two of my cats, and one of my cats scared the daylights out of the other cat, and I managed to get in the middle. Since my one cat thought I was there to kill it he sunk his teeth into my arm. Just FYI scared cat biting you= lockjaw. I could not get the cat off, and he bit me twice, and it was the most blinding agony I have ever felt, and I’ve broken just about every bone in my body once so I know pain. For those of you who don’t know cat bites can be very scary, as their mouth is so bacteria-riddled it can actually cause crazy infections like sepsis. I am doing okay right now but I am heavily laden with antibiotics, and as weird as it sounds the first two days, I was in so much pain I couldn’t do much of anything. Sorry for the personal story!! Let’s get to what were here for:

There once was a time known as the “golden age of safaris”. This generally translated to wealthy people, travelling to places in Africa to hunt big game. In 1909 President Teddy Roosevelt ascended back into civilian life after two terms as president. As a man known for his love of strenuous living, the former president took off to Africa with funding for an expedition. The group would collect a massive array of specimens that would later fill the displays at the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum. The highly publicized expedition sparked an interest in the African safari.

From 1909 to the start of World War 2 adventurers embarking on the incredible African safari became a mainstay in popular culture, especially in the United States. Movies, documentaries, novels and non-fiction books chronicled the exploits of these brave explorers. It was easy to figure why the Roosevelt-Smithsonian Expedition nurtured an interest in safaris. Roosevelt’s 1909 expedition brought back over 11,000 species of animals, and also documented their trip using a new medium: film. The 1909 film known as Roosevelt in Africa was directed by Cherry Kearton. Kearton, who also shot the footage, filmed animals, and indigenous people, including Zulu tribespeople. With the rise of film as a medium for exploration, and documentation, this opened up the world to exotic locales, in which they too could experience places never visited, and in real time with film footage.

Cool footage of the badass himself: Teddy Roosevelt. His African Expedition included.

The “Golden Age of Safaris” was dominated by an infamous explorer, infamous in his time, Italian explorer Attilio Gatti. Gatti was the brave leader of 13 expeditions between 1922-47, and his fame was enhanced by the publication of nearly 20 books, written on his travels. Attilio had books on the market that documented his journeys to places like the Mediterranean (makes sense for an Italian explorer), the Sahara, the jungles of the Congo, and life with various tribes of indigenous Africans. These books were immensely popular in a time when travel was expensive, but the world was still a mysterious place.

Kind of gives you that classic, pre-WWII book feel doesn’t it? This was published in 1943, a few years after the awesome Jungle Yacht expedition.

There wasn’t a whole lot of information on Gatti’s early life, prior to his expeditions. Gatti was born in July, 1896. Some non-verified sources state that Gatti was an Italian Army officer who served with distinction in the First World War. Guessing, due to the massive involvement of Europeans in World War 1, and his birth year, 1896, Gatti would have been of prime age to serve, and may have done so. Nonetheless Gatti began his safari career in 1922, embarking on expeditions that were usually self-funded ventures. To make money for his future ventures he produced two films of his early expeditions, the 1927 film Siliva Zulu, and the 1928 film Tramonto dei blasoni. Post-war Italy didn’t appear to be the market for lucrative filmmaking, a broke Gatti moved to the US in 1930, and his popularity grew as he published several books, his first coming in 1932.

A picture of the man himself. Attilio Gatti, looking official in that expedition gear.

While doing research on the automotive industry, most notably manufacturer International Harvester, I found photographs on two “Jungle Yachts” created for another exciting jungle excursion by Gatti, set for the year 1938. These “yachts” were the precursor to your modern RV, and I guess by all definitions Gatti and his wife were “glamping”. The two behemoths provided for Gatti cost 15 grand a piece, so the equivalent of 287,000 dollars in 2021. Each trailer had a 1500-watt powerplant, a ham radio, a photo lab, science lab, a bathroom with a working bathtub, air-conditioning, a refrigerator, a comfortable place to sleep, and a pop-up electric fence to keep dangerous African predators from snacking on them at night.

This is a page from the International Trail published in July of 1938, chronicling the expedition by Gatti. — This is a page from the *International Trail* published in July of 1938, chronicling the expedition by Gatti.

1938 represented a time where the US was finally rising up out of the Great Depression. Things were going back to normal, and once again the luxuries of life became a focal point of American life. Baseball and boxing were tremendously popular as fans could afford tickets again. Moviegoers started to pack theaters, and it was through this that International Harvester saw an opportunity to garner some publicity. According to the 1938 Report to Employees printed by the company, they were suffering a drop-off in profits. While the depression had started to fizzle out, the desire for expensive farm equipment, the things that International Harvester sold, was still not part of the rise in consumerism. Farmers were hit hard during the Depression years, even having a Depression that lasted longer than that of other occupations, and the money for brand-new field machinery was hard to come by. According to their report there was an 11% decrease between 1937 and 1938 for all farm equipment sales. Suffering financially, the Gatti expedition was the perfect publicity stunt.

Gatt by 1938 was one of the most infamous explorers in America, and in order to send Gatti on his way, International Harvester not only provided luxury living, but they also funded a crew of filmmakers. This was originally how I jumped upon this idea, through the two-part documentary produced (I’ll put the video below), that offers some incredible footage of a by-gone era, the golden age of exploration and mystery.

Of course, the expedition needed a purpose, other than mere publicity, and International Harvester published the outline for the expedition in the July 2, 1938 edition of International Trail. According to the magazine the Gatti Expedition was set to conduct surveys, gather material, and study the possibilities for future development of the Belgian Congo. Gatti was given some financing through the University of Johannesburg, in South Africa and The Royal Zoological Society of Rome and Antwerp, and was told to capture any rare specimens available in the name of science. One of the animals named in their documentary is the elusive Okapi. In order to capture all of their studies two cameramen hauled along 1000’s of feet of film.

This is simply part one of our adventure with Gatti! I will leave you with these awesome documentaries, and some links to the primary sources available from the Wisconsin Historical Society.

This is part 1 of the “Jungle Yachts” documentary. Original footage was provided by the Travel Film Archive, so the footage is not available without the ticker on the bottom. It is still a phenomenal portal to the past.