Salomon August Andrée
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Salomon August Andrée, during his lifetime most often known as S. A. Andrée (October 18, 1854–October 1897) was a Swedish engineer, physicist, aeronaut and polar explorer who perished during a failed attempt to reach the Geographic North Pole by hydrogen balloon, the S. A. Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition of 1897, which ended with the death of all three participants.
Andrée was born in the small town Gränna and received an engineering degree in mechanical engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm 1874, working as an engineer until 1880. From 1880 to 1882 he was an assistant at the Royal Institute of Technology, and in 1882–1883 he participated in a Swedish scientific expedition to Spitsbergen led by Nils Ekholm, where Andrée was responsible for the observations regarding air electricity. From 1884 and to his death, he was employed by the Swedish patent office. 1891–1894 he was also a liberal member of the Stockholm city council.
His major interest was ballooning, in which he became interested while attending the Centennial Exposition of 1876 in the United States where he also met the American balloonist John Wise. During 1893–95, Andrée performed nine flights with his balloon Svea, partly to make scientific observations and partly for the ballooning itself including experiment with its technique, mainly drag ropes for steering. Supported by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and funded by people like king Oscar II and Alfred Nobel, his polar explorer project was the subject of enormous interest and was seen as a brave and patriotic scheme. The North pole expedition made a first try to launch the balloon Örnen (The Eagle) in the summer of 1896, but the winds did not permit the expedition to start. The year after the balloon did set off and sailed for a little more than two days, but could not continue due to leakage of hydrogen. The expedition was badly equipped for travelling on the ice and never reached land until October when they set foot on the island Kvitøya, where they died.
Until the expedition's last camp was found by the Norwegian Bratvaag Expedition in 1930, the riddle of what happened to the expedition was the subject of myth and rumours. In 1908, a rumour circulated that Andrée's body had been found buried on the coast of northern Labrador. The homebringing of the bodies of Andrée and his colleagues, Nils Strindberg and Knut Frænkel, was grandly celebrated including a speech by the king Gustaf V, and they were buried with great honors. Andrée is interred together with his two companions at the cemetery Norra begravningsplatsen in Stockholm.
As a scientist, Andrée published scientific journals about air electricity, conduction of heat, and inventions. His view of life was that of the natural sciences, and he entirely lacked interest in art or literature. He was a firm believer in industrial and technical development, claiming that even the emancipation of women would come as a consequence of technical development.
Starting in the 1960s, Andrée's status as a national hero has become questioned and turned to almost the opposite. Focus has been put on the fact that the expedition was bound to fail, and that Andrée obviously refused to take in information that questioned the expedition's feasibility. Andrée has been seen a manipulator of the national emotions of his time, bringing a meaningless death on himself and his two companions. New research has however complicated the picture slightly, pointing out that although we can clearly see that his preparations were inadequate, his own age found his efforts to manage the difficulties and limitations of polar expeditions both creative and reliable. Andrée can also be seen as a victim of the patriotic sentiments of his time, and of his own successful campaign to promote the expedition stirring much attention, probably making it difficult to back out or admitting weaknesses in the plans in front of the press.
In Andrée's native town Gränna there is a museum dedicated to his polar expedition.
Andrée's writings were adapted into the song cycle The Andrée Expedition by American composer Dominick Argento, written for Swedish baritone Hakan Hagegard.
[edit] See also
- Movie: Flight of the Eagle
[edit] References
- Sörlin, Sverker. Entries Andrée, Salomon August and Andrée-expeditionen in the web version of the encyclopedia Nationalencyklopedin, accessed April 27 2006 (Swedish)
- Nordisk familjebok, 2nd edition, the entry Andrée, Salomon August (Swedish)
[edit] External links
- Grenna Museum - The Andreexpedition Polarcenter (in Swedish)
- IMDB - Swedish Movie about Andrée's ill-fated balloon expedition, with Max von Sydow as Andrée
