AUGUSTO SEVERO DE ALBUQUERQUE MARANHÃO 1864-1902

AUGUSTO SEVERO from the Brazilian Association of Antique and Classic Aviation (ABAAC) website Courtesy of Reuel, Vice-President, 4-23-04

 

COLLECTIONS AND ARCHIVES via email from Daniel Kolb, 4-4-04 Dear Mr. Cooper,      I was recently involved in processing a collection on early aviation at the Library of Congress. It contained a very interesting scrapbook documenting all phases of the building, launching, and destruction of the dirigible Pax. It contains many pictures of Severo.      The collection is entitled The Tissandier Collection of the History of Early Aeronautics. The Severo file is in the Aeronauts series. The collection is found in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress.      Working in an archive is wonderful for access. Unfortunately, I am (almost 'was') an intern for a few months at LC. The Tissandier collection was the only LC collection I worked on. I didn't really copy anything from it, except a few things for a talk I'm giving on the collection.      The Severo file is a leather bound, gold ornamented scrapbook about 1/2 inch thick, probably put together by Paul Tissandier, the son of Gaston the principal collector. It has news articles and photographs, some of them very interesting.      There are no plans for making the manuscript collection collection available online. The Prints and Photographs Division took a piece of the Tissandier collection and has it online already. I think it is about 700 images. I'm not sure whether there is any dirigible material available in the online materials. I know there is a lot of stuff on balloons from the collection online. You can check by using the LC online catalog. Dan Kolb

 

ONLINE RESOURCES      If you search the net for "Augusto Severo" +aviação using Google, (4-23-04), you will find about 372 links. Several of the most helpful are the following.

 

PIONEIROS DO AR Pioneers of the Air      If you read Portuguese, you can click on the title above and take full advantage of this new site. You will have access to the stories of some 24 early aviators, including Augusto Severo.There are also several other sections, such as Stories, Images, Partners, Links and Events, all of interest to the aviation buff.      If you need an English translation, it is a little more difficult. After reaching the homepage, click on the "Os Pioneiros" button at the top left of the page, and then choose "Augusto Severo." Then, block out and copy the text. Next, go to AltaVista's Babel Fish translation site by clicking on: Babelfish      Once there, Paste the text into the box, set the machine to translate Portuguese to English, push the button and read the translated text in the box. It is a little awkward, but if you are interested, it is well worth the effort. You will find the story is quite comprehensive and interesting.

 

VENCENDO O AZUL A HISTÓRIA DA INDÚSTRIA E TECNOLOGIA AERONÁUTICAS      This is an extensive and comprehensive article and contains several photographs. If you can read in Portuguese, click on the title above. If you want to read the article in English, just click on: Augusto Severo - English      Then you will have to scroll down to Chapter II and continue down to the seventh entry and click on: "The Airships of Severe Augustus."

 

Brazilian Association of Antique and Classic Aviation Associaçaõ Brasiliera de Aeronaves Antigas e Clássicas, (ABAAC)      This is a new website to me, (4-25-04), and offers a multitude of articles of interest to fans of early aviation and aviators. It is written in Portuguese, so if you only read English, you will have to use one of the translation programs such as BabelFish to take advantage of it's many offerings.      The beautiful portrait of Augusto Severo, which you see at the top of this page, comes from this ABAAC website, through the generosity of its executive editor, Reuel. You can access the page by clicking on the title.      On the homepage you will find a brief summary of the life and career of Augusto Severo at the top of the homepage and a link to an extended biography. You will also find an article on Alfredo Santos Dumont which confirms him as the Father of Aviation. It also includes numerous links which you will find to be very interesting. English Version

 

EARLY AIRSHIPS      This page on Rod Filan's Rosebud's WW I and Early Aviation Image Archive website displays Jean-Pierre Lauwers' collection of dozens of photographs of early airships, including ten of Severo's Pax. Included are photos of the construction of the dirigible, as well as several of the crash. You can access the page by clicking on the title above.      If time permits and you are not already familiar with Rod's outstanding resource, I highly recommend that you sample some of the other offerings by clicking on the name of the site above.

 

Augusto Severo died in 1902 From Pioneiros do Ar   Editor's Note: If you have any information on this Early Flier, please contact me. E-mail to Ralph Cooper   Back