Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
9-2020
Abstract
Following the balloon's invention in 1783, the French greeted the technology with enthusiasm, speculating extensively about its potential scientific and practical applications. However, the lack of progress in navigating against the winds discredited ballooning, and in the following decades it became the domain of spectacular forms of entertainment and of swindlers trying to defraud public subscriptions. All of this changed after the 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War, during which balloons were used to breach the siege of Paris. This essay explores how the aeronautical community, led by the recently established Société Française de Navigation Aérienne, mobilized the memory of the war to transform the balloon into a symbol of a heroic republican science. Paramount in that process was the Zénith's 1875 high-altitude ascent that killed two aeronauts—Joseph Crocé-Spinelli and Théodore Sivel. The tragedy reverberated beyond France's scientific community, and through popular acclaim the two aeronauts became the Third Republic's first scientific martyrs, anticipating the eventual apotheoses of figures like Claude Bernard and Louis Pasteur. The ballooning revival in the last third of the century helped strengthen the association between France and aeronautics, thus setting the stage for the country to acquire a central position in the field by the early twentieth century.
Keywords
history of science, history of France, scientific martyrs, ballooning, Franco-Prussian War, aeronautics, French Third Republic
Discipline
European History | Intellectual History | Political Science
Research Areas
Political Science
Publication
Notes and Records of the Royal Society
Volume
74
Issue
3
First Page
365
Last Page
386
ISSN
0035-9149
Identifier
10.1098/rsnr.2019.0022
Publisher
The Royal Society
Citation
DE OLIVEIRA, Patrick Luiz Sullivan.(2020). Martyrs made in the sky: The Zénith balloon tragedy and the construction of the French Third Republic’s first scientific heroes. Notes and Records of the Royal Society, 74(3), 365-386.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3436
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2019.0022