by Gerald Boerner
All too often, we have the words of songs running though our minds and give no thought to the author of those words. “America the Beautiful” is one of those songs. We sing it at patriotic events. We revel in the thoughts of the waves of rolling grain. The mental image is soothing and satisfying.
We have Katharine Lee Bates, an English professor at Wellesley College, to thank for those precious words. On a summer teaching assignment in Colorado, the beginning of that wonderful song came to her on a trek (by horse-drawn cart) up Pike’s Peak.
May we remember to look at the world around us and revel in the beauty that we see. And remember, even the desolate desert, at the right time of day and year, is full of infinite beauty. GLB
[ 1412 Words ]
“I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too.”
— Thomas Jefferson
“Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects, and so will continue while the present order of things in America remain uninterrupted.”
— Thomas Jefferson
“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
— Abraham Lincoln
“My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.”
— Abraham Lincoln
“Today we did what we had to do. They counted on America to be passive. They counted wrong.”
— Ronald Reagan
“Americans… still believe in an America where anything’s possible – they just don’t think their leaders do.”
— Barack Obama
“There is not a liberal America and a conservative America – there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and latino America and asian America – there’s the United States of America.”
— Barack Obama
“My parents shared not only an improbable love, they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or blessed, believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success.”
— Barack Obama
Katharine Lee Bates: “America the Beautiful”
Katharine Lee Bates (1859 – 1929) was an American songwriter. She is remembered as the author of the words to the anthem "America the Beautiful". She popularized "Mrs. Santa Claus" through her poem Goody Santa Claus on a Sleigh Ride (1889).
Bates was born in Falmouth, Massachusetts, the daughter of a Congregational pastor. She graduated from Wellesley College in 1880 and for many years was a professor of English literature at Wellesley. While teaching there, she was elected a member of the newly formed Pi Gamma Mu honor society for the social sciences because of her interest in history and politics, which she had also studied.
Relationship with Katharine Coman
Bates lived in Wellesley with Katharine Coman, who was a history and political economy teacher and founder of the Wellesley College school Economics department. The pair lived together for twenty-five years until Coman’s death in 1915. It is debated whether their relationship was an intimate lesbian relationship as different sources maintain or platonic (sometimes called a "Boston marriage") as the local historical society of her birthplace maintains. In the years following Coman’s death, Bates wrote Yellow Clover: A Book of Remembrance, to Katharine Coman. Almost all the poems there contained refer to the relationship between Bates and Coman.
America the Beautiful
The first draft of "America the Beautiful" was hastily jotted down in a notebook during the summer of 1893, which Bates spent teaching English at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Later she remembered:
One day some of the other teachers and I decided to go on a trip to 14,000-foot Pikes Peak. We hired a prairie wagon. Near the top we had to leave the wagon and go the rest of the way on mules. I was very tired. But when I saw the view, I felt great joy. All the wonder of America seemed displayed there, with the sea-like expanse.
More specifically:
At the summit of Pike’s Peak, Colorado in 1893 the opening lines of "America the Beautiful" floated into her mind, and gave new meaning to the spectacular view. A sculptor has portrayed the young poet at that moment. America the Beautiful first appeared in print in The Congregationalist, a weekly journal, on July 4, 1895. Professor of English Literature at Wellesley College, Dr. Bates lectured that summer at Colorado College, Colorado Springs.
She rewrote some sections, and the new version was published In The Boston Evening Transcript on Nov. 19, 1904 Perhaps the most intense criticisms centered on the word "beautiful," which some called hackneyed. But Bates refused to change that word, for she claimed it best described America. Following the 1904 publication, part of the third stanza was altered, thereafter, the poem was unchanged; Bates retained the copyright, protecting it from misprints and deliberate changes.
The words to her only famous poem first appeared in print in The Congregationalist, a weekly journal, for Independence Day, 1895. The poem reached a wider audience when her revised version was printed in the Boston Evening Transcript on November 19, 1904. Her final expanded version was written in 1913.
The hymn has been sung to several tunes, but the familiar one used by Ray Charles is by Samuel A. Ward (1847–1903), written for his hymn "Materna" (1882).
America the Beautiful
O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassion’d stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness.America! America!
God mend thine ev’ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law.O beautiful for heroes prov’d
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life.America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness,
And ev’ry gain divine.O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears.America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.
Other Writings, Honors, and Death
Cover of an early edition
of Goody Santa Claus
Bates was a prolific author of many volumes of poetry, travel books, and children’s books. She popularized Mrs. Claus in her poem Goody Santa Claus on a Sleigh Ride from the collection Sunshine and other Verses for Children (1889).
Her family home on Falmouth’s Main Street is preserved by the Falmouth Historical Society. There is also a street named in her honor, "Katharine Lee Bates Road" in Falmouth. Bates lived as an adult on Centre Street in Newton, Massachusetts. A historic plaque marks the site of her home.
Bates has two schools named in her honor, the Katharine Lee Bates Elementary School, located on Elmwood Road in Wellesley, Massachusetts and the Katharine Lee Bates Elementary School,[4] located in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The latter was founded in 1957.
Bates died in Wellesley, Massachusetts, on March 28, 1929, aged 69, and is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery at Falmouth. She was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.
References
Other Events on this Day:
In 1587…
Englishman John White establishes the “Lost Colony” of Roanoke Island, North Carolina, which eventually disappears under mysterious circumstances.In 1620…
Thirty-Five English Pilgrims who had taken refuge in Holland leave that country for England to emigrate to America.In 1796…
Surveyor Moses Cleaveland chooses a site that becomes the city of Cleveland.In 1862…
President Abraham Lincoln informs his cabinet that he intends to emancipate the slaves.In 1893…
Katharine Lee Bates writes “America the Beautiful”.In 1933…
Aviator Wiley Post completes the first solo flight around the world.In 1934…
Federal agents shoot and kill bank robber John Dillinger in Chicago.
Dates and events based on:
William J. Bennett and John Cribb, (2008) The American Patriot’s Almanac Daily Readings on America. (Kindle Edition)
Background information is from Wikipedia articles on:
Wikipedia: Kartharine Lee Bates…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharine_Lee_Bates
Wikisource: America the Beautiful…
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/America_the_Beautiful
Hymns and Carols of Christmas: Katharine Lee Bates…
http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/
Biographies/katherine_lee_bates.htm
Brainy Quote: America Quotes…
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/america.html
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