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Katharine Lee Bates
Born August 12, 1859 in Falmouth,
Massachusetts
Teacher, Poet and Author of "America The Beautiful"
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 The words to the most beloved and widely
sung patriotic American song came from the
pen of Katharine Lee Bates, professor of
English literature at Wellesley College and
Falmouth native.
Miss Bates was inspired to write the poem in
1893, when she journeyed across the country
to lecture at Colorado College’s summer
session. On the way there, she stopped in
Chicago to visit the World’s Columbian
Exposition. A central theme of this “World’s
Fair” was the gleaming White City, designed
to show the world what a grand nation
America had become. The spectacle of these “alabaster” buildings was one of the
impressions Katharine carried with her.
Katharine was traveling by train, able to
relax and enjoy the views of sparsely settled
territories. Heading west from Chicago through
Kansas, she was able to look out the window and
see mile after mile of wheat fields, those
“amber waves of grain.”
Her arrival in Colorado Springs gave Katharine
her first encounter with the Rocky Mountains,
where she spent several weeks living and working
at the base of their “purple mountain
majesties.” Before heading back to Wellesley,
she joined an expedition ascending Pike’s Peak,
traveling to the summit in a horse-drawn wagon
displaying the pioneer slogan “Pike’s Peak or
Bust”. The panoramic view from the 14,110-foot
vantage point was awe-inspiring. According to
Miss Bates,
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| It was then and there, as I was
looking out over the sea-like expanse of
fertile country spreading away so far
under those ample skies, that the
opening lines of the hymn floated into
my mind. When we left Colorado Springs
the four stanzas were penciled in my
notebook …. The Wellesley work soon
absorbed time and attention again, the
notebook was laid aside, and I do not
remember paying heed to these verses
until the second summer following, when
I copied them out and sent them to The
Congregationalist, where they first
appeared in print July 4, 1895. The hymn
attracted an unexpected amount of
attention. It was almost at once set to
music by Silas G. Pratt. Other tunes
were written for the words and so many
requests came to me, with still
increasing frequency, that in 1904 I
rewrote it, trying to make the
phraseology more simple and direct. |
That version appeared in the Boston Evening
Transcript on November 19, 1904, with the simple
title “America”. Katharine continued perfecting her
poem until, in 1911, she published the verses we
know so well today in a volume of her own works
entitled America the Beautiful and Other Poems.
The popularity of the work continued to spread
throughout the country and people clamored to marry
the words with appropriate music. Some people
borrowed music from church hymnals or other existing
tunes, including “Auld Lang Syne.” New compositions
were also offered, including one from a Wellesley
colleague and another from a family friend.
Katharine steadfastly refrained from selecting a
favorite.
The soaring tune that is universally used today was
written by Samuel Augustus Ward, a church organist
from New Jersey, in 1882. The story goes that he was
returning from an outing on Coney Island when the
melody came to mind. Having no paper, he wrote the
notes on a shirt-cuff loaned by a friend. Ward
called the tune “Materna” and published it in 1888
as a hymn.
It wasn’t until 1904 that Dr. Clarence A. Barbour, a
Baptist minister from Rochester, NY, noted that the
cadences of “America” and “Materna” were identical.
When he put the words and music together, he felt
the pieces were well suited to each other. Whether
he was actually the first to do so cannot be
confirmed, but it is known that the hymn was
immediately popular in his church and spread quickly
throughout Rochester and beyond. In 1910, Dr.
Barbour edited a volume called Fellowship Hymns.
Hymn No. 266 included music by S. A. Ward and words
by Katherine (sic) Lee Bates, the first time they
were published together. Because Samuel Ward died in
1903, it was his widow who gave permission for this
setting.
Ward and Bates never met and neither profited from
the joining of their creativity. Miss Bates gave
permission to use the poem to anyone who wanted it,
requiring only that not a single word be changed,
“so that we may not have as many texts as we already
have tunes.” Despite the general popularity of
Ward’s music, some people continued to agitate for
an original tune to accompany the poem. In 1926, the
National Federation of Music Clubs sponsored a
contest toward that end but, despite the large
number of entries, none was deemed suitable to the
poem. Mr. Ward’s music, in essence, has won by
popular demand.
America the Beautiful
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(1913 Final Version of
“America The Beautiful”) |
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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, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
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O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self the country loved,
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And every 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!
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