Katharine Lee Bates

Katharine Lee Bates, (August 12, 1859 - March 26, 1929), is remembered as the author of the words to the anthem America the Beautiful.

Related Topics:
August 12 - 1859 - March 26 - 1929 - America the Beautiful

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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. She lived there with her partner Katharine Coman, who herself was a history and political economy teacher and founder of the Wellesley College Economics department. The same-sex pair lived together for twenty-five years until Coman's death in 1915.

Related Topics:
Falmouth, Massachusetts - Congregational - Wellesley College - Katharine Coman

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The first draft of America the Beautiful was hastily jotted in a notebook during the summer of 1893, which Miss Bates spent teaching English at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Later she remembered,

Related Topics:
Colorado College - Colorado Springs - Colorado

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:"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."

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The words to her one 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, November 19, 1904. Her final expanded version was written in 1913.

Related Topics:
Independence Day - 1895 - Boston Evening Transcript

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The hymn has been sung to other music, but the familiar tune that Ray Charles delivered is by Samuel A. Ward (1847-1903), written for his hymn Materna (1882).

Related Topics:
Ray Charles - Samuel A. Ward

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Miss Bates was a prolific author of many volumes of poetry, travel books and children's books. Her family home on Falmouth's Main Street is preserved by the Falmouth Historical Society.

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Katharine Lee Bates died in Wellesley, Massachusetts, on March 26, 1929.

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