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America the Beautiful by Katharine Lee Bates |
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 Katharine Lee Bates (1859-1929), autograph manuscript signed (“Katharine Lee Bates”); ca. 1913-1929. One page.
Inventory# 20188 $50,000
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 impassioned stress
A thoroughfare of freedom beat / Across the wilderness!
America! America! / God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control, / Thy liberty in law!
O beautiful for heroes proved / 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 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! Katharine Lee Bates |
Historical Background: Katharine Lee Bates, an English professor at Wellesley, spent the summer of 1893 lecturing at Colorado College, where a group of visiting faculty (including her lover Katharine Coman) took a prairie wagon ride to Pike’s Peak. She was so moved by the breathtakingly beautiful Rocky Mountain scenery that she composed the stanzas in her notebook on the trip back. In 1895, her hymn was first published in “The Congregationalist” and almost immediately set to music. Bates revised the poem in 1904 and again in 1913, simplifying the prose. This is the final version. Though she distributed many printed copies, Bates reportedly said that she only penned six longhand copies. For a history of Bates and this national treasure, see Lynn Sherr’s book, America the Beautiful: The Stirring True Story Behind Our Nation’s Favorite Song (2001). As early as 1926, America the Beautiful was proposed as the national anthem. The older Star-Spangled Banner won out – so far!
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