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 My country 'tis of thee
Sweet land of liberty
Of thee I sing
Land where my fathers died
Land of the pilgrims’ pride
From every mountainside
Let freedom ring
Inventory# 20115 $1,500 Historical Background: America, composed in 1832 by the Reverend Samuel F. Smith, was originally known by its first line, My Country, 'tis of Thee. It all started when Smith read a collection of German music books from a friend, Lowell Mason, who received them after another friend, William Woodbridge, returned from a visit to Europe in 1831. In February, 1832, Smith read through the music and became particularly attracted to the tune of God Save the King. He couldn’t understand the German words, but realized that they were patriotic, and "in a brief period of time at the close of a dismal winter afternoon," he penned his verses as they now appear. The tune itself became controversial, considered to be "un-American" in later years. Ironically, though, the tune had appeared earlier in a number of patriotic American songs. The Pennsylvania Packet printed it as God Save the Thirteen States in the 1770s. Another version was written for the opening of the Charles River Bridge at Bunker Hill in the 1780s, starting with the words, Now let rich music sound. It was adapted again for God Save George Washington, and in 1798 it appeared as an Ode to the Fourth of July. In the Philadelphia Minerva, in October, 1795, a suffragette wrote a poem called Rights of Woman, intended to be sung to the same tune (then called God Save America), beginning: “God save each Female's right/ Show to her ravish'd sight/ Woman is free” The real curiosity is why, with so many American derivations from British usages, Smith only discovered it when reading German music books! According to Smith, the first public performance of “ America” was at a Sunday school celebration of American independence, at the Park Street Church, in Boston, on July 4th, 1832. In our lifetime, Smith’s lyrics were most famously used by Martin Luther King, Jr, in the closing of his “I Have a Dream” speech at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
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