We welcome your ideas! If you have suggestions on how to improve this page, please contact us. See our Hymn of the Week page for a list of the hymns that are included on this site. 6Īdditional Resources for “America the Beautiful (O Beautiful for Spacious Skies)”: This marriage of words and text became immensely popular, and “America the Beautiful” is often referred to as the unofficial national anthem of our country. 5 Thirty years later, after Samuel had passed away, the president of Massachusetts Agricultural College requested permission from Samuel’s widow to set the tune to Catharine Bates’ text. Samuel originally composed his tune “Materna” for a hymn titled “O Mother Dear, Jerusalem” – thus its name which means “motherly.” He is said to have composed the tune in 1882 while crossing New York harbor after a trip to Coney Island. He was much loved by the congregation, and after his death, the church erected a brass plaque in his memory. When Samuel eventually returned to Newark, “he established a successful retail music store and was active in the musical life of the city.” 4 In 1880, he became the organist for Grace Episcopal Church and held this position for many years. As he grew, his natural ability in music became increasing evident, and he was sent to receive training from renowned teachers in New York City. Samuel was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1847. For the centennial celebration of the song, a plaque was erected at the summit of Pikes Peak to honor “the country’s favorite anthem.” 3 Overwhelmed by the majestic view, the verses of “America the Beautiful” came to her as she looked out over the “sea-like expanse of fertile country spreading away so far under the ample skies.” 2 The poem was published two years later in the 1895 Fourth of July edition of the church periodical The Congregationalist. On a trip to Colorado in 1893, she had the opportunity to hike to the top of Pike’s Peak. Katharine also enjoyed travel and adventure. To supplement her income, Catharine wrote prolifically - children’s stories, poetry, textbooks, and travel books. Her mother later moved the family to Wellesley (a town to the west of Boston) where Catharine “graduated in 1880 from then-new Wellesley College, thanks to help from her two older brothers.” 1Īfter teaching high school for six years, Katharine joined the faculty at Wellesley College and eventually became head of the English department. Her father, a pastor, died from a back injury when she was only one month old. Today is certainly the day to fully appreciate this magnificent tribute to America and all that it represents.Katharine was born in Falmouth, Massachusetts in 1859. It was attached to Bates’ words in 1904 after his death. Samuel Howe, a church organist, composed it during an 1882 ferry ride from Coney Island to his home in Newark - for an entirely different hymn. The music plays a large part in the song’s mystique. The many memorable recordings and renditions - from Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Willie Nelson, Mariah Carey and others - all share a moving simplicity, without the vocal acrobatics that too often accompany “The Star-Spangled Banner.” In 1979, Pope John Paul II recited its fervent prayer - “America, America, God shed his grace on thee” - as he descended from his plane on his first trip to this country. Voices quavered as crowds solemnly sang the song outside the White House in 1941 after Pearl Harbor and, six decades later, at Ground Zero after 9/11. “I can’t read the lines without swallowing hard,” one early reader wrote Bates. The song has always stirred deep emotion. More: It looks forward to a day when America’s “alabaster cities” finally will “gleam undimmed by human tears.” across the wilderness,” and pays tribute to the nation’s defenders in war, the brave “heroes. It hails the pioneering forebears who beat “a thoroughfare of freedom. It evokes the vitality of an ever-widening America, celebrates its storied past and - most important - evokes its limitless future potential. The full hymn is more than just a poetic appreciation of the country’s wonders of nature. In an instant, she said, “the opening lines of the hymn floated into my mind.” Those lines became “America the Beautiful” - a song that will be featured Monday in countless parades and band concerts.Įveryone knows the first verse, with its evocation of “amber waves of grain” and “purple mountain majesties.” But how many have read - let alone sung - the entire song? Katharine Lee Bates, a 33-year-old English literature teacher at Wellesley College, was on “a merry expedition up Pike’s Peak” in Colorado in 1893 when she looked out “over the sea-like expanse of fertile country spreading away so far under those ample skies.”
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