Heather Goodwin Henline

This Fourth of July weekend, as we celebrate our nation’s birthday, I can’t help but think of our country’s majestic beauty. The song “America the Beautiful” reminds me of why patriots fought to settle the land of the free, the home of the brave. The song’s lyrics were written by Katharine Lee Bates, who was born in Falmouth, Mass., in 1859 and grew up near the rolling sea. Bates, who eventually became a full professor of English literature at Wellesley College, made a lecture trip to Colorado in 1893, and it was there that she wrote the words to “America the Beautiful.” On July 4, 1895, Bates’ poem first appeared in The Congregationalist, a weekly newspaper. Bates revised her lyrics in 1904, a version published that year in The Boston Evening Transcript, and made some final additions to the poem in 1913. For several years “America the Beautiful” was sung to almost any popular air or folk tune with which the lyrics fit: “Auld Lang Syne” was one of the most common.