Post #3612343
2026-07-05 19:54 UTC
“America. A Poem for July 4.” was drafted in summer 1893 while Bates taught English at Colorado College. The wondrous views atop Pikes Peak (Tavi'wachi Núuchi name: Tavakiev) inspired her wish for a wholly egalitarian, inclusive U.S. given the sexist and anti-equality prejudices of the period, the havoc of the Industrial Revolution, her direct knowledge of urban poverty’s effects, and the Panic of 1893, a severe economic depression lasting eight months. Full text » https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_the_Beautiful#Lyrics
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@aleciabatson@mastodon.social 2026-07-05 19:58
A revised version of the poem was published in the Boston Evening Transcript in 1904, and yet another was included as the first poem in Bates’s 1912 book, America The Beautiful and other Poems » https://archive.org/details/americabeautiful00baterich/page/n5/mode/2up The patriotic song United Statesians know as “America the Beautiful” was created by Boston publisher Oliver Dotson & Co. in 1910 who set Bates’s amended poem to 1882 hymn tune “Materna”, by New Jersey-based organist-choirmaster Samuel A. Ward. Bates and Ward never met. 🧵