Post #3612345
2026-07-05 19:48 UTC
As a professional #singer, one of my performance jobs is to #sing for churches. Today I performed a setting of Katharine Lee Bates’s original poetic text, “#America. A Poem for July 4.”, which was first published in the July 4, 1895, issue of The Congregationalist.
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Replies (1)
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@aleciabatson@mastodon.social 2026-07-05 19:52
The Massachusetts-born Bates attended the all-women Wellesley College and Oxford University before joining the Wellesley College faculty. A social reform advocate — especially for women, immigrants, laborers, people of color, and the poor — she was engaged in myriad socio-political activities. Involved in a “Boston marriage” with colleague and friend Katharine Coman, Bates never married; had she done so she likely would have lost her faculty position and the relative independence she enjoyed. 🧵