Katharine Lee Bates (12 August, 1859 – 28 March, 1929) was an author, poet, and professor from Massachusetts. Ms. Bates is best known for writing the lyrics to America the Beautiful.
Fun Facts about Katharine Lee Bates:
- Katharine Lee Bates was born in Falmouth, MA to William and Cornelia Bates. Her father, a minister, died just several weeks after she was born.
- Young Ms. Bates was raised by her mother and aunt, both educated women who sent her to high school, and Wellesley College.
- After graduating college in 1880, Ms. Bates started teaching at Natick High School, and later at Dana Hall School.
- Her first novel, a young adult book titled Rose and Thorn (1889), had working class women teach about social reform. The book won a prize from the Congregational Sunday Scholl and Publishing Society.
- In her poem Goody Santa Claus on a Sleigh Ride (published in Sunshine and other Verses for Children, 1889), Ms. Bates popularized the notion of Mrs. Claus.
- After the American Civil War, the author traveled to England and study at Oxford. She used the prize money from Rose and Thorn to pay for the adventure.
- Upon returning to Wellesley, she earned her M.A. and became a full professor of English literature.
- Bates was a social activist, she advocated for the struggles of immigrants, the poor, minorities, women, and workers. She even became a war correspondent for the New York Times during the Spanish-American War, with the goal to reduce negative stereotypes about Spaniards.
- She wrote America the Beautiful in 1893, a quick jot in a notebook. The poem was first printed for Independence Day in 1895. Ms. Bates revised the poem which was printed for a larger audience in Boston, 1904. The final, expanded version, was done in 1913.
- On her deathbed in Wellesley, MA, she was listening to a friend read poetry.
Zohar — Man of la Book
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