Fun Facts Friday: Katharine Lee Bates

August 12, 2022

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 Friday: Katharine Lee Bates
Books by Katharine Lee Bates*

Fun Facts about Katharine Lee Bates:

  1. 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.
  2. Young Ms. Bates was raised by her mother and aunt, both educated women who sent her to high school, and Wellesley College.
  3. After graduating college in 1880, Ms. Bates started teaching at Natick High School, and later at Dana Hall School.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. Upon returning to Wellesley, she earned her M.A. and became a full professor of English literature.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. On her deathbed in Wellesley, MA, she was listening to a friend read poetry.

Books by Katharine Lee Bates*

Zohar — Man of la Book
*Ama­zon links point to an affil­i­ate account, the money is usually spent on books

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Fun Facts Friday: Katharine Lee Bates
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Fun Facts Friday: Katharine Lee Bates
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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.
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Man of la Book - A Bookish Blog
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