Righteousness exalteth a nation; but sin is a reproach to any people. Proverbs 14:34

Katharine Lee Bates

Katharine Lee Bates was born in Falmouth, MA on August 12, 1859. She graduated from Wellesley College in 1880. After teaching high school for six years, Katharine returned to Wellesley where she eventually became head of the English Department.

Miss Bates was first inspired to write patriotic verse, in 1892 in recognition of the 400^th anniversary of Columbus’ discovery of America. The following year, she visited and taught during the summer months in the state of Colorado. While viewing the countryside from the beautiful summit of Pike’s Peak, a summit which towers more than 14,000 feet above sea level, she was further inspired to write a national hymn that would describe the majesty and vastness of our great land.

She writes, “It was there, as I was looking out over the sea-like expanse of fertile country, spreading away so far under the ample skies, that the opening lines of this text formed in my mind. The expression ‘Alabaster Cities” was the direct result of my visit to the Columbian Exposition of the World’s Fair in Chicago. It made such a strong appeal to my patriotic feelings that it was, in no small degree, responsible for at least the last stanza. It was my desire to compare the unusual beauties of God’s nature in this country with the distinctive spectacles created by man.

When we left Colorado Springs the four stanzas were penciled in my notebook. The Wellesley work soon absorbed time and attention again, the notebook was laid aside, and I do not remember paying heed to these verses until the second summer following, when I copied them out and sent them to The Congregationalist, where they first appeared in print July 4, 1895. The hymn attracted an unexpected amount of attention. In 1904, I rewrote it, trying to make the phraseology simpler and more direct.”

Pikes Peak was the inspiration for “purple mountain majesties”. A vison of Kansas wheat fields she observed while riding on the train to Colorado led her to write of “amber waves of grain,” says Bates.

Though this text sparkles with distinctive language, it is interesting to note, that each stanza is rounded off with the earnest prayer, that God will always help our land to attain its real destiny. In this hymn, as in her other writings, Bates spoke often of the truth, that unless we crown our good with brotherhood, of what lasting value are our spacious skies, our amber waves of grain, our mountain majesties or our fruited plains? She would add, “We must match the greatness of our country with the goodness of godly living.”

Samuel A. Ward

At least sixty tunes have been composed and tried with this text through the years. Today “America the Beautiful” is sung to Samuel A. Ward’s “Materna” tune, meaning “motherly.” Ward was a New Jersey-born musician who served as organist at Grace Episcopal Cathedral in Newark beginning in 1880.Ward wrote “Materna” in 1888 for the words “O Mother Dear Jerusalem” by a sixteenth-century poet. It appears that Ward neither met Bates nor heard the hymn in its completed form with his tune before his death in 1903. In 1912, permission from the composer’s widow made it possible to join this tune with the text. Bates and Ward were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970 for her words and his tune for “America the Beautiful”.

Taken from 101 More Hymn Stories Copyright © 1985, 2013 by Kenneth W. Osbeck. Published by Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids, MI. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Used by permission from “History of Hymns” by Dr. C. Michael Hawn, Director of the Sacred Music Program and Distinguished Professor, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University.