top of page

FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA

Writer: Phillip RaimoPhillip Raimo

In 1893, at the age of thirty-three, Katharine Lee Bates, an English professor at Wellesley College, took a train trip to Colorado Springs, Colorado, to teach a summer school session at Colorado College. Several of the sights on her trip inspired her to write a poem, first published in the Fourth of July edition of the church periodical The Congregationalist in 1895.


A decade earlier, in 1882, church organist and choirmaster Samuel A. Ward was on a ferryboat trip from Coney Island back to his home in New York City after a leisurely summer day. A tune came to him, and he immediately wrote it down. In fact, He was so anxious to capture the tune in his head, he asked a friend and fellow passenger for his shirt cuff to write on!


Ward's music combined with Bates's poem was first published together in 1910 and titled, "America the Beautiful."



Comments


Subscribe Form

Thanks for submitting!

(442)255-9052

©2020 by LOVE IN ACTION. Proudly created with Wix.com

bottom of page