History lesson puts sparkle in the 4th

Dear Readers: Happy July 4th! Today is a good excuse to enjoy your family and friends, fire up the grill, play baseball, bask in the outdoors, visit a veterans hospital, volunteer at a soup kitchen, display the flag, listen to wonderful music and watch the fireworks.

Here’s your history lesson for the day. Did you know that the words to the song “America the Beautiful” were written by Katharine Lee Bates and the music was composed by Samuel A. Ward?

Katharine Lee Bates was an English professor at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. In 1893, when she was 33 years old, Bates took a train trip to Colorado to teach for the summer. She was apparently inspired by the sights she saw along the way, such as the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago (“thine alabaster cities gleam”), the Midwestern wheat fields (“amber fields of grain”) and the beautiful view from Pikes Peak (“purple mountain majesties”). She wrote a poem titled “Pikes Peak,” and it was first published in a weekly journal called The Congregationalist on July 4, 1895, with the title changed to “America.” At that time, it was not sung to any particular tune. She revised the words twice (in 1904 and again in 1913).

Samuel A. Ward, a church organist and choirmaster, composed the music in 1882, while he was on the ferry from Coney Island to New York City. He composed the music to go with an existing hymn, “O Mother Dear, Jerusalem,” and he called the new tune “Materna.” Legend says he wrote down the musical notation on the shirt cuff of his friend Harry Martin so he wouldn’t forget it.

Ward’s music and Bates’ poem were not published together until 1910, and the new combination was titled “America the Beautiful.” The original version included only four verses. Later, Bates added more verses and revised the lyrics a bit, republishing her poem in the Boston Evening Transcript in 1904.

Unfortunately, Samuel Ward died in 1903 before he could see his music enshrined as a beloved anthem. Katharine Bates, however, lived until 1929 and saw her patriotic poetry become part of the national lexicon. Here are the words as they are sung today:

O beautiful for spacious skies,

For amber waves of grain

For purple mountain majesties

Above the fruited plain

America! America!

God shed your grace on thee,

And crown thy good

with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea.

O beautiful, for pilgrim feet

Whose stern, impassioned stress

A thoroughfare for freedom beat

Across the wilderness!

America! America!

God mend thine ev’ry flaw;

Confirm thy soul in self control,

thy liberty in law!

O beautiful, for heroes proved

In liberating strife,

Who more than self

their country loved

And mercy more than life!

America! America!

May God thy gold refine,

Till all success be nobleness,

and ev’ry gain divine!

O beautiful, for patriot dream

That sees beyond the years,

Thine alabaster cities gleam

Undimmed by human tears!

America! America!

God shed His grace on thee,

And crown thy good

with brotherhood,

from sea to shining sea!

Dear Readers: Today would have been Ann Landers’ 91st birthday. In her honor we will print one of her favorite sayings: “Expect trouble as an inevitable part of life and repeat to yourself the most comforting words of all: ‘This, too, shall pass.’”

• E-mail your questions to anniesmailbox@comcast.net or write to: Annie’s Mailbox‚Ñ¢, P.O. Box 118190, Chicago, IL 60611.

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