BOOK TALKS
A Harvest of Women’: Katharine Lee Bates’s Dream of a Nation of Educated Women Katharine Lee Bates, poet of “America the Beautiful,” dreamt of a nation of educated women.
Who were the mentors—both women and men-- who enabled her to become a famous writer, teacher, world traveler, social activist, and shaper of American Literature? How did so many women and men—her widowed young mother, founder of Wellesley College Henry Durant, American national poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, women fiction writers, and her Wellesley College colleagues—see her talent and encourage her? And how did she in turn nurture the next generation of girls into capable “New Women”? [SLIDESHOW ] Katharine as a Patriotic American who wrote “America the Beautiful" How did Katharine’s Falmouth childhood, her student days at Wellesley College, and her trips to the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and up to Pike’s Peak in Colorado inspire her to write the first version of “America the Beautiuful”? Why did she revise it ten years later into the song we sing today after her months in Spain and her knowledge of the bloody Philippine-American War? [SLIDESHOW ] Katharine in Boston Katharine's "America the Beautiful" resonates for many as the most patriotic and beloved American anthem. Poet, scholar, traveller, social activist, and Wellesley College professor, Katharine had published an early version of "America the Beautiful" in Boston's The Congregationalist in 1895 after her summer in Colorado below the "purple mountain majesties." But it was her next years, “dashing into slippery Boston” as a New Woman that empowered her to re-write her poem with a new theme of "brotherhood/ From sea to shining sea.” There she also transformed the field of American Literature and mentored such younger poets as Robert Frost.[SLIDESHOW ] “The Tide is Calling; the Anchors Lift”: Katharine as a Traveller Where did Katharine’s childhood fascination with exploring the “wonderful and wide” world take her? How did her travels west to Chicago, and Colorado Springs, and then overseas to England and Spain inspire her to write and then significantly revise “America the Beautiful”? How did her adventures in Egypt and the Middle East create her final vision of her song? [SLIDESHOW ] Katharine as a Shaper of American Literature After America’s most popular 19th century poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow encouraged her, how did Katharine help create the new controversial field of “American” literature? And after writing her own revolutionary poems, how did she pass Longfellow’s mantle on to Robert Frost, and enable poets to reach millions of American readers? [SLIDESHOW ] "Katie of '80": Katharine Lee Bates and Wellesley College From the time that Katharine Lee Bates (1859-1929), future poet of “America the Beautiful,” rode through Wellesley College’s bucolic campus up to gigantic College Hall overlooking Lake Waban, she was exactly the kind of student that college founder Henry Durant wanted for his new college that he called “Harvard University for Girls.” “Women can do the work,” he said, “I give them the chance.” By bringing publishers and such famous American poets as his friend Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to the Wellesley campus, Durant helped launch Katharine’s writing career and her later travels to Colorado, Oxford, Spain, and Egypt. She then used the Wellesley campus herself to host and mentor such young poets as Robert Frost. [SLIDESHOW ] Celebrating the Armistice One Hundred Years Ago: Boston, the Yankee Division, and "America the Beautiful" One hundred years ago, on the morning of November 11, 1918, Katharine Lee Bates, poet of “America the Beautiful,” joined the throngs of people pouring into Boston to help the staid city lift "its lid” to celebrate the signing of the Armistice to end World War I. Workers from the North End, the South End, the Charlestown Navy Yard, the Watertown Arsenal, and the Quincy shipyards surged towards the Boston Common where Portuguese workers joined the Belgian band playing “The Yanks Are Coming,” and the “Marseillaise.” It was a scene of joyous community. Later, Katharine learned of another celebration that day on a hillside near Verdun, France by New England’s Yankee Division soldiers--emaciated, freezing, wet, and hungry who heard the news of the Armistice and “with tears on their faces,” sang her words of “America the Beautiful” whose roots were in her Cape Cod childhood, her trip up Pike’s Peak, her travels to Spain, and her desire for “brotherhood from sea to shining sea.” (Listen to related material) [SLIDESHOW ] |
speaking engagementsHere's a complete list of my talks and venues in the U.S. and abroad. I would love to visit your group!
event calendar
Event Calendar
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