7 historic July 4th events in US history

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Tuesday, July 04, 2023

‘America the Beautiful’ first published – July 4, 1895

Katharine Lee Bates (1859-1929), the poet who wrote 'America the Beautiful.' — Katharine Lee Bates (1859-1929), the poet who wrote "America the Beautiful." | Wikimedia Commons

The Fourth of July also marks the anniversary of when the lyrics to the patriotic song “America the Beautiful” were first published, specifically in an edition of the Christian weekly newspaper, The Congregationalist.

Katharine Lee Bates, the professor who wrote the famous words, reportedly drew her inspiration for “America the Beautiful” after visiting Pike’s Peak in Colorado in 1893.

“Bates finished writing ‘America the Beautiful’ before leaving Colorado Springs but didn’t think of publishing it until two years later,” explained The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

“Bates’s patriotic words were soon set to music, most popularly to composer S. A. Ward’s ‘Materna,’ the tune to which we sing it today. Celebrating ‘country loved’ and the ‘patriot dream,’ the song resonated with Americans from all walks of life and became enormously popular.”