America the Beautiful: The Stirring True Story Behind Our Nation's Favorite Song

by Lynn Sherr

We've all sung it a thousand times, and most of us know at least the first verse by heart. "America the Beautiful" has been called a hymn, a prayer, even the "national heartbeat set to music." Numerous proposals and half a dozen bills in Congress have tried to replace our national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner," with this more lyrical, less militaristic song. But who knows the story behind the song? In America the Beautiful, Lynn Sherr tells the story of Katharine Lee Bates, a poet and pioneering young English professor at the newly established Wellesley College, who penned "America the Beautiful" at age 33, as she gazed over the glorious panorama from the top of Pike's Peak, Colorado. The poem, published two years later on July 4, 1895, struck a chord. Americans embraced it and immediately set it to music, trying out at least 74 different melodies. There were even Mexican, Canadian, and Australian versions. Analyzing the lyrics of "America the Beautiful" and the story of Katharine Lee Bates's unusual life, Lynn Sherr opens a window onto the shifting world of late 19th century America. She explores the lingering impact of the Civil War and the dramatic developments in commerce and technology, which shaped the American Century and the popularity of one brilliant, stirring song.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, American History

128 pages, Hardcover

First published October 17, 2001

About the author

Broadcast journalist and writer Lynn Sherr has been swimming since she was a toddler, learning first by watching frogs in a Pennsylvania lake. She has since expanded both her strokes and her waterways. For more than thirty years, she was an award-winning correspondent for ABC News. She is the author of many books, including Tall Blondes: A Book about Giraffes; Outside the Box: A Memoir, and Failure Is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words. She lives in New York.You can contact her at LynnSwims@gmail.com and follow her on Twitter@LynnSherr and at Facebook.com/SallyRideBio.

Reviews

[Franklyn Kornn]

Great book for a book share or text set. This is the story behind the song America the Beautiful. This non fiction text contains a lot of information that is easy to read and understand and is presented clearly.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read it for research and it provided the details and quotations I needed. Huzzah!

[Fenix Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book about the history of a song. The poem as well as teh music. I do think this a better National Anthum that can be easily remade into a world anthum. This song embodies a better idea not just of this nation but to strive to be better as a nation and as human beings. That we are indeed imperfect creatures, but can be more, be better then we have been. This song is very familiar and yet have we really listened to the words? I like how the author of this book took phrases of the poem and related what they meant to the author. How "God" was ecumenical, relating to all faiths and beliefs not any specific one. Prised teh sacrifice of soilders without praising war. And so much more. It awakened me to this all so familiar song in a new way. A powerful way. How much gander this song is then the anthum we currently use. How much better it embodies maybe not what we always have been as a nation, but what we should aspire to be.

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a quick read, and really a lovely story for an equally wonderful song we all know so well and are touched by. I had heard elements of the story about Katherine Bates and the inspiring view she saw at the summit of Pike's Peak, but I didn't know much else about the story of either the poem "America the Beautiful" (she wrote it then revised it twice before getting to the poem we all sing today) or the story of Samuel Ward and his original hymn tune. What a lovely story. I was happy to read it during the month of July when we already think more about patriotic subjects.