America the Beautiful Was Written by a Lesbian - And They Erased Her

What if America's most patriotic song was a queer love story? On July 4, 1895, Katharine Lee Bates published a poem called "America" in a weekly newspaper. We know it today as "America the Beautiful." And the woman who wrote it was a lesbian who lived for twenty-five years with the love of her life - and whose queerness was systematically erased from popular history for over a century. This Fourth of July episode gives Katharine Lee Bates her full story back.

Katharine was an English professor at Wellesley College who essentially created the first American literature course in the country and wrote the first textbook on the subject. In the summer of 1893, she traveled west with her partner Katharine Coman - the first American woman to teach statistics, co-founder of the American Economics Association, founder of Wellesley's entire Department of Economics. They visited the Chicago World's Fair, that gleaming "alabaster city," and then continued to Colorado Springs, where Katharine climbed Pikes Peak by prairie wagon and mule and came back to her hotel room to write the poem. The "alabaster cities" she described were the ones she and Katharine Coman had just seen together.

The two Katharines lived together for twenty-five years in a home they called The Scarab. They were known around campus as The Two Katharines. Bates wrote to Coman: "You are always in my heart and in my longings." They described themselves as one soul together. When Coman died of breast cancer in 1915, Bates published an entire volume of love and grief poetry dedicated to her. And then, like so many queer people throughout history, she destroyed most of their correspondence - a common act of self-protection, burning the evidence, erasing the trail to protect the person she loved most.

This episode sits with the meaning of all of that - the longing in those lyrics, what it means to love a country that doesn't fully love you back, and the choice to stay and keep singing anyway. When queer Americans are being told they don't belong, this episode is a reminder: the woman who wrote the song that defines what America aspires to be was one of us. She loved deeply. She saw beauty everywhere she looked. If that isn't American, nothing is.

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Transcript

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Did you know America's most patriotic song is a queer love story? Hi there, I'm Chris with a K, and welcome back to this week in Queer History, where we find hope-filled, inspirational, and strategic moments from queer history that we can use today. Happy 4th of July week, everyone! And I cannot be more excited about this episode, because today we're talking about the woman who wrote America the Beautiful. And guess what? She was a lesbian. Her name was Catherine Lee Bates, and that's Catherine with a K. So obviously I love her. And her story is one of the most beautiful, hidden in plain sight queer love stories in American history. Stories filled with love and gleam. Here's what I want you to picture. It's the summer of 1893. A 33-year-old English professor from Wellesley College is standing at the top of Pike's Peak, 14,115 feet above sea level. She's looking out over the American landscape, and she'd gotten there by a prairie wagon, and then by mule, and something about what she saw from that summit moved her so deeply that she went back to her room at the Antlers Hotel in Colorado Springs and wrote a poem. The poem would become America the Beautiful. But to understand why those words hit the way they do, you have to understand who Catherine Lee Bates was and who she loved. Catherine was born on August 12th, 1859 in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Her father, a congregational minister, died just weeks after she was born. Raised by her mother in modest circumstances, Catherine was brilliant. She entered Wellesley College in 1876, only the second class the college ever admitted, and graduated in 1880. She returned to Wellesley as a professor and essentially created one of the first American literature courses in the country. She wrote the first textbook on the subject. This woman was a pioneer before she ever climbed a mountain. But that summer of 1893, Catherine didn't travel alone. She traveled with Catherine Coleman. Yes, another Catherine, and Catherine Coleman was extraordinary in her own right. Born in 1857 in Ohio, Coleman became the first American woman to teach statistics. She co-founded the American Economics Association. Her first paper was published in the American Economic Review. She founded Wellesley's entire department of economics. This was not a woman who lived small. In the summer of 1893, the two Catherines visited Chicago's World Fair, the famous White City, and that gleaming Alabaster City. And those shining white buildings are exactly what Bates was remembering when she wrote Thine Alabaster City's Gleam. Then they continued west to Colorado Springs, where Catherine climbed Pike's Peak on July 22nd, 1893, and the poem poured out of her. She first published it on July 4th, 1895, in the weekly newspaper called The Congregationalist, under the simple title America. She revised it in 1904 and again in 1911, which gave us the version that we know now today. But here's something really cool about this poem. More than 75 composers have written melodies for her words, but the one that stuck was Materna. It was composed by Samuel Ward in 1882. That's 11 years before Bates even wrote the poem. Ward composed it on a ferry ride, and he was so afraid that he'd forget the melody that he scribbled it on his shirt cuff. The words and the music weren't paired together until 1910. Bates and Ward, they never met. Two strangers created one of the most iconic songs in American history without ever being in the same room. I mean, this is just incredible. Fate is fate. The song received so much love and attention that there was a serious push to make it the national anthem. But in 1931, Congress chose the Star Spangled Banner instead. But here's a delicious little footnote. The melody of the Star Spangled Banner comes from a British drinking song called To Anacreon in Heaven, which celebrated an ancient Greek poet known for writing about saying sex love. So, either way, America was going to have a queer national anthem. We just didn't know it. But let's dig into why all of this matters. Let's get into the love story. Catherine Lee Bates and Catherine Coleman lived together for 25 years in a home they called the Scarab at 70 Curve Street in Wellesley. They were known around campus as the Two Catherines. This is what scholars call a Boston marriage, a long-term domestic partnership between two women, common at women's colleges in that era, but this was no polite arrangement of convenience. In her letters, Bates wrote to Coleman, You are always in my heart and always in my longings. They described themselves as one soul together. Truly beautiful. When Catherine Coleman was diagnosed with breast cancer, Bates cared for her through her illness. Coleman died on January 11, 1915. Seven years later, Bates published Yellow Clover, a book of remembrance, an entire volume of love and grief poetry dedicated to Coleman. Scholar Judith Schwartz called it one of the most anguished memorials to the love and cumrade ship between two women ever written. But sadly, Bates destroyed most of their correspondence. This was not unusual for the time. It was a common act of self-protection among queer people throughout history, especially during this time. Burning the evidence, erasing the trail, protecting the person you loved most by making sure no one could use their love against them. For over a century, Bates's queerness was systematically erased from popular history. Textbooks mentioned the poem, tour guides pointed to Pike's Peak, but the women behind it? Her full, queer, brilliant, loving life was edited out. Only recently have institutions like the National Park Service and Wellesley College begun to reclaim and celebrate who she truly was. And then there comes Ray Charles. Ray Charles? How does he fit in all this? Well, when he recorded America the Beautiful, he transformed it. He took Catherine's words and gave them soul, gave them ache, gave them a longing that maybe just maybe echoed what she felt all along. A love for a country that didn't fully love you back. A huge thank you to our members. Your support makes it possible for me to keep digging through archives and sharing the queer history that inspires us all. If you'd like to join them, there's a link in the description. And if membership isn't in your budget right now, subscribing and hitting the bell helps more than you know. Thanks for being here. I just recently, for this episode, listened to America the Beautiful, the Ray Charles one, and I just I really listened to it, and it made me sad. Not a sharp sadness, but a sadness with a deep longing. A wish that America could be the place that the song describes. These last six months have been so scary for so many of us, and personally, for much of my life, I have run from places when things weren't working out or didn't feel right. I looked for bluer skies, greener pastures, and made a move. But now, when it's a place that you love and you cherish and you believe is your home, you stay, right? And you fight for it. Right now, I am really struggling to find that fight within me, the desire to stay and stand up. Luis and I, Luis, my husband, we've been talking about moving abroad. We're looking at countries like Spain and Mexico. We're looking out across distant shores, the way that many, many immigrants once looked towards America, that land of hope and freedom and dreams and possibility. And right now I wonder, is America still all of those things? Is it still that magical land of hope? Is America still the land of promise? And I'm torn. I am really torn. I don't know. But then I think about Catherine, Catherine with a K, just like me. When she wrote those words, women didn't even have the right to vote. She couldn't marry the person that she loved. There was no legal protection, no cultural acceptance, no pride month, and yet she still believed. She still saw spacious skies and amber waves and a country worth singing about. She lived the life she dreamed of with Catherine Coleman as if it were already true for 25 years. There's something so beautiful in that, and it causes something in me to stir that desire to stay and fight and to call this place my own. And this poem, this song, it is such an amazing American symbol. Much like the American flag and ugh the American flag, it stirs something inside of me because there was a time where it felt alien to me. You know, somewhere along the way, it became a symbol of a narrow, conservative patriotism, white, straight conservative male that didn't include me or my community. But I want us to reclaim it. I want to reclaim that flag and I want to reclaim America. I want to make it a place for me and for others like me. People who are different, people who make the fabric of America rich and the textures of America beautiful, that interwoven pattern of all of us in something that we can all be inspired by and in awe of. So here's what I've decided I will do. Much like Catherine did, I will keep making my own version of poems. I will create content, I will speak out, I will tell the beauty of this place, the America that I wish it were, for as long as I am here. And maybe even beyond. Because if I did move, I would still sing songs of what I remember, the hope, the dream, and the possibility. It's America's 250th birthday, and at a time when queer Americans are being told we don't belong, I want you to remember this. The woman who wrote the song that defines what America aspires to be, our most loving, most hopeful, most patriotic song was one of us. She was queer, she loved deeply, and she saw beauty everywhere that she looked. And if that's not American, I don't know what is. I would love to hear from you in the comments. What does America the Beautiful mean to you? And if you didn't know about Catherine Lee Bates before today, let me know. Because these are the stories that we need to keep telling. And if you want to go deeper and stay connected, be sure to check out the website and share your email address. I send out more history, I send out questions, connection, lots of fun stuff. And you can always get more queer history by clicking this video right over here. Until next time, stay strong, stay bold, and keep making history.