Katharine Lee Bates

Bates was born in Falmouth, Massachusetts, to the town's Congregational minister William Bates and Cornelia Frances (Lee) Bates. Her father died a few weeks after she was born, and she was primarily raised by her mother and a literary aunt, both of whom had graduated from the all-women's Mount Holyoke Seminary. She attended Wellesley High School (then called Needham High School) in 1872 and then Newton High School until 1876. Bates entered Wellesley College, a women's college, as part of its second class in 1876. She graduated with a B.A. in 1880. It incorporated poor and working class women as characters to teach readers about social reform. She then returned to Wellesley as an associate professor in 1891, earned her M.A. there, and was promoted to a full professor of English literature. In 1900, she wrote Spanish Highways and Byways for The New York Times, a travelogue that not only described with beauty and precision the landscapes of a post-war Spain, but also made a commentary on the political and social panorama that she found once the war was over. Bates's style is distinct in that, if Spain is thought of as an orientalized East inside the West, then she applied the Oriental picturesquism concepts to Spanish models, which is a logical paradox. She uses this picturesque technique to depict not just the natural world and art, but also the subjects themselves. In 1906, Bates and her brother, Arthur, signed a mortgage for a Wellesley houselot and house (now 70 Curve St.) to be built on it for the Bates family (Cornelia, Jeanne, and Katharine) and their tenants. Among the latter was Katharine Coman, who would eventually rent an attic bedroom and photographic darkroom. Thinking of herself as a "global citizen," Bates decried the American policy of isolationism. Most of her papers are housed at the Wellesley College Archives and include "diaries, correspondences, musical scores, publications, scrapbooks, manuscripts, reports, memorials and tributes, memorabilia; concerning "America the Beautiful" and other writings of Katharine Lee Bates, her travels, and her life at Wellesley and in Falmouth, Mass." =="America the Beautiful"==

The first draft of "America the Beautiful" was hastily jotted down in a notebook during the summer of 1893, which Bates spent teaching English at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Later she remembered: One day some of the other teachers and I decided to go on a trip to 14,000-foot Pikes Peak. We hired a prairie wagon. Near the top we had to leave the wagon and go the rest of the way on mules. I was very tired. But when I saw the view, I felt great joy. All the wonder of America seemed displayed there, with the sea-like expanse. Bates had personally experienced sexist prejudice and discrimination, had witnessed the ravages of the industrial revolution in both America and Britain, had seen first hand urban poverty and misery, and keenly wished for equality. It was this desire for an all-inclusive egalitarian American community that inspired the poem, which was written during the severe economic depression of 1893. On November 11, 1918, a battalion of the 26th Infantry Division of the US Army (colloquially known as the Yankee Division) sang "America the Beautiful" upon hearing the announcement of the Armistice. ==Relationship with Katharine Coman==

The nature of Bates's relationship with her Wellesley College faculty colleague, friend, occasional traveling companion, and "Scarab House" tenant Katharine Coman has been the subject of scholarly discussion for four decades. In her 2017 biography of Bates, Melinda M. Ponder describes Bates as an independent-minded social activist who set an example for women's intellectualism and independence in the late 1800s. citing as an example Bates's 1891 letter to Coman: "It was never very possible to leave Wellesley [for good], because so many love-anchors held me there, and it seemed least of all possible when I had just found the long-desired way to your dearest heart... Of course I want to come to you, very much as I want to come to Heaven." And in 1999, historian Lillian Faderman also concluded that the relationship between Bates and Coman was a "lesbian arrangement," including them among the other women faculty at Wellesley who paired off with each other. Other scholars contest the use of the term lesbian to describe what was characterized at the time as a "Boston marriage". Writes one: "We cannot say with certainty what sexual connotations these relationships conveyed. We do know that these relationships were deeply intellectual; they fostered verbal and physical expressions of love." Certainly, Bates long shared rental housing with various Wellesley faculty members, all of whom thereby economized while earning small salaries. Occasionally, she traveled with her long-time friend, Katharine Coman. Bates's and Coman's connection is perhaps destined to be interpreted differently by different readers forever. The facts remain that Coman and Bates met at Wellesley by 1890 ==Honors==

The Bates family home on Falmouth's Main Street is preserved by the Falmouth Historical Society. There is also a street named in her honor, "Katharine Lee Bates Road" in Falmouth. The Shining Sea Bikeway, named in honor of Bates, extends 11 miles from North Falmouth to Woods Hole, passing just a block from the Bates home. A plaque marks the site of the home where she lived as an adult on Centre Street in Newton, Massachusetts. The historic home and birthplace of Bates in Falmouth, was sold to Ruth P. Clark in November 2013 for $1,200,000. The Katharine Lee Bates Elementary School on Elmwood Road in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and the Katharine Lee Bates Elementary School, founded in 1957 in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and Bates Hall dormitory at Wellesley College are named for her. The Katharine Lee Bates Chair in English Composition and Literature was established at Wellesley shortly after her death. Bates was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970. Collections of Bates's manuscripts are housed at the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Radcliffe College; Falmouth Historical Society; Houghton Library, Harvard University; Wellesley College Archives. ==Works==

Author • The College Beautiful, and Other Poems, Houghton (Cambridge, Massachusetts), 1887. • Rose and Thorn, Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society (Boston, MA), 1889. • Hermit Island, Lothrop (Boston, MA), 1890. • Sunshine, and Other Verses for Children, Wellesley Alumnae (Boston, MA), 1890. • The English Religious Drama, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1893, reprinted, Kennikat Press (Port Washington, NY), 1966. • American Literature, Chautauqua Press (New York, NY), 1897. • Spanish Highways and Byways, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1900. • (As James Lincoln) Relishes of Rhyme, Richard G. Badger (Boston, MA), 1903. • ''From Gretna Green to Land's End: A Literary Journey in England'', photographs by Katharine Coman, Crowell (New York, NY), 1907. • ''The Story of Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims'', Rand, McNally (Chicago, IL), 1909. • America the Beautiful, and Other Poems, Crowell (New York, NY), 1911. • In Sunny Spain with Pilarica and Rafael, Dutton (New York, NY), 1913. • ''Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims, Retold'' by Katharine Lee Bates, illustrated by Angus MacDonall, color plates by Milo Winter, Rand, McNally (Chicago, IL), 1914. • Fairy Gold, Dutton, (New York, NY), 1916. • The Retinue, and Other Poems, Dutton (New York, NY), 1918. • Sigurd Our Golden Collie, and Other Comrades of the Road, Dutton (New York, NY), 1919. • Yellow Clover, A Book of Remembrance, Dutton (New York, NY), 1922. • Little Robin Stay-Behind, and Other Plays in Verse for Children, Woman's Press (New York, NY), 1923. • The Pilgrim Ship, Woman's Press (New York, NY), 1926. • America the Dream, Crowell (New York, NY), 1930. • An Autobiography, in Brief, of Katharine Lee Bates, Enterprise Press (Falmouth, MA), 1930. • Selected Poems of Katharine Lee Bates, edited by Marion Pelton Guild, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1930. Compiler • Browning Studies: Bibliography, Robinson (Boston, MA), 1896. • English Drama: A Working Basis, Robinson(Boston, MA), 1896, enlarged as Shakespeare: Selective Bibliography and Biographical Notes, compiled by Bates and Lilla Weed, Wellesley College (Wellesley, MA), 1913. Compiled with Lydia Boker Godfrey. • English History Told by English Poets, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1902. Compiled with Katharine Coman. Contributor • Historic Towns of New England, edited by Lyman P. Powell, Putnam (New York, NY), 1898. Editor • The Wedding Day Book, Lothrop (Boston, MA), 1882, published as The Wedding-Day Book, with the Congratulations of the Poets, Lothrop (Boston, MA), 1895. • Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner|Ancient Mariner, Leach, Shewell & Sanborn (Boston, MA), 1889. • Ballad Book, Leach, Shewell & Sanborn (Boston, MA), 1890, reprinted, Books for Libraries Press (Freeport, NY), 1969. • ''Shakespeare's Comedy of The Merchant of Venice'', Leach, Shewell & Sanborn (Boston, MA), 1894. • ''Shakespeare's Comedy of A Midsummer Night's Dream'', Leach, Shewell & Sanborn (Boston, MA), 1895. • ''Shakespeare's Comedy of As You Like It'', Leach, Shewell & Sanborn (Boston, MA), 1896. • Stories from the Chap-Book, Stone (Chicago, IL), 1896. • ''Keats's The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems'', Silver, Burdett, (New York, NY), 1902. • The Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, fourteen volumes, Crowell (New York, NY), 1902. • Hamilton Wright Mabie, Norse Stories Retold from the Eddas, Rand, McNally, Chicago, 1902. • The Poems of Alice and Phoebe Cary, Crowell (New York, NY), 1903. • John Ruskin, The King of the Golden River; or, the Black Brothers: A Legend of Stiria, illustrated by John C. Johansen, Rand, McNally (Chicago, IL), 1903. • ''Tennyson's The Princess'', American Book Co. (New York, NY), 1904. • ''Tennyson's Gareth and Lynette, Lancelot and Elaine, The Passing of Arthur'', Sibley (Boston, MA), 1905. • The New Irish Drama, Drama League of America (Chicago, IL), 1911. • Thomas Heywood, A Woman Killed with Kindness, and the Faire Maide of the West, Heath (Boston, MA), 1917. • Once Upon a Time; A Book of Old-Time Fairy Tales, illustrated by Margaret Evans Price, Rand, McNally (Chicago, IL), 1921. • Tom Thumb and Other Old-Time Fairy Tales, illustrated by Price, Rand, McNally (Chicago, IL), 1926. • Jack the Giant-Killer, Rand, McNally (Chicago, IL), 1937. • Jack and the Beanstalk; also Toads and Diamonds, Rand, McNally (Chicago, IL), 1937. Introduction • Nathaniel Hawthorne, Our Old Home: A Series of English Sketches, Crowell (New York, NY), 1906. • Helen Sanborn, Anne of Brittany, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard (Boston, MA), 1917. • Helen Corke, ''The World's Family'', Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1930. Translator • Gustavo Adolfo Becquer, Romantic Legends of Spain, Crowell (New York). With Cornelia Frances Bates. ==See also==