Playwright Katherine Lee Bates
by David Bianco
For many people in the United States, the song "America the Beautiful"
captures the spirit of the country even better than the national anthem.
It certainly is a lot easier to sing. On top of that, the lyrics were written by
Katharine Lee Bates, a Wellesley College professor who lived for 25 years as
"one soul together" with another woman.
Born in Falmouth, Mass., in 1859, Bates was a precocious child who at the age
of 9 already had strong likes and dislikes. "I like women better than men,"
the young girl wrote in her diary. "I like fat women better than lean ones."
She also showed her early feminist proclivities: "Sewing is always expected
of girls. Why not boys?"
After graduating from Wellesley College in 1885, Bates was invited to stay on
and teach English. Pursuing a teaching career was one way that young,
middle-class women at that time could become economically independent and
remain unmarried if they so chose. In fact, Susan B. Anthony called the last
years of the 19th century "the epoch of the single woman," because so many
educated women opted not to marry men and instead partnered off with other
women in romantic friendships.
In 1887, Bates met another young faculty member, Katharine Coman, who taught
history and political economy and later founded the college's economics
department. Their friendship grew slowly; it wasn't until 1890 that the two
women considered themselves (and were considered by others) to be bound
together in an intimate relationship. Their circle of friends included other
female academic couples who lived together in "Wellesley marriages."
Because the salary for a female professor was only $400 a year "with board
and washing," Bates and Coman supplemented their incomes by writing books and
articles, giving guest lectures, and accepting summer teaching gigs.
Throughout their relationship, work often kept the two apart. Bates's travels
sometimes took her abroad, once to Spain, where she wrote to Coman, "Such a
rainy, sorrowful day. I want you very much." On a research stint at Oxford
University, she reminisced about an afternoon they'd shared when "there were
two hands in one pocket."
In 1893, Bates took a summer teaching job at Colorado College in Colorado
Springs. One day, she and some colleagues decided to scale the 14,000 feet of
Pike's Peak. "We hired a prairie wagon," Bates recalled later. "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." The opening lines of a
poem, celebrating "spacious skies" and "purple mountain majesties," formed in
her mind. That evening, Bates completed in one sitting the poem she titled
"America the Beautiful."
At first Bates didn't consider the poem good enough for publication, and she
waited two years before submitting it to a journal called The Congregationalist.
When published on July 4, 1895, "America the Beautiful"
became instantly popular, and shortly thereafter it was set to a piece of
music by composer Samuel Ward. Over the years, there were several
attempts to adopt the song as the national anthem, but "The Star-Spangled Banner," a
much older tune, won out in 1931.
The song lyrics provided Bates with a steady income for the rest of her life.
In 1907, she had a house for herself and Coman custom-built near the
Wellesley campus. On the third floor was a large, open study in which Coman
wrote. Though less well-known than her partner, Coman was a prolific writer
who authored six books and numerous articles on American history and
economics. Also a social activist, Coman helped to found Denison House, a
settlement house in Boston that is still in operation.
In 1912, Coman underwent surgery for a lump in her breast. Another operation
soon followed, forcing her to retire from teaching. Bates installed an
elevator in their home so that her partner could negotiate the house's three
floors and continue to live as normally as possible. But in 1915, Coman
died at the age of 57.
Overwhelmed with grief, Bates immediately began writing a collection of poems
for the woman she had nicknamed "Joy of Life." Published in 1922 in a limited
edition of 750 copies, Yellow Clover: A Book of Remembrance took its name
from the small flowers the two women had pressed into the letters they wrote
to each other during their travels. The poems were a testament to the deep
love Bates had felt for Coman:
My love, my love, if you could come once more
From your high place,I would not question you for heavenly lore,
But, silent, take the comfort of your face.
Bates authored many other volumes of poetry, as well as academic treatises on
Shakespearean drama and several children's books, including a popular one
about her and Coman's dog. She taught at Wellesley until 1920, when she
retired to write poetry full time. Without Coman, though, she told a friend
that she was "sometimes not quite sure whether I'm alive or not." She
died in 1929 at age 70.
Palmieri, Patricia Ann.
in Adamless Eden: The Community of Women Faculty
at Wellesley (Yale University Press, 1995).
Schwartz, Judith. "'Yellow Clover: Katharine Lee Bates and Katharine Coman."
Frontiers, Vol. IV, No. 1 (Spring, 1979).
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