America the Beautiful

with MATERNA

I. Text: Origins

In 1918, Katharine Lee Bates wrote a history of her most famous poem for the Boston Athenaeum, and it is still part of their library (catalog). That same year, on 31 Oct. 1918, the Boston Journal of Education also ran a story, apparently reprinted from the Boston Herald, giving the following description of the hymn’s origins, which is frequently quoted in other histories:

In 1893, Miss Bates had been called to join the faculty of a summer school at Colorado Springs. On the way she visited the Columbian World’s Fair at Chicago. The architectural vision embodied in the marvelous “White City” gave the inspiration for the last stanza as a forecast of what America might do in the achievement of ideal beauty. 

The end of the three-weeks’ session of the school was celebrated . . . with an excursion to the summit of Pike’s Peak. Miss Bates was so affected by the rarefied atmosphere at the summit that she, with two others, could remain for hardly more than “one ecstatic gaze.” But it was an historic moment. “It was then and there,” says the author, “as I was looking out over the sea-like expanse of fertile country spreading away so far under those ample skies, that the opening lines of the hymn floated into my mind.” . . . 

The four stanzas of the poem were penciled in the author’s notebook at Colorado Springs. But for nearly two years they lay there unheeded. Then they were sent to The Congregationalist, appropriately printed on July 4, 1895 [Fig. 1a].

Bates’ original text began “O beautiful for halcyon skies.” “Halcyon” here can mean either idyllic or peaceful. A version of the poem beginning “O beautiful for spacious skies” circulated as early as 9 November 1902, as in The Buffalo Illustrated Times (NY), p. 10 [Fig. 1b]. By 1904, the poem was being put forward as a candidate for recognition as the National Hymn. For comparison, “The Star-Spangled Banner” was not formally appointed as the National Anthem until 3 March 1931. On 19 November 1904, an anonymous writer in the Boston Evening Transcript, p. 19 [Fig. 1c], waxed eloquently over the poem, but felt a suitable tune had not yet been written. This version of the text began “O beautiful for spacious skies” and still included “O beautiful for glory-tale” at 3.1. The author was dismissive, for example, of Samuel F. Smith’s “My country, ’tis of thee” (“America”) for its association with the British tune for “God save the King.”

Bates revised her text again for her collection America the Beautiful and Other Poems (NY: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1911 | Fig. 2). This form became the official version.

Bates’ alterations between 1895 and 1911 were extensive; they should be seen as improvements and have generally aged well. In some modern hymnals, the stanza about “stern, impassioned” pilgrim feet beating a path through the wilderness is omitted, as is it ignores the damage done to Native American culture, and it evokes other concerns related to colonialism and imperialism.

II. Tune

Initially, the poem was set to music by many composers in various contexts. The first musical setting was by Silas G. Pratt in Famous Songs and Those Who Made Them (1895). The Library of Congress has digital copies of settings by William Fisher (1917), Joseph Fletcher (1918), R. Nathaniel Dett (1918), and William Glover (1919). When Bates’ poem first appeared in hymnals, it was set to a tune by Charles S. Brown, including in Junior Carols (1906 | Hymnary.org) and The Praise Book for Young Peoples’ Societies (1906 | Hymnary.org).

The tune now synonymous with Bates’ text is MATERNA by Samuel A. Ward (1848–1903). Ward’s tune was originally intended as a setting for the hymn “O mother, dear Jerusalem,” and it was first printed in the periodical The Parish Choir, vol. VIII, no. 378 (12 July 1888 | Fig. 3). The first appearance of MATERNA in a hymnal was in The Church Hymnal, edited by Charles Hutchins (Boston, 1894 | Fig. 4). By some accounts, the felicitous pairing of Bates’ text with Ward’s tune happened as early as 1910, but the first such pairing in a hymnal seems to have been in Hymns for Schools and Colleges (Boston: Ginn & Co., 1913 | Fig. 5).

by CHRIS FENNER
for Hymnology Archive
11 June 2018
rev. 27 June 2026

Related Resources:

“America the Beautiful: A history of the hymn by the author Katharine Lee Bates written for the Boston Athenaeum,” Boston Athenaeum Library Catalog:
https://catalog.bostonathenaeum.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=35871

Sylvester Baxter, “America the Beautiful,” Journal of Education (Boston), vol. 88, no. 16 (31 Oct. 1918), pp. 428-429: Google Books

Amos R. Wells, “America the Beautiful,” A Treasure of Hymns (Boston: W.A. Wilde, 1945), pp. 315–318.

Samuel J. Rogal, America the Beautiful (Edwin Mellen, 2012): Mellen

Library of Congress, digital resources related to “America the Beautiful”:
https://www.loc.gov/search/?in=&q=american+the+beautiful&new=true&st=

“O beautiful for spacious skies,” Hymnary.org:
https://hymnary.org/text/o_beautiful_for_spacious_skies

“O beautiful for spacious skies” Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology:
https://hymnology.hymnsam.co.uk/o/o-beautiful-for-spacious-skies?q=America%20the%20beautiful