VIRTUAL LECTURE; Katherine Lee Bates’ Vision of Colorado, America and Womanhood

In this sesquicentennial of Colorado Springs, one’s thoughts reach out to Wellesley English Professor Katharine Lee Bates who visited here in 1893. When she adventurously rode to the top of Pike’s Peak, the stimulating experience and inspirational view led her, the next day, to pen the first verses of “America the Beautiful” from her Colorado Springs hotel room. Bates’s life and career, less known to us, is also inspirational. She achieved recognition and respect in her field partly by traveling to better understand (and publish about) literary figures and settings, just as our setting inspired her hymn. Meanwhile, however, she had to guard her career from presumptions that women had neither needs nor rights to combine careers with personal relationships or other distractions. Come enjoy the fascinating life of this woman who gave us a beautiful hymn based on our tallest vista!

Join in the last Sesquicentennial Scholar Series by visiting www.cspm.org/scholarseries to register on Zoom.