America The Beautiful - A Beautiful Non-Meeting
Posted by Keith R Wahl, Made From RI on Jun 24th 2021
An Wellesley College English Professor, Katherine Lee Bates, visits Pikes Peak. The sights before her are the inspiration for a soaring poem in 1893. The poem is first published in 1895, titled "America".
In 1882, Samuel A. Ward was a choirmaster at Grace Episcopal Church in Newark, New Jersey. He composed the tune "Moderna" for the hymn. "O Mother Dear, Jerusalem" (published in 1892).
Bates and Howe never met. But in 1910, the poem and the melody met and the rest is history. A tune and multiple idioms became a part of our culture.
This is a distinctive American story. The beauty of ideas and artistic concepts meeting even if the creators do not. And the culture advances as a result.
Find a Rhode Island Made Representation of the resultant meeting here at Made From RI: America The Beautiful Ornament - Made From RI (or select the picture link)
