God, Providence and The USA
God, Providence and The USA Psalms 33:12-22 Introduction: America the Beautiful, by Katherine Lee Bates 1913 In 1893, at the age of 33, Katherine Bates, who was an English professor at Wellesley College, took a train trip to Colorado Springs, Colorado, for a new job at Colorado College. On that train trip she saw America almost from Sea to Shining Sea and what she saw inspired her. She was so inspired that she wrote a poem about the America she saw as she traveled. From the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, she wrote about the "alabaster cities,” see the wheat fields in the heartland of Kansas she wrote about “amber waves of grain, as her train passed them on July 16. Once in Colorado Springs she took a trip to the top of Pike’s Peak and put it in her poem as “purple mountains majesty.” The Poem was written and first published in 1895 for the celebration of that year’s Independence Day. It was revised several times until 1903 and has had 75 different melodies at...
