From Sea To Shining Sea: Katharine Lee Bates and the Story of America The BEautiful
Wednesday, October 22 At 6:30 PM
The Western Mass premiere screening of the new PBS film From Sea to Shining Sea: Katharine Lee Bates and the Story of America the Beautiful. The program will start at 6:30 pm and conclude by 7:45 pm. Producer Laurence Cotton will introduce the film and he and Smith College faculty member Carrie Baker will participate in the talk back session. Professor Baker is Chair of the Program for the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality. The film tells the story of Falmouth-born, Wellesley College educated, Wellesley College professor of English and poet Katharine Lee Bates. In 1893, Bates traveled by train across America. Her stops included Niagara Falls, and Chicago, where she took in the spectacle of the White City of the World's Columbia, Exposition. Her trip then took her across the heartland and the Great Plains to Colorado, where she took up a summer teaching appointment at Colorado College in Colorado Springs. Bates traveled by prairie wagon to the summit of Pikes Peak. When she descended the mountain, the words for the poem "America" came to her. The heart of the story occurs during the eras of the Gilded Age and Social Reform, as well as the Spanish American War and the First World War. The film conveys the maturation of Bates' writing and social philosophy, and unpacks the real meaning of the stanzas of the beloved national hymn. With America250 approaching, it is an opportune time to reappraise the life and legacy of Katharine Lee Bates and the import of America the Beautiful.