Scholar Series: Katherine Lee Bates' Vision of Colorado, America, and Womanhood

In honor of Colorado Springs’ sesquicentennial anniversary, the CSPM unveiled a new exhibit, COS@150. This robust exploration of our community’s history and culture features 150 objects, illuminates 150 stories, commemorates 150 years. Throughout the commemoration year we invite you to explore these stories through a series of regional history lectures.

About the Program:
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!

About the Presenter:
Katherine Scott Sturdevant, Professor of History at Pikes Peak Community College, frequently works with the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum and Pikes Peak Library District to research and interpret local and regional history. Her areas of special study include women’s history as well as American and British literature. Thus, Kathy will share Katharine Lee Bates’s significance in many venues, always with the human interest and humor she brings to historical interpretation.