in the summer of 1893, a young professor named Katherine Lee Bates took a train west from Massachusetts to Colorado. On her trip, she saw the beauty and the grandeur of our nation - its mountains, fertile prairies, and shining seas - and was moved to compose a poem that would later be set to music and stir generations to come. Glowing paintings and lyrical text blend together to show the magnificence of the United States of America and how it inspired Katherine Lee Bates to pen the poem that would become our nation's unofficial anthem.

A brief biography of the author and college professor whose travels across the United States inspired her to write the poem which became the song "America the Beautiful."

The story of Katharine lee Bates and America the Beautiful.

An edition of the nineteenth-century poem that was later set to music, illustrated by a noted American artist.

A brief biography of the author and college professor whose travels across the United States inspired her to write the poem which became the song "America the Beautiful."