Biography of Katharine Lee Bates (Falmouth [Massachusetts], 1859 - Wellesley [Massachusetts], 1929)

By Alberto Egea Fernández-Montesinos
Translation by Raquel Boix and Dahra Mautone

Katharine Lee Bates (1859-1929) is an American writer well-known for her hugely popular poem used as the lyrics to the patriotic ballad «America the Beautiful», considered by some the true American anthem. Bates was an avid traveler and visited Spain in 1899, shortly after the Spanish-American War. In this intensive six-month trip, she produced two books about Spain, twenty-one chronicles for The New York Times and numerous poems.

Bates was an accomplished academic with dozens of publications who served as the head of Wellesley's English Department for many years, at a time when women faced severe difficulties in academia. She was an active feminist and an advocate for women's rights who lived an intense Boston marriage with her colleague, Katharine Coman.

While «America the Beautiful» has received immense praise and study, her travel book Spanish Highways and Byways, published in New York in 1900, and the rest of her travel texts remain unexplored despite being beautifully crafted travelogs and major contributions to the study of modern Spanish identity politics.