Katherine Lee Bates: How the U.S. Snubbed a Woman’s Home-Grown National Anthem
Plus eight official national anthems that credit a woman as composer and/or lyricist
Katherine Lee Bates: How the U.S. Snubbed a Woman’s Home-Grown National Anthem
National Anthems have been front and center in 2026.
Global citizens felt Olympic pride as the Milano Cortina 2026 winter games unfolded. Medal counts, new world records, technical innovations, and the occasional controversy kept us engaged as 2900 athletes from 92 countries compete in 116 medal events. The ceremonial medal presentations and winners’ national anthems always choke me up.
Here is figure skater and U.S. sweetheart Alysa Liu’s Gold Medal ceremony with the “Star Spangled Banner” (start at 6:45 minute mark to skip straight to the anthem).
Of course, there were the Super Bowl LX’s uplifting renditions of Charlie Puth’s “Star Spangled Banner” and the mighty Brandi Carlile’s “America The Beautiful,” the U.S. unofficial national anthem, if you will.
MLive posted this touching article about Grand Rapids’ “No Kings” protest sing along that warmed my heart. They sang 18 songs, including “America The Beautiful.”
Approximately 192-200 official national anthems are currently recognized and played at international sporting events per various sources in Google search results. My team of researchers, Lucy and Ricardo, reviewed 193 UN members and two recognized independent nations (Palestine and Vatican City)1 and their official anthems’ composers and lyricists.
Only eight official national anthems credit a woman as composer and/or lyricist. They include:
The U.S. Could Have Been The First
France kicked off the “official” anthem trend in 1795 when women’s contributions to such endeavors were not allowed or frowned upon. However, over 230 years later with gads of map and sovereign and social shifts, you’d think we’d see the needle move at least a smidge on this front. Hope trickles eternal.
Austria was the first to adopt an anthem with a female credit in 1946. The U.S. had its chance to be the first in 1931 but blew it. President Herbert Hoover was pressured to designate an anthem with a shortlist of options, including “America The Beautiful,” “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” and “The Star Spangled Banner.” Francis Scott Key’s poem for “The Star-Spangled Banner” was set to “To Anacreon in Heaven,” an 18th-century English men’s amateur music club song penned by John Stafford Smith with lyrics later added by Ralph Tomlinson.2
The anthem’s origin controversy caused quite a national stir from Americans who said it was symbolically inappropriate and not home grown. Many advocated for “America The Beautiful,” which was written by two U.S. citizens. But according to Hoover archives, Congress lobbied hard for the final choice, and today we all sing “The Star Spangled Banner” at baseball games. March 3rd officially became National Anthem Day.
The Woman Behind “America The Beautiful”
“America The Beautiful” is as homegrown as it gets. Wellesley College professor Katherine Lee Bates penned the lyrics in 1893 upon first witnessing Colorado’s Pikes Peak grandeur. The lyrics later paired with New Jersey’s Samuel A. Ward’s “Materna,” shortly after Ward’s death. Bates and Ward never met, yet the resulting “America The Beautiful” became their shared legacy.
Bates Graduated from Wellesley College with a BA and later an MA. She was known for incorporating poor and working class female characters into her books and poetry (popularizing St. Nick’s wife Mrs. Claus) as a way to teach social reform.3 “While Bates was initially surprised by the poem’s success, she later reflected that its enduring “hold as it has upon our people, is clearly due to the fact that Americans are at heart idealists, with a fundamental faith in human brotherhood.”4 - source
The National Park Service does Bates and the song history sweet justice for those who want to deep dive.
Lyrics
Bates copyrighted and authorized people to use this version:
AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL
O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
O beautiful for pilgrim feet,
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness,
And every gain divine!
O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
Celebrating “America The Beautiful” Today
Fire Horse Brandi Carlile’s 2026 SB performance and her personal take on ATB’s spirit of the US as an imperfect but aspirational beacon of light inspired this Herizon Music spotlight. I’ll leave you with these videos and an invitation to comment on what ATB means to you personally.
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Source: Office of The Historian, United States Department of State.
“The Anacreontic Song,“ Wikipedia.
“Katherine Lee Bates,” Wikipedia.
“America The Beautiful, 1893,” Gilder Lehrman
War lyrics to an English men's song, absolutely absurd -- and gives entirely the wrong message about who Americans are.
America the Beautiful is sooooooo much better. Maybe there should be a movement to change it.