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The Small and the Mighty: Twelve Unsung Americans Who Changed the Course of History, From the Founding to the Civil Rights Movement
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Part 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3: “America the Beautiful”
Part 3, Chapter 6 Summary: “Katharine Lee Bates, Cape Cod, 1859”
Born in Cape Cod in 1859, Katharine Lee Bates, whom McMahon refers to as “Katie,” began writing poetry from a young age. Katharine was the youngest of four children. Her father passed away when she was just four weeks old, and her mother struggled to care for Katharine and her siblings. While her mother and elder siblings worked tirelessly to keep the family out of poverty, Katharine was permitted to spend her days playing with her friends and writing in her notebook.
As a young woman, Katharine looked stern and intimidating, but she was known for her kind and inquisitive personality. She was prone to pondering life’s big questions and loved to study. She was particularly frustrated with gender roles that required women to stay indoors and sew while boys played outside and went to school. As a young woman, Katharine was eager to attend college. In the mid-1800s, higher education opportunities for women were limited, but a network of elite women’s colleges called the Seven Sisters was starting to develop. Katharine was admitted to Wellesley, a women’s college with an academic rigor that matched Ivy League institutions like Harvard and Yale.
In college, Katharine began publishing her writing in a number of periodicals. As an academic woman in the mid-19th century, she had limited career opportunities, so she became a teacher at Wellesley College’s rigorous prep school. She continued to publish her writing and was eventually offered a position as a professor at Wellesley, where she was soon promoted to assistant professor of Literature. Eventually, Katharine wrote a young adult novel, Rose and Thorn, which won a $700 writing prize, allowing her to take the year off and travel across Europe.
Part 3, Chapter 7 Summary: “Katharine Lee Bates, England, 1880s”
Katharine’s year abroad gave her a new appreciation for the fragility of American democracy, and she returned home with a renewed commitment to her work. She completed her master’s degree at Wellesley and became head of the literature department. However, even though she was unmarried, she felt stifled by the domestic pressures placed on women in addition to her academic and professional responsibilities.
Nevertheless, Wellesley offered a unique culture for its female students and employees, and many of the women foraged strong bonds. During these years, Katharine met a fellow professor named Katharine Coman, who would become her “lifelong companion.” Most scholars believe that they were in a romantic relationship, and many of the letters they wrote to one another seem to corroborate this point of view.
Part 3, Chapter 8 Summary: “Katharine Lee Bates, Chicago, 1890s”
In the 1890s, the United States was on the verge of an economic downturn, and anti-immigrant sentiment was growing. Amid this building tension, the World’s Columbian Exposition was scheduled to open in Chicago in 1893. Katharine and her partner had been hired to teach summer workshops in Colorado and stopped to see the “huge and astonishing” fair on their way. The Liberty Bell had been transported to Chicago from Philadelphia for the fair, and there were countless examples of American technology and innovation, along with statues of great American activists. The Pledge of Allegiance was written for the occasion, and children recited it in a show of patriotism or xenophobia, depending on whom you asked.
Impressed by the spectacle, the two continued on to Colorado. Before their trip was over, they had the chance to hike Pike’s Peak and see the spectacular landscape known as the Garden of the Gods. Looking over the mountains, Katharine felt struck by inspiration and wrote down a few lines of poetry. On the way home, she put the notebook away, and years passed before she returned to it. Eventually, she edited and finalized the poem and sent it off for publication. The poem was published in The Congregationalist magazine on July 4, 1895, for the sum of $5. Then, it “went viral before anyone knew what going viral meant” (84). Katharine was inundated with reprint requests, and many readers wanted the lines set to music.
One of Katharine’s many readers was a minister called Clarence Barbour, and he adapted her poem to the melody of “Materna,” a hymn written by Samuel Ward. Soon, “America the Beautiful” was being sung in congregations, schools, and public gatherings across the United States, bringing light to the world even as World War I threatened to erupt.
Meanwhile, Katharine Coman was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1912 and underwent a radical mastectomy. The surgery was painful and extensive, and she never fully recovered. However, many cancer patients at the time were isolated, and she was able to stay at home, surrounded by her loved ones, until she passed away in 1915.
“America the Beautiful” is a song about “the beauty of nature, the hope for the future, the unlimited potential of America” (87). Many thought that “America the Beautiful” should become the country’s national anthem, but “The Star-Spangled Banner” was chosen in 1931 instead. Nevertheless, “America the Beautiful” continued to occupy an important place the American imagination. In many key moments in American history, people chose to sing “America the Beautiful,” not “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Katharine was devastated by the loss of her partner, but she continued to focus on her work and studies. The popularity of “America the Beautiful” made her “an unwitting celebrity,” but she did her best to stay out of the spotlight and didn’t advocate for her song to become the national anthem. She never made more than the original $5 publication fee from the song. Katharine came down with pneumonia in 1929, and her health deteriorated quickly. She passed away on March 28, 1929. She might not have been a suffragist or an outspoken activist, but her words illuminated “our shared history as a nation and the direction in which we should be heading” (92).
Part 3 Analysis
In Part 3, McMahon uses the story of Katharine Lee Bates to further explore The Importance of Forgotten Figures in Shaping History. As an academic and as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, Katharine existed outside of society’s expectations. She eschewed the gender roles of the time and refused “to stay in and sew” like girls were supposed to do (73). In history books where the heroes are generally white, straight, and male, people like Katharine are often invisible. “America the Beautiful,” her poem set to music, captured the imagination of an entire nation and played a crucial role in articulating “our shared history as a nation and the direction in which we should be heading” (92), but while every schoolchild learns the song today, few people have heard of its author. By reading the song in the context of its author’s life, McMahon restores some of its lost original meaning—suggesting that America is beautiful insofar as it offers its people the opportunity to live as they choose.
Throughout the section, McMahon refers to Katharine by the nickname “Katie,” in keeping with the casual and familiar tone that permeates The Small and the Mighty. This casual tone aims to make the text accessible to readers. Called “America’s Government Teacher,” McMahon is known for her ability to demystify history and make it fun and easy for her followers. This tendency to refer to key figures by nicknames exemplifies her interest in creating an enjoyable, low-pressure learning experience. This rhetorical strategy also contributes to McMahon’s argument that ordinary people can and often do change the course of history. There is no need for pomp or formality because the individuals who make up The Small and the Mighty are not so different from McMahon’s readers.
Like Clara Brown and Virginia Randolph, Katharine had no desire for fame or notoriety. She “became an unwitting celebrity” and “never accept[ed] the credit for her work’s success” (91). This is a characteristic that most of McMahon’s unsung American heroes share. They were people whose actions were never motivated by the promise of notoriety and who actively avoided the spotlight.
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