Ballad Book (Dodo Press)

Katharine Lee Bates (1859-1929) was an American songwriter. She is remembered as the author of the words to the anthem America the Beautiful. She popularized Mrs. Santa Claus through her poem Goody Santa Claus on a Sleigh Ride from the collection Sunshine and Other Verses for Children (1889). She graduated from Wellesley College in 1880 and for many years was a professor of English literature at Wellesley. While teaching there, she was elected a member of the newly formed Pi Gamma Mu honour society for the social sciences because of her interest in history and politics, which she had also studied. She was a prolific author of many volumes of poetry, travel books, and children's books. Bates has two schools named in her honour, the Katharine Lee Bates Elementary School, located on Elmwood Road in Wellesley, Massachusetts and the Katharine Lee Bates Elementary School, located in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The latter was founded in 1957. Her other works include: The College Beautiful and Other Poems (1887), English Religious Drama (1893) and Fairy Gold (1916).