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Wellesley

A Mountain View Inspires ‘America the Beautiful’

When a 33-year-old Wellesley College professor reached the top of Pikes Peak on July 22, 1893, she was so moved she scribbled a poem that became America the Beautiful.

The summit of Pikes Peak. Library of Congress photo.

Katharine Lee Bates was teaching English at Colorado College in Colorado Springs that summer. She later recalled:

One day some of the other teachers and I decided to go on a trip to 14,000-foot Pikes Peak. We hired a prairie wagon. Near the top we had to leave the wagon and go the rest of the way on mules. I was very tired. But when I saw the view, I felt great joy. All the wonder of America seemed displayed there, with the sea-like expanse.

Katharine Lee Bates

As soon as she reached her room at the Antlers Hotel she wrote down the poem, which she called ‘Pikes Peak.’ It morphed into America the Beautiful, with music by Samuel A. Ward. Ward found inspiration to write the tune on a ferry boat ride from Coney Island. He used a friend’s shirt cuff to write it down. The first version with Bates’ words and Ward’s music was published in 1910, and it caught on quickly.

Katharine Lee Bates

Katharine Lee Bates was born Aug. 12, 1859 in Falmouth, Mass., to Congregationalist pastor William Bates and his wife, Cornelia Frances Lee Bates. She graduated from Wellesley High School and Wellesley College in 1880. She taught for a few years, returned to Wellesley for her master’s degree, then to Oxford University for a year.

While teaching at Wellesley she also wrote prolifically: poetry, travel books and children’s books. Her second most noted work was a poem called Goody Santa Claus on a Sleigh Ride, which popularized Mrs. Santa Claus.

She never married. A colleague once described unmarried women as “a fringe on the garment of life.” She retorted, “I always thought the fringe had the best of it. I don’t think I mind not being woven in.”

From 1890 to 1915, she lived with Katharine Coman, founder of Wellesley’s economic department, in a Boston marriage.

America the Beautiful author Katharine Lee Bates later in life

Katharine Lee Bates died in Wellesley, Mass., on Sept. 28, 1929.

America the Beautful, of course, lived on as one of the most beloved patriotic hymns in the United States. Many, many people have recorded it, including Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Whitney Houston, the Boston Pops Orchestra, Aretha Franklin and Charlie Rich. Ray Charles delivered one of the most memorable versions during America’s Bicentennial, then reprised it after 9/11. Newscaster Dan Rather cried briefly on The David Letterman Show while reciting the fourth verse just after the attacks, and the song became an alternate national anthem.

Photo of Katharine Lee Bates by RL, Find a Grave. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons. This story last updated in 2022.

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Babson’s Boulders: A Millionaire’s Odd Dogtown Legacy

Eccentric millionaire Roger Babson had an unusual hobby that mortified his family: During the Great Depression, he hired unemployed stonecutters to carve inspirational mottoes into boulders in Dogtown, a ghost town between Gloucester and Rockport, Mass.

Roger Babson

Babson (July 6, 1875–March 5, 1967) didn’t care what his family thought. Supervising the work allowed him to revert to his boyhood pleasure of driving cows through Dogtown Common.

“My family says that I am defacing the boulders and disgracing the family with these inscriptions, but the work gives me a lot of satisfaction, fresh air, exercise and sunshine,” he wrote in his autobiography, Actions and Reactions.

Today, hikers can walk through the maze of trails in Dogtown and read Babson’s boulders for little lessons in self-improvement. ‘Courage,’ ‘Help Mother’ and ‘Get a Job’ are but three of the 24 slogans chiseled into stone.

Dogtown Wilderness

Roger Babson’s ancestors had lived in the inland town of Dogtown, then called the Common Settlement, from about 1650 to 1750. They were farmers, merchants, midwives, preachers and sea captains who settled away from the harbor to avoid attack.

At its peak, an estimated 100 families lived in the Commons. Families started moving away, closer to the coast, as threats from the sea diminished after the War of 1812. Vagabonds and itinerants moved in, and the wives of sailors and soldiers who never came back kept dogs for protection. Some of the last residents were suspected of practicing witchcraft.

Babson took pride in his heritage, and wanted to improve upon Dogtown’s reputation for strangeness. He and his cousin Gustavus Babson in 1927 bought 1,150 acres of the rocky cow pasture that had once been their ancestors’ home. They would later sell it back to the City of Gloucester for a fraction of what they paid for it.

Dogtown in 1908

The son of a dry goods store owner, Babson went into investment banking after graduating from MIT. He was a nationally syndicated columnist and investor who famously predicted the 1929 stock market crash. He served on corporate boards and as assistant secretary of Commerce under Woodrow Wilson.

Legacies

Babsonalso founded a gravity institute in New Boston, N.H., and established three colleges, including Babson College in Wellesley, Mass. His fortune largely derived from the securities analysis and investment firm he founded, now known as Babson-United. He wrote nearly 50 books, mostly about investing. But he also wrote a tourists’ guide to Cape Ann and a volume called Cheer Up! Better Times Ahead! published during the Great Depression.

Babson wanted to be president of the United States. A publicity stunt suggested he had a Lincolnesque rags-to-riches personal story. In 1929 he built a 500-square-foot log cabin in Dogtown. It was in the style of the original settlers and furnished with Colonial furniture and artifacts. ‘Boston Millionaire Deserts Civilization To Live With Birds in Wilderness of Witches and Pirates’ read a July 28, 1929, Boston Sunday Post headline.

Cellar Holes and Boulders

While not giving investment advice, Babson catalogued the cellar holes in Dogtown and hired masons to carve their numbers into nearby stones. After the stock market tumbled, he decided to give work to 35 unemployed Finnish stonecutters and at the same time impart inspiration to visitors to Dogtown. He consulted the self-help and inspirational books in his ‘Good Cheer Library’ for ideas. He came up with two dozen:

Courage, Ideas, Help Mother, Kindness, Loyalty, Be On Time, Get A Job, Industry, Initiative, Integrity, Keep Out Of Debt, Save, Spiritual Power, Study, Truth, Work, Be Clean, Be True, Prosperity Follows Service, Use Your Head, Ideals, Intelligence, Never Try/Never Win and If Work Stops, Values Decay.

Babson thought other cities would be so impressed with his boulders – which he called his ‘Life’s Book’ — that they would adopt the practice and make it part of their educational system. He may have been right about the stock market, but he was wrong about that.

Foolish Notions

Some people hated the rock carvings. Babson acknowledged his family did. And when Babson’s masons carved a rock on Leila Webster Adams’ land without her permission, she launched a campaign against Babson’s defacing of the landscape.

“Just look at that horrible thing,” Mrs. Adams said to reporters. “Why the idea of a man like Roger Babson, so well-known and popular, going about carving such things as ‘Prosperity Follows Service,’ ‘Keep Out of Debt,’ and ‘When Work Stops, Values Decay.’ Whoever heard of such foolish notions?”

Presidential Run

In 1940, Roger Babson finally got to run for president of the United States. He campaigned on the Prohibition ticket against Franklin D. Roosevelt. He denouncedalcohol, drugs, gambling, indecent movies and publications. Babson also advocated reducing debt and taxes, helping farmers, conserving natural resources, and ‘assuring workers and consumers a fair share of industry’s products and profits.’

The man from Dogtown came in fourth behind Roosevelt, Wendell Wilkie and Norman Thomas.

Arthur M Blank Center at Babson College.

Roger Babson died in 1967, after living a long, productive life punctuated by eccentric pursuits. He hoped the boulder carving would continue after his death. It didn’t, but Babson College, Babson-United, the Gravity Research Foundation and the carved boulders of Dogtown survive.

This story about the strange boulders in Dogtown was updated in 2023. “If Work Stops” image CC BY-SA 3.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8398990. Dogtown By Alice Curtis(Life time: 1871-1961) – Original publication. I am unsure about the date of first publication.Immediate source: https://goodmorninggloucester.wordpress.com/2013/10/16/dogtowns-present-inhabitants-1908-3/, PD-US-expired, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53626823.

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1913, the Year of the Great Tango Controversy

In April 1913, 90-year-old Henry McHenry walked out of the Chelsea Old Soldiers Home, telling his friends he was going to town – which they assumed meant Boston – and he didn’t come back. Three days later, word arrived that he had surfaced in New York City with a pocketful of cash. McHenry pointedly told police, who wanted to send him home, that he would leave when he had seen what he came for. What enticed this cantankerous Civil War veteran and retired stonemason to travel all the way to New York? He wanted to see this new dance phenomenon everyone was talking about: the tango.

The year 1913, the writer H.G. Wells noted, was “the year of the tango.” This new dance where couples danced cheek-to-cheek, legs and arms pressed close against each other in an erotic embrace, had everyone’s attention.

Chelsea Old Soldiers Home (Boston Public Library Archive)

And New England was no exception. Just like controversial dances today, the tango in 1913 gave rise to fascination, longing, disgust and fury – depending, of course, on your age and point of view.

Tango Travels to America

Where the tango originated is open to debate. But it took firm root in Argentina. Poor people danced it in the slums. At the time, Argentina was a wealthy nation (seventh richest in the world), but there were tremendous inequalities. So while the wealthy danced their sedate steps at fancy balls, the poor danced the tango in bars, brothels and dance halls.

Among the young and wealthy, the tango became a fascination, and they would slip into the ghettos for a taste of the dance craze. As these young people went to Europe to polish their education, they brought the tango with them.

In 1909 and 1910, the dance began popping up. But in 1913, it took the entire world by storm, first sweeping Europe and from there to the rest of the world, including the United States. Among the non-dancers, curiosity turned to outrage as soon as they got a firsthand look at the new dance. It was disgust at first-sight.

Rushing headlong into the First World War, the nations and religions of the world didn’t seem to agree on much. But the tango proved an exception. The people loved it; the leaders did not.

Germany’s Kaiser banned the dance. And England’s Queen Mary also ordered it kept out of any palace functions.

“Tango Tee” from Puck Magazine.

In the United States, ministers, priests and rabbis began speaking out against the immoral dance. The more strident labeled it “unwholesome degeneracy.” They were especially angry at the hordes of adults who tangoed, making it seem acceptable to children. The more moderate clergy saw it as a passing fad; an evil, but a temporary one.

In the summer, towns throughout New England began waking up to the fact the tango being performed in their midst. Town officials began issuing directives to local dance committees to ban it from town and benefit dances.

Banning the Tango

In Lebanon, N.H., the selectmen announced that people attending dances at the town would be expelled for dancing the tango. But it had little effect. The students of Dartmouth College were singled out as the offenders, but the dancing continued until the selectmen finally voted to ban dances altogether.

In the popular summer destination of Nahant, Mass., the police chief learned the dance halls of Bass Point were promoting tango exhibitions to lure customers. He ordered all the posters for the event torn down and announced the police would stop any such dancing.

Opponents also expanded their battleground. “Medical authorities have lately expressed the opinion that these objectionable dances are nerve-wracking, and if persisted in must undermine both health and morals,” they told the newspapers.

And one newspaper editorial bemoaned the state of affairs where citizens would ignore the bills from their dentists and butchers to instead pay for tango lessons.

U.S. Vice President Thomas Marshall, speaking to a Methodist camp meeting in August of 1913, denounced the dance craze. The tango, turkey trot and slit skirts, he said, were all signs that the churches were losing their hold on people: “It is high time that the people were waking up.”

Finding Popular Support

The tango had advocates as well, mostly among dancers, dance instructors and young people. These factions tried a multipronged approach to making the tango acceptable. First, they tried to calm people’s sensibilities. They pointed out that new forms of dance often excited outrage. The polka, they noted, had been widely criticized when first introduced.

Similarly, the waltz scandalized people when it was introduced in America. It was known as the Boston, and a variation was known as the Boston Dip. Both were abhorred by moralists. But both were eventually accepted as proper. The tango was no different, its defenders said.

This line of reasoning did little to persuade the anti-tango factions.

Advocates reached out to their own medical experts, who pointed out the tango helped people lose weight and stay in shape.

But most of their efforts focused on convincing tango dancers themselves to embrace a more modest form of the dance, one that didn’t involve so much physical contact and flamboyance. And no dipping, they instructed. At least not “deep dipping.”

Banning the Tango

In October of 1913, Mayor John “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald upped the ante.

The Boston Musician’s Protective Union had announced its opposition to “freak dances” that involved “glides, slides and hugs.” While the union didn’t pledge that its members would not play music for these dances if directed to, they would discourage it.

Boston Mayor John F. Fitzgerald, known as “Honey Fitz”

Fitzgerald put the force of government behind their opposition, and he announced a ban on the tango at all city dance halls:

“The prohibition includes all the so-called animal dances such as the turkey trot, bunny hug, bear dance, etc. also the kitchen sink, tango and other extravagances,” the announcement said.

The new rules further stated:

All dancing would stop at 11:45 on Saturday nights.

“No moonlight or shadow lighting effects. The hall must remain fully lighted.”

A police matron would be assigned to each dance hall, and have charge of the ladies room. A police officer assigned to the hall would have the authority to stop the music if necessary.

In November, Pope Pius X declared the tango immoral and off-limits to Catholics. If they partook in the dance, they were instructed to include it in their confessions and would need to do penance. Supporters of the dance fabricated a story that the pope had witnessed a demonstration of the dance and recanted his opinion, but the Vatican quickly shot that down as a falsehood.

With New England’s large Catholic population, the edict had weight. But not enough to kill the tango.

Happy Dance

The fight against the tango finally came to a head in 1914. At English High School in Lynn, Mass., students made headlines by boycotting dances where the principal had banned the tango.

Social and country clubs and hotels came under great pressure to eliminate the tango from the popular dances and “tango teas.” Some did, others did not. And people boycotted charity balls that banned the tango, which prompted a satirical cartoon in Puck magazine. Wellesley College vacillated, first banning the dance and then reversing course.

In the Massachusetts Legislature, Rep. Lewis Sullivan introduced a bill to outlaw the tango across the state. Like Henry McHenry, he traveled to New York to see a tango firsthand. He saw a sedate version of the dance. But he remained opposed to the dance in its more expressive forms.

By now, however, public opinion moved in the direction of the tango as people saw that it did no harm. With little remaining popular support for banning the dance, Sullivan’s proposal died in legislative committee.

Rudolph Valentino dances the tango

The tango soon became much more mainstream in the United States. Then it faded, only to be popularized again by Rudolph Valentino in the 1921 film, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Vice President Thomas Marshall would haul out the tango once again for political purposes. When a rival attempted to replace him on the ticket in 1916, rumors spread that the Missouri rival liked to dance the tango.

Vice President Thomas Marshall.

And in Catholic circles the dance remains controversial. When Pope Francis told reporters that he had danced the tango as a young man and still enjoyed the dance, his critics saw red and called him a weak successor to men like Pius X.

This story was updated in 2022.

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