American-Exceptionalism-10.5x10-PRINT-10.5 DIGITAL - Flipbook - Page 25
From Sea To Shining Sea
So
awestruck by the majesty of the landscape
before her from the top of Pikes Peak in Colorado
in 1893, Katharine Lee Bates put words to the
beauty of America in her poem, “America the
Beautiful,” which later became one of our
country’s most beloved songs.
As the story goes, Ms. Bates was a professor at a
Massachusetts college and “traveled west to teach
a summer course in Colorado Springs.” When the
teaching stint ended, she and other professors
"celebrated the close of the session by a merry
expedition to the top of Pike’s Peak." Struck by the
“sea-like expanse of fertile country…” as she
looked out across the massive scene, she was
inspired to write the famous lyrics that have
galvanized the spirit of patriotism for generations.
Colorado is not the only state with unique stories
and features that speak to America's beauty and
bounty. The landscape of America, from the
Atlantic to the Pacific, is a wonder to behold.
Although states with dense populations, like the
New England states, won’t have massive open
fields for cattle ranching or wheat fields, they
have miles and miles of shoreline. Consider
Rhode Island, the smallest state by land mass in
the nation, with 400 hundred miles of shoreline
stretching from one end to another. Of course,
Alaska has the longest coastline of any state, with
Florida in second place.
From mining to manufacturing, farming to fishing,
to agriculture to apple-picking, all 50 states are
unique in resources and beauty. There are acres
of sand dunes in Idaho, bayous in Louisiana,
volcanos in Alaska and other states, magical
waterfalls from Maine to Hawaii, the Grand
Canyon in Arizona, and the Appalachian
Mountains with wildlife, rivers, and folklore as
rich as the birth of our nation.
Wisconsin may be known for its hundreds of
varieties of cheeses, but there’s more than cheese
produced in the Badger State. Wisconsin produces
over 60 percent of the nation’s cranberry
production. Did you know that California grows
over 90 percent of all the broccoli produced in
America and that Michigan, known for its fishing
industry, has the longest freshwater coastline in
the United States, or that Kansas produces more
wheat than any other state in the nation?
From “sea to shining sea,” the United States is a
wonderland of natural resources, magnificent
landscapes, spectacular mountains, and beautiful
waterways and coastlines. Each state is a
showcase of unique attributes and significance
that has contributed to the fabric of the greatest
nation ever envisioned in the history of the world.
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