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Mildred Doyle

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Mildred Doyle
A white woman with short hair, wearing a collared shirt
Mildred Doyle, from a 1940 newspaper
Born
Mildred Eloise Doyle

December 27, 1904
South Knoxville, Tennessee
DiedMay 6, 1989 (aged 84)
Knoxville, Tennessee
Occupation(s)educator, school superintendent

Mildred Eloise Doyle (December 27, 1904 – May 6, 1989) was an American educator. She was Superintendent of Schools in Knox County, Tennessee from 1946 to 1976.

Early life and education

Mildred Doyle was born on her family's large farm in South Knoxville, Tennessee,[1] the daughter of Charter Elbert Doyle and Illia Burnett Doyle.[2] Her father was a county judge.[3][4] As a young woman, Doyle played baseball, softball, tennis, and basketball on school teams at Young High School and Maryville College.[5] At the University of Tennessee, over the course of several summers,[6] she earned a bachelor's degree in 1940, and a master's degree in educational administration in 1944.[2][7]

Career

Doyle left college for her first teaching job, when she took over a classroom from her newly-married sister. She became a school principal in 1929, when she was 24 years old, despite protests that she was a "flapper", too young, reckless, and female for the job.[7][8] She was appointed county superintendent in 1946, the first woman to hold that position in Knox County.[6][9] The office became an elected position soon after, and she won re-election over and over,[10] until she lost in a close election in 1976.[11] As of 2022, she is still the only woman superintendent and the longest serving superintendent in Knox County history.[2]

Doyle reformed salaries in the county so that elementary teachers, who were mostly women, were paid at the same scale as high school teachers, who were mostly men.[2] She also oversaw the county's first special education programming,[12] and emphasized expansion and modernization of school buildings in the county; during her tenure, some rural schools gained indoor plumbing, telephones, libraries and cafeterias for the first time.[13][14] Doyle High School (now South-Doyle High School), opened in 1968, was named for her and her family.[2][15]

In 1969, Doyle fought efforts to ban The Catcher in the Rye from Knox County Schools.[2] She also defended the original Tarzan novels against creationists' concerns that Burroughs' books promoted a theory of evolution. "Whoever believes that either can't read or hasn't read the books," she declared.[16][17]

In retirement after 1976, Doyle worked to open Tennessee's first alternative high school.[18] She served on the statewide textbook commission. In 1983, she and her surviving siblings donated over 25 acres of the family farm to become Charter E. Doyle Park.[19] Also in 1983, she was named to the Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame.[2] She was raising money for vans to transport rural cancer patients in her last weeks.[20]

Doyle was president of the Tennessee Education Association in 1952.[21] In the 1980s, she was chair of the Tennessee Children's Services Commission, and co-chair of Tennesseans for Better Schools.[22]

Personal life and legacy

Doyle lived on her family farm with her brother until 1961. She and a widowed friend, Mildred M. Patterson, shared a home for many years. Their domestic partnership was the basis of some innuendo, and may have been a factor in her 1976 political defeat.[3][23][24] Doyle died in 1989, aged 84 years,[25] at their home in Knoxville, after five years of battling bone cancer.[26] Her papers were donated to the Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection at the Knox County Public Library, by Patterson and the Doyle family.[27] The Charter Doyle Park includes a short, unpaved Mildred Doyle Nature Trail, which passes the old Doyle family cemetery.[19][28]

References

  1. ^ Mahurin, Tasha; Mahurin, Shannon; Hill, Ray (2012). South Knoxville. Arcadia Publishing. p. 7. ISBN 978-0-7385-9421-7.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Pickle, Betsy (2022-02-08). "Mildred Doyle broke the mold as schools chief". Knox TN Today. Retrieved 2022-05-28.
  3. ^ a b Beilke, Jayne R. (2002). "Review of Mildred E. Doyle, School Superintendent". History of Education Quarterly. 42 (1): 124–126. doi:10.1017/S0018268000005410. ISSN 0018-2680. JSTOR 3218171. S2CID 152120090.
  4. ^ "Heart Attack Fatal to Squire Doyle". The Knoxville News-Sentinel. 1949-04-08. p. 10. Retrieved 2022-05-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ McNeil, Glenn (1940-02-04). "Mildred Doyle has Played Basketball for 22 Years and has Tried to Quit Game for 10--But She Can't". The Knoxville News-Sentinel. pp. B-1, B-4. Retrieved 2022-05-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ^ a b Morris, Betsy (1946-07-09). "First Woman County Superintendent has 21-year Background of Teaching Here". The Knoxville News-Sentinel. p. 6. Retrieved 2022-05-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ^ a b Booker, Robert (2011-12-13). "A tomboy, yes, but Doyle was no flapper". The Knoxville News-Sentinel. p. 13. Retrieved 2022-05-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ "P. T. A. to Press Charges against 'Flapper Teacher'". The Knoxville Journal. 1929-09-22. p. 4. Retrieved 2022-05-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ^ Ford, Margaret U. (1947-07-06). "Knox School Head Ends First Year in Office". The Knoxville Journal. p. 14. Retrieved 2022-05-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ^ Underwood, Margaret (1949-01-04). "Knox Court Elects Quartet of Officers in Apparent Fix". The Knoxville Journal. p. 1. Retrieved 2022-05-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ^ Hunley, Steve. "Remembering Earl Hoffmeister". The Knoxville Focus. Retrieved 2022-05-28.
  12. ^ "Mentally Retarded in Knox winning 'Fight for Light'". The Knoxville News-Sentinel. 1953-09-20. p. 10. Retrieved 2022-05-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ^ "Rural Knox County to Get Library Service Next Week". The Knoxville Journal. 1947-09-07. p. 7. Retrieved 2022-05-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. ^ Merrill, Harry (1947-06-24). "$2,000,000 Sought for Knox Schools". The Knoxville Journal. p. 1. Retrieved 2022-05-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ^ Veal, Kaye Franklin (1986-10-01). "Mildred Doyle Saluted for Service to Schools". The Knoxville News-Sentinel. p. 16. Retrieved 2022-05-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. ^ Wheeler, William Bruce (2005). Knoxville, Tennessee: A Mountain City in the New South. Univ. of Tennessee Press. pp. 90–91. ISBN 978-1-57233-336-9.
  17. ^ Lakin, Matt (May 27, 2012). "Standing tall for students". Knox News. Retrieved 2022-05-28.
  18. ^ "Richard Yoakley School History". Knox County Schools. Retrieved 2022-05-28.
  19. ^ a b "Charter Doyle Greenway". City of Knoxville. Retrieved 2022-05-28.
  20. ^ Stafford, Leon (1989-05-09). "Doyle Helped Others Until the End". The Knoxville News-Sentinel. p. 3. Retrieved 2022-05-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  21. ^ "State Teacher Group Sets Work Shop". The Rutherford Courier. 1952-06-03. p. 1. Retrieved 2022-05-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  22. ^ "Group to Push Better Schools Plan". Kingsport Times-News. 1983-08-02. p. 2. Retrieved 2022-05-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  23. ^ Blount, Jackie M.; Nash, Margaret (2004-04-01). "From Exemplar to Deviant: Same-Sex Relationships Among Women Superintendents, 1909-1976". Educational Studies. 35 (2): 103–136. doi:10.1207/s15326993es3502_2. ISSN 0013-1946. S2CID 218508003.
  24. ^ Blount, Jackie M. (2005-01-01). Fit to Teach: Same-Sex Desire, Gender, and School Work in the Twentieth Century. SUNY Press. p. 158. ISBN 978-0-7914-6267-6.
  25. ^ "Mildred E. Doyle". The Knoxville News-Sentinel. 1989-05-09. p. 6. Retrieved 2022-05-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  26. ^ Veal, Kaye Franklin (1989-05-07). "Mildred Doyle, a leader in ET education, dies". The Knoxville News-Sentinel. pp. 1, 2. Retrieved 2022-05-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  27. ^ "Collection: Mildred Doyle Papers". Calvin M. McClung Special Collections Catalog. Retrieved 2022-05-28.
  28. ^ Cowan, Kevin (1993-07-07). "South Knox park hard hit by damage from blizzard". The Knoxville News-Sentinel. p. 6. Retrieved 2022-05-28 – via Newspapers.com.
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