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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

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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

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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

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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

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  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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