Letters from an American - Dolly

Episode Date: August 27, 2026

August 26, 2026On August 25, buildings across the country were lit up in pink at 9:25, Dolly Parton was a musical prodigy encouraged by her mother, She began singing on local radio and tv shows before she was 10, and at the Grand Ole Opry when she was 13, Musicians recognized her talent as a songwriter, and she wrote songs made famous by a long list of singers, She used her flamboyant style to “fill her space” in an industry dominated by men, She embraced and celebrated her upbringing, which valued love over possessions, She launched her film career in 9 to 5, with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, She was a lifelong member of the labor union that represents musicians and singers, She would bring awareness and empathy to the AIDS crisis, Dollywood brought jobs to the place where she grew up, The Dollywood Foundation supports local education, The Imagination Library puts books into the hands of children across the country, She celebrates reading, books, education, urging kids to dream big and learn what they can and to care for those who care for them.Watch today's recording here: https://www.youtube.com/live/g9TUa1Rwd6U?si=T8_KKcHQZElhpnZ-Get full, free access to Letters from an American here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribeYou can also find me:Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/hcrichardson.bsky.socialInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/heathercoxrichardson/?hl=enFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/heathercoxrichardson/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@heathercoxrichardson  Get full access to Letters from an American at heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribe

August 26, 26, last night, at exactly 925, 925, the top of the Empire State Building in New York City lit up pink. The antennas of Chicago's Willis Tower, formerly the Sears Tower, lit up pink too. So did the Ferris wheel at the Santa Monica Pier, which also sported a giant pink heart. The Hone Bridge in Milwaukee, Reunion Tower, and other buildings. in the Dallas skyline, and the Longfellow, Burns, Four River, Braga, and Zaycom Bridges of Boston, Caesar's Superdome in New Orleans. And, of course, Nashville's KVB bridge and historic metro courthouse were all lit up in pink last night. The Arthur Ashe Stadium played Jolene during the U.S. Open. Jack White played Jolene in London. Elsewhere in London, the Buckingham Palace Band,

played nine to five. All this and more for a woman born on January 19, 1946, in Severe County, Tennessee, in a cabin in the Smoky Mountains without electricity or running water. Dolly Rebecca Parton was the fourth of 12 children born to illiterate sharecropper Robert Lee Parton, senior, and Avey Lee, Caroline Owens. A musical prodigy encouraged by her mother. Dolly was singing on local radio and television shows in Nashville by the time she was 10 and debuted at the Grand Old Opry when she was 13. In 1964, she moved to Nashville, where other musicians quickly recognized her talent as a songwriter. Over her career, she would write songs made famous by Kenny Rogers, Merle Haggard, Whalen Jennings, Whitney Houston,

Tina Turner, and others. In 2016, Parton made her first record, and the following year, she married asphalt paver Carl Dean, who stayed out of the limelight during their 59-year marriage. Following the success of Parton's first record, country music star Porter Wagoner invited her to become part of his own show in 1967. There she blossomed, joining Wagoner to record a dozen studio albums that produced a number of top ten hit singles. playing off Wagoner's famous rhinestone studded suits made by Ukrainian-American designer Nudy Cone, the Petit Parton adopted huge hairstyles and emphasized her figure, and soon began wearing rhinestones herself. She once told a journalist that she modeled her public image after a woman others called the town tramp,

but whom she saw as a glamorous contrast to the women in Parton's own life. She had bright red lipstick, long red fingernails, she had high-heeled shoes, little floating plastic goldfish in the heels of them, short skirts, low-cut tops, and I just thought she was beautiful. When people would say she ain't nothing but trash, I would always say, well, that's what I'm going to be when I grow up. But in an industry dominated by men, Parton also noted her style was a way for a small woman, to fill my space. By the 1970s, Parton was coming into her own, taking on the music industry on her own terms. Find out who you are and do it on purpose, and do it with purpose, Parton was famous for saying, don't ever sacrifice who you are, your principles and your morals and your values to just try to get ahead in business. It ain't worth it. Rather than running from her upbringing in rural poverty, Parton embraced the values that upbringing had inspired in her. In 1971, she hit number one on the country charts with her song Joshua, inspired by the

Appalachian men around whom she had grown up, whose rough looks covered their quality. In the same year, her coat of many colors reached number four, telling the story of how her mother had made her a coat of rags rich with love. Those who valued people. possessions over love, she sang, were the ones truly impoverished. In 1972, she wrote, My Tennessee Mountain Home, about the peace and humanity of rural life, walking home from church on Sunday with the one you love, just laughing, talking, making future plans. She parted ways with Wagoner in 1974, and her farewell song to him, I will always love you, became a glad.

global sensation that reached number one on the country charts in 1974, 1982, and again in 1992, when it spent 14 weeks at number one after Whitney Houston covered it. In 1974, Parton also delivered Jolene, the desperate plea of a woman to a beautiful rival, not to take my man. Jolene, too, hit number one on the country charts. In 1975 and 1976, the Country Music Association named Parton, female vocalist of the year, and in 1978, it honored her as entertainer of the year, just three of the many awards she would win as her musical career took off not just at home, but also internationally.

In 1976, Parton began working with manager Sandy Gallen, and in 1980, she launched her film career, starry, with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin in 9 to 5, a comedy with a subversive subtext about discrimination against women. In the film, for which Parton wrote the theme song, three working women replace their sexist, domineering boss, and implement programs their colleagues like, including equal pay, flexible hours, and an on-site daycare center, all of which result in dramatically improved office productivity. A massive success at the box office, nine to five opened doors for Parton in the movie industry,

leading to parts in the best little whorehouse in Texas, steel magnolias, and other films. She and Gallen created a production company, Sand Dollar, which produced her television specials and the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. For almost 60 years, Parton was a member of the American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada, a labor union that represents about 70,000 singers and players and is affiliated with the AFL-CIO. She joined the Screen Actors Guild American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, or SAG AFRA, in 1969. AFM International President Tino Gagliardi told John Nichols of the nation, before she was an icon, Dolly was a working musician.

Dolly never forgot the musicians who helped bring her music to life. By standing firm for solidarity and treating every player with dignity, she elevated our entire profession. In 1989, Sand Dollar helped to bring awareness and empathy, to the AIDS crisis with the documentary Common Threads stories from the quilt. The film explored the lives of five of the individuals memorialized in panels on the AIDS Memorial Quilt and called attention to the Reagan administration's lack of response to the epidemic. In 1990, Common Threads won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, and in the 1991 Song Family,

that she wrote with Carl Perkins, Parton sang, Some are preachers, some are gay, some are addicts, drunks, and strays, but not a one is turned away when it's family. Some are lucky, others ain't. Some are fighters, others faint. Winners, losers, sinners, saints.

It's all family. In a conversation with host Larry King in 2016, Parton noted that she had taken heat for her support for the LGBT community, but that she did not believe that we should criticize and judge other people. I think we should be accepting and loving. We are all God's children. We are who we are, and we should be allowed to be who we are. I just think that we should be more loving, more caring.

We are who we are. If you're gay, you're gay. If you're straight, you're straight. and you should be allowed to be, you know, how you are, and who you are. In 1986, Parton bought an interest in a theme park owned by Jack and Pete Herschand in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Renamed Dollywood, the park became the biggest ticketed attraction in the state, now visited by about 4 million people a year and employing about 4,000. I always thought that if I made it big or got successful,

at what I had started out to do, that I wanted to come back to my part of the country and do something great, something that would bring a lot of jobs into this area, she told a reporter. Two years later, she established the Dollywood Foundation to support education in Severe County. In 1990, her buddy program decreased the high school dropout rate in classes that participated from 35% to 6%. In 2016, the Dollywood Foundation created the My People Fund, as in These Are My People, providing immediate financial assistance to families who lost their homes in wildfires in Severe County that November. It donated more than $12 million. In 2020, Parton donated a million dollars to Vanderbilt University Medical Center

to fund the research that allowed researchers to prove that, MRNA vaccine technology worked. That research led to grants that enabled development of the Moderna MRNA vaccine against COVID-19 that saved millions of lives. She also helped encourage others to get vaccinated, taking her own shot on camera in a dress she had cut the shoulders out of so the doctor would have easier access. Beginning in February 2022, under the Grow You program, Parton provided 100% free tuition, fees, and books to any of the 11,000 employees at any of the 25 amusement parks and attractions under Herschand Enterprises. The president of Dollywood told reporters that one of the key tenets of the Dollywood Foundation is to learn more. He said that Parton is very supportive of the employees learning and continuing to grow up.

themselves. That drive for growth and opportunity was behind Dolly Parton's imagination library, which Parton founded in 1995 to put books into the hands of every young child in Severe County. Her inspiration, she said, was her father, who was, the smartest man I have ever known, but I know in my heart his inability to read probably kept him from fulfilling all his dreams. The program has grown until it now serves children across the United States, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. In February 2018, Parton donated the 100 millionth book from her imagination library to the Library of Congress.

It was a copy of her book, Code of Many Colors, dedicated to her father. By the time Dolly Parton died on Tuesday, August 25th, at the age of 80, her Imagination Library had delivered more than 332 million books to more than 3 million children. When I was growing up in the hills of East Tennessee, I knew my dreams would come true. The Imagination Library website reads, I know there are children in your community with their own dreams. They dream of becoming a doctor or an inventor or a minister. Who knows, maybe there's a little girl whose dream is to be a writer and singer.

The seeds of these dreams are often found in books, and the seeds you help plant in your community can grow across the world. When children age out of Dolly's imagination library, they receive a final letter from her, hoping they would have a great time in school and urging them to keep reading. The letter ends, You and all of your friends are very special. There's no limit to what you can do or how far you can go. Just remember the lessons my family taught me.

dream big dreams learn everything you can learn and care for all those who care for you you do all of these things and you can be anyone you want to be you are terrific and remember i will always love you signed dolly Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dead of Massachusetts. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.