The doctor who delivered Dolly Parton in a one-room Tennessee cabin in 1946 was paid with a sack of cornmeal. Her father farmed other people's land and could not read or write. Eighty years later, the reading program she built in his name has mailed more than 300 million books.
She wrote "I Will Always Love You" on the same afternoon she wrote "Jolene," as a goodbye to Porter Wagoner, and released it in 1974. Elvis wanted it. The night before the session, Colonel Tom Parker called and said Presley would only record it if they got half the publishing, meaning half of everything the song ever earned. She had been in Nashville ten years by then. She said no, and cried all night. Whitney Houston cut her version in 1992, held number one for fourteen weeks, and Forbes later put Parton's royalties from it near $10 million. She put some of that money into an office complex in Nashville and called the place the house that Whitney built.
Dollywood opened in Pigeon Forge in 1986 because she wanted paychecks in the county she came from. Around 4,000 people work there now. Three million visitors come every year. The University of Tennessee put its economic impact at $1.8 billion, and it is the largest employer in Sevier County. Since 2022 the company has paid tuition, fees, and books in full for every worker from their first day, seasonal hires included.
Wildfires tore through those mountains in November 2016, killing fourteen people and destroying more than 2,400 buildings. Her foundation was handing out money within 48 hours. Every family that lost a home got $1,000 a month for six months, regardless of income. The final check was $5,000. Total delivered: $8.9 million.
In April 2020 she sent $1 million to Vanderbilt for coronavirus research. When Moderna's vaccine results ran in the New England Journal of Medicine that November, her fund appeared in the footnotes.
Carl Dean, her husband of nearly sixty years, died in March 2025. The note she wrote to fans afterward ended with the same five words she wrote for Porter Wagoner back in 1974. She died in Nashville today. Her family asked that instead of flowers, people give to the Imagination Library, which still mails 3.4 million books a month to children who will never get to meet her.
no but genuinely how do these people get their ai slop sold in stores meanwhile actual illustrators and authors struggle to get their stuff out there at all
like i need every girl to eat a burger a day in protest or some shit atp. don’t stop being annoying about ai or the skinny pandemic. if the consumer floods every post with negativity it inevitably forces the hand. anyway lmao ily
The Riley Gaines/Sophie Cunningham narrative is BS. First off, trans girls are not "biological men" vs. "little girls." This framing is a lie, used to imply trans girls are predators.
And, over 4,000 girls play in BOYS sports right now. So even boys aren't dangerous apparently because as we speak 20x as many girls are competing against boys in boys sports as the only 100 trans girl athletes who currently compete.
Even Sophie herself played on a boys football team. And that was perfectly safe for her... being the only girl on a 50 boy team. So how can 50 girls be unsafe in the presence of 1 trans girl? THEY ARE LYING,
So even their lie is not something the truly believe. Protect trans girls for these religious zealots. This is all about their religion and control and the "men" narrative is just designed to make you turn the other way when they attack trans existence.
“To protect a little rodent” I can’t even voice my rage right now. They are going to kill innocent animals and destroy their environment. They’re going to destroy sacred land and national parks that have been protected for decades. All these people do is destroy. Something has to be done to protect these animals and land. Someone needs to do something.
if it wasn't already blatantly clear, physical media, community education, and oral history are SO. SO. SO. SO. SOSOSOSO. IMPORTANT!!!! to upkeep.
please buy and OWN your media.
PLEASE properly educate yourself and your community.
they WILL try to rewrite history!!!!!