Dorothy

The Library of Congress called Parton a “titan of children’s literacy” for the millions of free books provided monthly through her Imagination Library. Also well-known is the $1 million gift she made to Vanderbilt University’s Medical Center to help develop Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine. The not-for-profit Dolly Parton Children’s Hospital recently received an undisclosed sum to improve pediatric care across eastern Tennessee.

Parton’s most recognizable and powerful depiction of class is “9 to 5,” a story of a woman who is “trapped in a rich man’s game.” The song was penned for the 1980 film of the same name, which saw Parton star alongside Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin as three exhausted women who turn the tables on their sexist, exploitative boss.

The fourth of 12 children from a poor Appalachian family, Parton said her father inspired the Imagination Library. He was a “very smart man,” she once recalled, and she “often wondered what he could have done had he been able to read and write.” Kids across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia have received more than 330 million books since the program began.

Her father, Robert Lee Parton, never learned to read or write, but he became the inspiration for Dolly’s education work. In 1995, she started Imagination Library, mailing free books to children in her home county. It has since exploded into a global operation, delivering more than 3 million books a month across the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Ireland, and Australia. In total, the program has now shipped more than 300 million books.

She’s also given away millions of dollars to natural disaster relief over the years—raising $700,000 for flood victims near her home in 2021, and contributing $1 million toward Hurricane Helene recovery in East Tennessee in 2024, on top of another $1 million from her businesses and the Dollywood Foundation.

Parton endures above all for her triumphs as a musician: she sold a hundred million records, landed forty-four albums in the country music top ten, and crossed over into the Hot 100. Of the more than three thousand songs she wrote, several are among pop music’s most beloved, including “Jolene,” “9 to 5,” and “I Will Always Love You” — the latter made instantly recognizable by Whitney Houston’s immortal cover.