Educator, social worker. Hollis was born on a cotton farm in Chester County on November 29, 1883, the son of Peter Hollis, a farmer, and Juliet Gaston. He graduated from South Carolina College in 1905, and on June 5, 1907, he married Emma Clyde. The couple had four children. From 1923 to 1951 Hollis served as superintendent of the Parker School, considered one of the more innovative progressive schools in the United States.<\/p>\n
In 1911, while employed with the Young Men\u2019s Christian Association, Hollis became director of welfare activities for the Monaghan Mill and Parker Cotton Mills in Greenville County. In this role he organized mill communities to create a school district of elementary and secondary schools. \u201cDr. Pete,\u201d as he was affectionately called, merged his belief in progressive education with the vocational needs of the community. The Parker School, called a \u201cMill-Town Miracle\u201d in a 1941 issue of Reader\u2019s Digest, <\/em>served as a model for progressive, community schools, while the Parker District established basic health, aesthetic, vocational, general education, leisure, and environmental programs for both students and adults. Hollis is widely recognized for bringing the sport of basketball to South Carolina, organizing the first troop of Boy Scouts in the state, developing an adult education \u201cPeople\u2019s College\u201d for mill community residents, and creating an annual \u201cSinging Christmas Tree\u201d holiday event.<\/p>\n A charismatic individual who never removed himself from the textile community, Hollis inspired countless anecdotes depicting self-effacing humor, his inspirational traits as educator, and his fundamental \u201cfaith in the common man.\u201d Mary Ariail and Nancy Smith in Weaver of Dreams <\/em>recorded his educational beliefs as merging family and school: \u201cThe school should be the center of a community, and from its doors should flow ideas, love of learning, improvement of home life, readiness for jobs, friendship and love.\u201d Hollis represented a family-like presence as he offered advice to Parker students and parents on topics ranging from vocational opportunities to home furnishings. He worked to balance the wishes of employers, who sought a stable, educated, satisfied labor force, with the hopes of an illiterate, poverty-stricken, itinerant community that saw education as an opportunity for advancement. In doing so, Hollis may be questioned for his paternalism and \u201cmalefic generosity,\u201d a common criticism of progressive education, where the motives of the educator may be seen as self-serving. Under Hollis\u2019s direction, the Parker School embraced the objectives of welfare capitalism as they produced a loyal and productive workforce.<\/p>\n With school consolidation in 1951 in an effort to \u201cequalize\u201d education and justify \u201cseparate but equal\u201d school systems, Hollis retired as the Parker District merged with over eighty other districts to form the Greenville County School District. His retirement prompted many accolades, including Greenville\u2019s Man of the Year, the Retired Educator of South Carolina award, and inclusion in Look <\/em>magazine\u2019s one hundred outstanding educators. Hollis died in Greenville on December 13, 1978, and was buried in Springwood Cemetery.<\/p>\n Ariail, Mary G., and Nancy J. Smith. Weaver of Dreams: \u201cA History of the Parker District.\u201d <\/em>Columbia, S.C.: R. L. Bryan, 1977.<\/p>\n Tippett, James S. Schools for a Growing Democracy. <\/em>Boston: Ginn, 1936.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Educator, social worker. Hollis was born on a cotton farm in Chester County on November 29, 1883, the son of Peter Hollis, a farmer, and Juliet Gaston. He graduated from South Carolina College in 1905, and on June 5, 1907, he married Emma Clyde. The couple had four children. From 1923 to 1951 Hollis served […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":17044,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","class_list":["post-4545","entry","type-entry","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","ecms-a-z","ecms-chester-county","ecms-civil-rights-era-1955-1969","ecms-education","ecms-encyclopedia","ecms-great-depression-1930-1938","ecms-greenville-county","ecms-h","ecms-industry-and-the-gilded-age-1878-1889","ecms-jazz-age-1919-1929","ecms-midlands","ecms-post-war-america-1946-1954","ecms-recreation-and-leisure","ecms-the-modern-state-1970-present","ecms-turn-of-the-century-1890-1913","ecms-upstate","ecms-world-war-i-1914-1918","ecms-world-war-ii-1939-1945"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n