Mary Boyce Temple

Who was Mary Boyce Temple?

Mary Boyce Temple was an American philanthropist and socialite, active primarily in Knoxville, Tennessee, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She was the first president of the Ossoli Circle, the oldest federated women's club in the South, and published a biography of the club's namesake, Margaret Fuller Ossoli, in 1886. She also cofounded the Tennessee Woman's Press and Author's Club, the Knoxville Writer's Club, and the Knox County chapter of the League of Women Voters. She represented Tennessee at various international events, including the Paris Exposition of 1900 and at the dedication of the Panama Canal in 1903.

Temple was the founder and long-time regent of the Bonny Kate Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and helped launch Knoxville's preservationist movement with her efforts to save Blount Mansion in the 1920s. In her later years, she donated tens of thousands of dollars to the University of Tennessee for agricultural research, and left the bulk of her estate to the university after her death.