Boles, Jacqueline
BOLES, Dr. Jacqueline
Jackie was born to Hazel (Jensen) and John Miles on February 09, 1932 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her father's occupation as a land speculator kept the family moving often, state by state across the midwest, until they setttled in Tennessee, Jackie then a teenager. She dreamed of becoming a nurse and wearing a starched blue cape and red hat as her aunt had done as a military nurse and enolled in the Vanderbilt University Nursing program but was too independant a thinker for her professors' taste and was therefore to "encouraged" to pursue another occupation.
Soon after, she met Don, her husband of 50 years. He was a performer in a carnival side show and had "a torture act that was the most romantic thing i'd ever seen". The duo were soon traveling the country performing their mind-reading act and spook show. They eventually settled in Atlanta where she began her studies. She often credited her husband with steering her to a life in academia.
She received her undergraduate degree in 1958 from Oglethorpe College, her M.A. from Emory University 1960, and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Georgia in 1973. Jackie Boles was an esteemed faculty member in Georgia State University's Sociology Department for more than 35 years, rising to the rank of Professor and retiring with her appointment as Professor Emerita. She did it all, and with grace and understatement. Jackie was a first-rate scholar. She published over 40 articles in professional journals, wrote many chapters in edited volumes, and presented dozens of papers at national and regional meetings. Jackie was interested in people, especially people who engaged in unusual occupations and behaviors. She was a major contributor to the study of deviant occupations with her work on the lives of male, female, and transgender strippers, prostitutes, carnival workers, and gamblers, among others. She was curious about their lifestyle and subculture, but most of all she wanted to tell their stories from their perspective, with sympathy and understanding. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, together with Kirk Elifson, she received major grants from the CDC to study the epidemiological risk factors associated with HIV infection among male and female prostitutes. This project led to multiple publications, presentations, and provided a major direction for her research for years to come. Her final project was an in-depth study of people in show business, Life Upon the Wicked Stage: A Sociological Study of Entertainers (2012), with a picture of her husband in his stage costume on the cover. Jackie was such a gracious colleague that her co-authors and collaborators often became life-long friends.
Jackie Boles, a successful scholar, was a one-of-a-kind teacher who will be long remembered by colleagues in the GSU Sociology Department and by her legion of former students. Jackie's laugh was unforgettable. It was a booming, heart-felt, and gleeful laugh that filled the largest lecture rooms and echoed across adjacent hallways to the absolute joy of all around her. She regularly taught classes on the topics of popular culture, work and employment, sex roles, and gays and lesbians in society. Generations of GSU students flocked to her classes as much to experience her warmth and engaging presence as to be fascinated by her first-hand accounts of the people she studied. Frequently her former students continued to visit her office and remained in close contact with her for years to come. The Sociology Department created the Jacqueline Boles Teaching Fellowship in 2000 in her honor, in appreciation of her distinguished academic career and genuine love of teaching. To quote one of its recipients, Jackie had the gift to "see the humanity in all people she met." Jackie passed on December 06, 2020 and will be terribly missed by her surviving children, David, Dan, Robyn and Sarah, her 4 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren. The family hopes to have a celebration of jackie's life in the spring, her favorite time of year.
