Truman Mitchell Pierce was born in Coosa County, Alabama in 1906. The eldest of eight children born to Willie Mitchell and Martha Temperance Pierce, he was raised in Equality, Alabama and completed his high school education at the Thorsby Institute in Thorsby, Alabama. Pierce graduated from Piedmont College in Georgia in 1925 and, in 1926, became a social science teacher at the Martha Berry Schools (now Berry College) in Rome, Georgia. He was a principal in Autaugaville, Alabama from 1927-1930. He taught science and math in DeKalb County, Alabama from 1930-1932 and was a principal at Cedar Bluff, Alabama from 1932-1938. In 1938, he, his wife Lucille, and their newborn daughter Jean moved to Tallassee, Alabama where Pierce was principal from 1938 until 1944. In 1944, he became a research assistant and instructor at Columbia University where he earned his Ph.D. in 1946. After completing his doctoral work, Pierce returned to Alabama as the Dean of the College of Education at Troy State Teachers College. From 1947-1950, he served as Associate Professor and Professor of Education at the University of Tennessee. From 1950-1955, Pierce served as Director of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation funded SSCPEA(Southern States Cooperative Program in Educational Administration) at Peabody College in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1955, Pierce became Dean of the School of Education at Alabama Polytechnic Institute. Pierce remained at Alabama Polytechnic Institute, later renamed Auburn University, until his retirement in 1975. The Truman Pierce Institute for the Advancement of Teacher Education was founded in 1982 to continue the work Pierce began as Dean.