In the pantheon of American educational institutions that shaped the 20th century, few have been as influential yet as overlooked as the Katharine Gibbs School. Vanda Krefft’s meticulously researched “Expect Great Things!” offers a compelling corrective to this historical oversight, revealing how an institution often dismissed as merely a “finishing school for secretaries” quietly revolutionized women’s access to the professional world.
Krefft, whose previous work includes the acclaimed biography “The Man Who Made the Movies: The Meteoric Rise and Tragic Fall of William Fox,” brings the same narrative flair and scholarly rigor to this social history. Through vibrant storytelling and carefully excavated personal accounts, she illuminates how generations of “Gibbs girls” used their white gloves and impeccable typing skills as Trojan horses to infiltrate the male-dominated business world.
From Personal Tragedy to Educational Revolution
“Expect Great Things!” begins with Katharine Gibbs’s own remarkable story. In 1909, at age 46, this comfortable middle-class wife suddenly found herself widowed when her husband William died after falling from the mast of his sailboat. The tragedy revealed an even more devastating truth: despite their comfortable lifestyle, William had left no will and virtually no money. Worse still, under Rhode Island law, Katharine had to petition the court for guardianship of her own children.
This shattering experience transformed the previously conventional Katharine into a determined entrepreneur. As Krefft writes with characteristic insight: “No longer willing to stand next to power, spending her time on busywork like arranging private railroad cars and limousines, she vowed to change her life.”
In 1911, Katharine purchased a nondescript secretarial school in Providence, borrowed money from wealthy friends, and began crafting an educational model that would do far more than teach typing. Her vision? To equip young women not just with office skills but with cultural sophistication, strategic thinking, and unshakable confidence—tools they could use to climb far beyond the secretarial pool.
Beyond Typing: The Gibbs Curriculum
One of the book’s greatest strengths is Krefft’s detailed exploration of the Gibbs curriculum. Far from simply drilling students on stenography, the school offered what amounted to a compressed liberal arts education alongside vocational training. Distinguished professors from Harvard, Columbia, and MIT taught literature, economics, philosophy, and art appreciation.
The standards were brutally high—typing had to be perfect, not a single error allowed; shorthand had to be captured at 120 words per minute; grooming and poise were scrutinized relentlessly. Yet these standards served a purpose beyond mere perfectionism. As Krefft notes, “Meeting these unforgiving, grueling demands bred strength into the bone. It showed young women who thought they couldn’t that they could excel—and if at this task, then likely at any other on which they set their sights.”
Tales of Extraordinary Graduates
The heart of “Expect Great Things!” lies in the stories of Gibbs graduates who leveraged their training to extraordinary effect. Some highlights include:
- Katherine Towle, who rose to become a Colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps and the first female head of the Women Marines
- Joye Hummel, the first woman to write Wonder Woman comics
- Clare Ferraro, who became president of Viking Books
- Loretta Swit, the Emmy-winning actress known for her role as Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan on MAS*H
- Emily Pike, who became a powerful Republican political strategist
- Jean Drewes, who served as social secretary to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor
What emerges is a fascinating tapestry of women who used their Gibbs training—particularly their ability to navigate male power structures while maintaining their own authority—to forge paths in fields from publishing to politics, from entertainment to the military.
Historical Context and Cultural Impact
Krefft excels at situating the Gibbs phenomenon within the broader currents of 20th-century American history. She shows how the school filled a crucial gap for ambitious women at a time when professional schools remained largely closed to them:
“For much of the twentieth century, the name ‘Katharine Gibbs’ had been synonymous with women’s empowerment. The school had tapped a large, hidden reservoir of female ambition that had nowhere else to go, blocked as it was by minuscule quotas or male-only admissions policies at professional schools and hemmed in by social norms that demanded marriage and motherhood.”
Particularly illuminating is Krefft’s analysis of how Gibbs graduates navigated the contradictory messages of different eras—from the “New Woman” of the 1920s to the enforced domesticity of the 1950s to the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s.
Strengths and Weaknesses
What Shines:
- Rich primary sources: Krefft draws on yearbooks, school brochures, personal correspondence, and interviews with alumnae to create a vivid portrait of Gibbs life across decades.
- Balanced perspective: While celebrating Gibbs’s achievements, Krefft acknowledges its limitations, including its limited racial diversity and its sometimes rigid adherence to traditional femininity.
- Engaging narratives: The personal stories of graduates bring theoretical points about gender and opportunity to life.
- Historical context: Krefft deftly weaves in the broader societal forces that shaped both the school and its students.
Areas for Improvement:
- Structure: Occasionally, the chronological organization is interrupted by thematic chapters, which can make the timeline difficult to follow.
- Geographic scope: While the New York and Boston schools receive ample attention, the Chicago and Montclair branches remain somewhat underdeveloped.
- Class analysis: Though Krefft acknowledges that Gibbs primarily served middle and upper-class women, a deeper examination of class dynamics would have strengthened the analysis.
- Cultural criticism: The book sometimes accepts the Gibbs philosophy at face value without fully interrogating its alignment with respectability politics.
A Timely Reassessment
“Expect Great Things!” arrives at a moment when questions about women’s education, professional advancement, and the meaning of success continue to evolve. The Gibbs story offers a nuanced case study in how women have navigated systems not designed for them.
What makes this book particularly valuable is Krefft’s recognition that progress isn’t always linear or ideologically pure. The Gibbs approach—working within existing power structures while gradually expanding women’s roles—was neither as radical as later feminist movements nor as accepting of the status quo as it might have appeared. As Krefft writes:
“What those feminists who pilloried Alan Baker at the New York Gibbs school in 1970 didn’t appreciate was that Gibbs graduates had helped lay the foundation for their theoretical arguments. Women were equal? As an idea alone, that wasn’t going to sell, not to men who were used to dealing only with men in authority. But Gibbs women showed they could run everything from an executive office to an entire company or government agency.”
Comparable Works and Context
Readers who enjoy “Expect Great Things!” might also appreciate Paulina Bren’s “The Barbizon: The Hotel That Set Women Free,” which explores another institution that shaped independent women’s lives in mid-century America. Julia Cooke’s “Come Fly the World,” about Pan Am stewardesses, similarly examines how women created professional opportunities within constrained roles.
Krefft’s book also complements broader histories of working women such as Gail Collins’s “When Everything Changed” and Lynn Povich’s “The Good Girls Revolt,” offering a specific institutional case study that enriches our understanding of women’s professional evolution.
Final Assessment
“Expect Great Things!” deserves high praise for recovering a significant but underappreciated chapter in American women’s history. Through meticulous research and engaging prose, Krefft demonstrates how the Katharine Gibbs School functioned as both a reflection of its time and a catalyst for change.
The book’s greatest achievement lies in its nuanced understanding of how progress often happens: not through dramatic upheaval but through strategic persistence. The Gibbs graduates who “infiltrated, worked hard, and earned respect” may not have smashed patriarchal structures, but they widened the cracks enough for future generations to break through.
For readers interested in the history of women’s education, professional development, or American social change, “Expect Great Things!” offers both enlightening analysis and captivating human stories. Krefft has produced a valuable contribution to our understanding of how institutions shape lives—and how determined individuals can reshape institutions.
In the end, “Expect Great Things!” accomplishes what Katharine Gibbs herself might have approved: it takes seriously the ambitions, strategies, and achievements of women who refused to accept the limitations imposed on them, instead finding creative ways to expand their opportunities. By recovering their stories, Krefft ensures that the quiet revolution led by white-gloved women typing at 90 words per minute finally receives the recognition it deserves.
