It’s a long-time movie staple: an attractive young lady comes to the big city (generally Manhattan) with stars in her eyes. She gets a low-level job and struggles to move forward, while at the same time fending off the advances of cads and hoping to find True Love. It’s a plotline exemplified by the all-star 1959 film, The Best of Everything (based on a steamy Rona Jaffe best-seller). But the same basic story thread shows up elsewhere too, as in 2006’s well-loved The Devil Wears Prada, in which—for a change—the all-controlling boss is a woman. In most films of this sort, the ending for the central character is basically (despite some missteps along the way) happily ever after.
The notion of smart, well-trained young women finding their place in the world of work was central to a once-powerful American institution, the Katharine Gibbs School. Far more than a secretarial college, Gibbs (which in its heyday had several east coast campuses) was a place where bright young women could pave their way to future success. While working hard to master demanding courses in typing and shorthand, Gibbs students also were schooled in literature, psychology, finance, and other fields, all the better to make them ideal employees. Some laughed at the dress code: when in public, Gibbs “girls” were required to be elegantly turned out, in neat suits, face-framing hats, and white gloves. But Gibbs alumna were models of professionalism, with the skills and the confidence to move beyond entry-level positions and attain the highest ranks in fields like government, banking, publishing, and even aviation. Several, in fact, made their mark in the entertainment industry, not only as actors (Loretta Swit of M*A*S*H fame was a graduate) but also as behind-the-scenes executives, writers, and publicists
I know all of this because of a fascinating new book by a colleague, Vanda Krefft. Her Expect Great Things!: How the Katharine Gibbs School Revolutionized the American Workplace for Women traces the institution from its founding through the war years, exploring the lives of highly-successful Gibbs graduates, many of whom managed to combine career success with happy family lives. She parses the triumphs of the Fifties, then reveals how, in the turbulent late Sixties, the whole Gibbs philosophy fell by the wayside as second-wave feminism and the general iconoclasm of the era made the old rules seem out-moded.
Though I was captivated by many of women featured in Krefft’s well-researched and nicely written pages, what sticks in my mind is the story of the school’s founder. She was born in 1863 in Galena, Illinois, one of eight children of a businessman who, despite immigrant roots, worked his way into a position of wealth and power in his local community. In an age when upper-class women were meant to be merely decorative, Katharine lived comfortably, but never went beyond a high school education. Her father’s sudden death changed everything; since he left no will, her older brothers took charge, and managed to squander the estate.. Ultimately she married and had two children, but, when she was forty-six, her well-meaning husband died in a freak boating accident. Again there was no will, and she had to fight even to be the decision-maker for her own sons. Left with nothing but mouths to feed, she decided to start a school teaching other woman how to think for themselves, and how—in times of crisis—not to be beholden to men for their livelihood. Somehow it worked. I can well imagine Gibbs’ story on the big screen, maybe with a plucky Claudette Colbert or Joan Crawford in the leading role.
