Katharine Gibbs & Her School Beyond White Gloves

An NEHGS member asked me, “Wasn’t Katie Gibbs a finishing school?” when I was researching the history of the world’s most famous secretarial school. My experience and research taught me otherwise.

Finishing schools prepared women for a life of leisure, while Gibbs prepared graduates for lives of financial and emotional independence. My challenges were learning where Katharine Ryan Gibbs (1863–1934) fit in the history of business education, separating the myths from the truth and presenting a history of the institution’s hundred years, 1911 to 2011.

Rose A. Doherty is a former faculty member and academic dean of School in and former chair of the board of trustees of From the 1945 Carbon, the yearbook of the Boston Katharine Gibbs School, p. 48. Gibbs College–Boston.

Winter 2015 American Ancestors 29 AmericanAncestors.org/american-ancestors-magazine & Do not reproduce without permission of NEHGS. The Academy of the Sacred Heart, class of 1882. Katharine Ryan is in the middle row on the right. Image courtesy of the Library Special Collections.

1880 she was Katie. On her high school records she was Kate, and her 1882 graduation picture from Academy of the Sacred Heart in was marked Katharine, the name she used for the rest of her life.5 After graduation Katharine Ryan visited her two brothers in Helena, Montana, and was recorded as Kittie Ryan in the Helena directory for 1889. William Gibbs, a jeweler from Medford, Massachusetts, lived in the same building as the Ryan brothers.6 Katharine Ryan, a Midwestern Irish- Catholic, and William Gibbs, a New England Protestant whose American ancestry can be traced to the early My history with Gibbs began when the organization’s early success, ended eighteenth century, married in New I was in the sixth grade. I distributed with Katharine Gibbs’s death in 1934. York City in 1896, when he was 41 and bridge cards and matchbooks at an Subsequently, the school and the legend alumnae bridge night in Providence, of Katharine Gibbs grew under the . I had never met profes- leadership of Gordon and Blanche sional women before; their elegance, Gibbs, her son and daughter-in-law, poise, and confidence were amazing to until the family sold the school in 1968. me. I grew up to be a faculty member, In the final era, the schools had several academic dean, and later chair of the corporate owners. The single curriculum board of trustees at Gibbs in Boston. governed by the central office gave way When I began teaching at Gibbs in to a new Gibbs that offered degrees, was Boston in the late 1970s, everyone still coed, and had multiple programs, each referred to Mrs. Gibbs as if she would responsive to local market demands. be back in a moment, although she had Each era is an important part of a story died decades earlier. After realizing in that lasted 100 years—and required my this century that the story of Gibbs was use of specific research skills. being lost, I resolved to write about this School founder Katharine Mary remarkable woman and her institution. (Ryan) Gibbs was the granddaughter of My book, Katharine Gibbs: Beyond Irish Catholic immigrants James M. White Gloves (2014), shows that the and Margaret Ryan, who settled in institution went beyond its dress code Galena, Illinois, with their family in image to prepare women and men to 1846.1 The 1847 Galena Directory succeed. The taglines “Stand above the lists James Ryan, Sr., and his unmar- crowd” and “Excellence in all you do” ried sons William and James, Jr.2 The were more than marketing slogans. latter, Katharine Gibbs’s father, mar- Those philosophies encapsulated the ried Catherine McNulta of St. Louis in high standards set by Katharine Gibbs October 1854.3 and her institution. The couple’s second daughter, born The history of the Katharine Gibbs in Galena on January 10, 1863, was Schools falls into three eras. The found- baptized Catherine Mary.4 In the 1870 ing era, which began in 1911 and saw federal census she was Catherine, and by

An ad from the May 1941 Rotarian, p. 62.

30 Need help? Call 1-888-296-3447. AmericanAncestors.org/american-ancestors-magazine & Do not reproduce without permission of NEHGS. she was 33.7 They moved to Providence, with people who were not well brought McLean, Virginia. She was the first Rhode Island, where sons William up, establishing the idea that her school in her family to graduate from Gibbs Howard and James Gordon were born in catered to a better class of student. but not the last—her grandniece was 1897 and 1900.8 The family later moved In order to support her family, a Gibbs student in Piscataway, New to Cranston, Rhode Island, and there Katharine Gibbs needed students who Jersey, in the 1980s. Family connec- William Gibbs fell from the mast of his could pay tuition. She advertised in tions could be found among a number yawl at the Edgewood Yacht Club and publications read by the prosperous and of Gibbs students and alumnae. For died intestate April 20, 1909.9 the aspiring, such as Dau’s Blue Book and instance, four sisters attended Gibbs in Katharine Gibbs was suddenly a Harper’s Bazar.14 She offered correspon- the 1920s, and in the 1980s one of them 46-year-old widow with two sons to dence courses in Providence, which pro- gave tuition there to her granddaughter support, a high school education, and duced income but incurred no expense as a college graduation present. no income. She even had to apply to be- for class time or space. After the United In the 1920s the school was in- come the guardian of her sons. The first States entered the First World War and corporated, the alumnae association evidence of her employment is the list- men were no longer available as stu- began, and the first alumnae magazine ing for Katharine M. Gibbs in the 1911 dents, she confidently changed her focus was published. In each issue of The Providence city directory as manager at to women. She was so successful that the Gibbsonian, Mrs. Gibbs wrote about her a business school.10 The funding for the public later assumed she had begun with vision of the world and what her former enterprise may have come from Brown only women’s education. pupils could accomplish. Graduates University friends or the undocu- Katharine Gibbs invaded Boston in of the 1920s include Katharine Towle, mented selling of her jewelry. The Gibbs 1917 and New York in 1918. She was Mary Sutton Ramsdell, and Mary Carr. century had begun. CEO of three schools two years before Katharine Towle was the first director of When Katharine Gibbs founded women could vote. To attract paying women Marines. In 1930 Mary Ramsdell her school in 1911, she accepted both students, she now carefully chose to was one of two women appointed to the men and women. At that time, only advertise in the Barnard Bulletin, Smith Massachusetts State Police force, making men were secretaries, and most work- Alumnae Quarterly, Radcliffe News, and them the first state policewomen in the ing women were domestics or factory The Woman’s Journal, published by the nation. Mary Carr was the secretary workers. If women were hired in offices, League of Women Voters. She knew that of Alfred E. Smith—the former New they were called “typewriters” after the college-educated women who could not York governor, America’s first Catholic machines they used. Katharine Gibbs find jobs were her perfect audience. Mrs. presidential candidate, and head of the was an entrepreneur in an era when Gibbs promoted the school by publish- construction program for the Empire that term was not applied to women, ing names of colleges and private prepa- State Building, from the late 1920s until and she educated women for business ratory schools that sent young women his death in 1944. when they were not welcome. The times to Gibbs. Listing the Seven Sisters (elite According to the 1930 federal census, were hostile enough for women that a women’s colleges with parallels to the Katharine Gibbs lived on Park Avenue in Harvard Medical School doctor could Ivy League), the Sorbonne, Miss Porter’s New York City with her sister, two sons, claim that higher education could cause School, and Milton Academy added and three live-in servants, and enjoyed the uterus to atrophy!11 prestige. Although Katharine Gibbs never took Almost a course in marketing, a Providence immediately, Journal writer noted that her “sense Gibbs gradu- of sell” was infallible.12 Katharine first ates thrived. used the Gibbs name in a newspaper Allegra advertisement on September 7, 1914, Maynard, a and the text, for the Gibbs Private 1919 gradu- School for Secretaries, set the tone for ate of the the enterprise. Gibbs was “especially Providence adapted to meet the needs of those to Gibbs School, whom attendance at a large commer- became the cial school would be distasteful.”13 She second head- implied that students at the large com- mistress of mercial schools, her most formidable the Madeira competition, might have to attend class School in

Gibbs graduate Mary Carr taking dictation from Alfred E. Smith. Image from the author’s collection.

Winter 2015 American Ancestors 31 AmericanAncestors.org/american-ancestors-magazine & Do not reproduce without permission of NEHGS. an income of what would be over $1.1 Back Bay. Gordon Gibbs made sure that million today.15 The school weathered every time the school was described, a devastating loss of enrollment in the adjectives “swanky,” “elegant,” and the Depression and adopted a plan to “genteel” were used. National maga- make Gibbs known for its excellence. zine stories included “How a Secretary Publications in the 1930s included the Trains” in Good Housekeeping (1942), codified requirements and qualifications “School for Super Secretaries” in of an executive secretary and the first Newsweek (1943), and “How to Educate Gibbs style manual. This manual was a Secretary” in the Saturday Evening the basis of the school’s famous English Post (1949). Commentators began com- course, which Gordon Gibbs later called paring Gibbs to the Ivy League schools, the best in the . and these parallels were drawn through How to order In 1934 the school survived the sui- the 1980s. Business Week ran a cover Katharine Gibbs: Beyond White 16 cide of elder son Howard Gibbs and story about Gibbs in 1961 to com- Gloves by Rose A. Doherty was pub- the death of Mrs. Gibbs two months memorate fifty years of excellence. The lished by the author in 2014. It can 17 later. Gordon Gibbs assumed the cover headline read, “Katharine Gibbs be purchased from Amazon.com as presidency and made two immediate School goes back to the basics—typing, either a soft-cover book, 233 pp., or changes. He married Gibbs graduate shorthand, spelling—to turn out that as a Kindle eBook. Blanche Lorraine and began a winter rare product: a good secretary.” campus in Bermuda, decades before Students became lawyers, CIA opera- study abroad was part of the college tives, and university faculty. The list of justice, visual communications, fashion experience. Gordon and Blanche Gibbs alumnae includes writers, a judge, a merchandising, and computer network- fostered the memory of Katharine college president, an award-winning ing operations. A hostile takeover of Gibbs as a symbol of excellence. geographer, a bank president, the first fe- Macmillan in 1988 resulted in the sale Publications proudly stated how many male editor of People magazine, a United of Gibbs to Phillips Colleges, then the executives asked for the small number States ambassador, an assistant secretary largest profit-making school owner. of Gibbs graduates. Businesses were of agriculture, and public figures such When scandal forced Phillips to sell, willing to wait (and pay more) for their as Meredith Vieira and actress Loretta former Macmillan executives bought graduates because they were so good. Swit. Famous faculty included Pulitzer Gibbs. The fourth and final owner was General William J. “Wild Bill” Donovan Prize winner Mark Van Doren and Career Education Corporation. In the said that the perfect wartime OSS office Joseph Wood Krutch. Lazlo Moholy- end all the Gibbs schools were degree- worker “was a cross between a Smith Nagy taught art appreciation and Olga granting and coed, with multiple cur- College graduate, a Powers model, and Samaroff Stokowski music appreciation. ricula responsive to each local economy. a Katie Gibbs secretary.”18 Employers represented every area of Unfortunately, the public image of War work demanded many hands, American life, from presidents of the Gibbs remained fixed as the white-glove and great numbers of office workers United States and major corporations to secretarial school, and in a much- were poorly trained. In 1943 Chicago famous personalities such as Julia Child, changed marketplace Gibbs was simply businessmen asked Gibbs to open a Barbara Walters, Charles Lindbergh, no longer profitable. Career Education campus in their city. Its alumnae kept Margaret Mead, Aristotle Onassis, and announced its intention to sell the meeting and supporting the school long the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. schools in 2008, but no buyer could be after the Chicago branch closure in After being sold by the family in found. The last campus, Gibbs College 1953. The first suburban school opened 1968, the good press continued. In in Boston, closed in 2011. in Montclair, New Jersey, in 1952 with 1982, Cosmopolitan announced that Because Katharine Gibbs: Beyond an amazing 140 students—the goal had Katie Gibbs was “Seventy-one and Still White Gloves was the first book about been 100. The Montclair facility was Typing Strong.” On April 16, 1986, the the institution and its founder, I had followed by one in Huntington, New New York Times noted “Top Secretarial to start from the beginning and find York, in 1972. Later campuses were at School, at 75, Trades White Gloves biographical information about the Ryan Norwalk and Farmington, Connecticut; for Computer.” The first non-family and Gibbs families and put Katharine , Valley Forge, and owner was Macmillan Publishing, Gibbs’s achievements in the context of Norristown, Pennsylvania; Piscataway which increased the number of cam- women’s history in the nineteenth and and Livingston, New Jersey; Vienna, puses to eleven from Boston to the early twentieth centuries. NEHGS’s Virginia; and Rockville, Maryland. Washington, D.C., area. The curriculum resources were my first very fruitful For decades Gibbs was the leading expanded to include word process- stop. Internet research made the work in secretarial school in the world, with ing, hotel and restaurant management, archives, probate offices, historical soci- student residences at the Barbizon and travel and conference planning. eties, and libraries in Illinois, Wisconsin, Hotel in Manhattan and in Boston’s Later programs included criminal Iowa, New York, Massachusetts, and

32 Need help? Call 1-888-296-3447. AmericanAncestors.org/american-ancestors-magazine & Do not reproduce without permission of NEHGS. From the 1945 Carbon, the yearbook of the Boston Katharine Gibbs School, p. 16.

Rhode Island more productive. that history that is not written down is Copies of the Gibbsonian and on- lost. The story of Katharine Gibbs and line newspaper databases helped her schools will not be lost because of me find articles about Gibbs and this book and because Brown University information about the tens of now houses the Gibbs archives. And thousands of graduates. I used Katharine Ryan Gibbs’s reputation con- social media to ask graduates to tinues to grow. She received the National complete a questionnaire. More Women’s History Project award in 2014 than 275 graduates from 1939 as a woman of character, courage, and to 2011 responded with an- commitment. swers, phone calls, and warm, The Gibbs program was not easy, but well-written essays about their Gibbs the education gained for careers and The Katharine Gibbs experience. Research of the Gibbs era life experience was excellent. When an School Records after the founder’s death was made easier NEHGS member asked me if Katie Gibbs because of the school’s public presence was a finishing school, I replied by relat- The Gibbs archive is housed at in American business and society. The ing the undocumented but often repeated the John Hay Library at Brown leads generated by the many magazine story of the father who thought he was University in Providence, Rhode and newspaper articles about Gibbs were sending his daughter to a finishing school Island. The first Gibbs School was easy to follow. but learned that he had instead sent her in Providence and, from 1922 Jill Lepore writes in Book of Ages: The to a business boot camp. to 1962, Gibbs was in Churchill Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin (2013) House on the Brown campus, now Notes the home of Brown’s Africana 1 The History of Jo Daviess County, Illinois in Providence, Rhode Island, 25 vols. City of Studies department. Mrs. Gibbs (Chicago: H. H. F. Kett & Co., 1878), 649. Providence,1879–1945.) employed faculty from Brown 2 The Galena Directory and Miner’s Annual 9 A death certificate for William Gibbs is in his and used her school’s proximity to Register, for 1847-8 (Galena, Illinois: E. S. probate file in the Cranston Town Clerk’s office. Brown as a selling point. Seymour, 1847), 27. 10 Providence City Directory and Rhode Island 3 Gibbs closed in 2011, but, The History of Jo Daviess County [note 1], 649. Business Directory for the Year commenc- 4 fortunately, Career Education St. Michael’s [Catholic] Church, Records of ing May 1. 1911 (Providence: Sampson and Baptisms, 1848–1889, Reel #1, Alfred Mueller Murdock Company, 1911), 742. Corporation, the last parent Historical Collection Room, Galena Public 11 Edward H. Clarke, M.D., Sex in Education; or, company of Gibbs, had gathered Library, Galena, Ill. A Fair Chance for the Girls (Boston: James R. extant archival material from all 5 Class of 1882 photograph, Academy of Osgood and Company, 1873), 84. of the campuses at its headquar- the Sacred Heart, image courtesy of the 12 Phyllis Meras, “45,000 Girls Are Glad Katie ters in Illinois. The collection was Manhattanville College Library Special Sold Her Jewels,” Providence Sunday Journal, transferred to Brown in 2011. The Collections, Purchase, N.Y. March 23, 1969. 6 Helena, Montana, Directories, 1889-91. 13 Classified Advertisement, Providence Journal, archive includes historical materi- Viewed at Ancestry.com May 29, 2010. September 7, 1914, 5. als dating from 1900 through 2008, 7 No record has been found for this marriage. 14 The magazine was known as Harper’s Bazar such as yearbooks, the alumnae In 1896, the Galena Gazette reported that the from its founding in 1867; the spelling was magazine, marketing materials, “marriage of Miss Catherine Ryan, second changed to Harper’s Bazaar in 1929. curricula, silver typing trophies, oldest daughter of Mr. James Ryan, deceased, 15 Katharine M. Gibbs household; 1930 U.S. and the Wilbur Fiske Noyes took place in New York Saturday.” Barbara Census; Manhattan, New York, N.Y.; roll 1559; portraits of Katharine M. Gibbs, Jean Tousey, comp., Index of Marriages & p. 15B; viewed on Ancestry.com. Deaths, 7 Volumes of Newspaper Clippings 16 “Dies in Park Av. Leap: W. H. Gibbs, Son of but does not contain any student [from the Galena Gazette], vol. 6. (n.p.: n.d.), Educator, Had Suffered Ear Ailment,” New York records. The collection is available 69. “In Appreciation of Mrs. Katharine M. Times, March 29, 1934, 46. for research, and those wishing to Gibbs,” The Gibbsonian. 5.3 (1934) 3 con- 17 “Katharine Gibbs, School Head, Dies: access the archive should first con- firmed the 1896 marriage date. Educator Noted for Methods of Training sult the online finding aid: http:// 8 William was born October 8, 1897 and James Young Women for Business Careers,” New York riamco.org/render.php?eadid=US- was born January 17, 1900. Providence, Times, May 10, 1934, 21. 18 RPB-ms2011.019&view=title. The RI: Alphabetical Index of Births, Marriages Elizabeth P. McIntosh, Sisterhood of Spies: and Deaths, 1636-1930. (Online database. The Women of the OSS (Annapolis, Md.: Naval John Hay Library website is library. AmericanAncestors.org, NEHGS, 2003. Institute Press, 1998), 14. brown.edu/hay/index.php. Originally published as: Alphabetical Index of the Births, Marriages and Deaths Recorded

Winter 2015 American Ancestors 33 AmericanAncestors.org/american-ancestors-magazine & Do not reproduce without permission of NEHGS. Katharine Gibbs Connections In November 2014, we asked our respondents attended Katharine Gibbs totally safe since none of us could read Facebook and Weekly Genealogist School/College and 215 had at least one shorthand. It was our annual Christmas enewsletter readers whether they had family member who did. Some of the j o ke .” connections to the Katharine Gibbs comments are below: Janet Malenfant of Cambridge, School. (For many years, the Boston Karen Sullivan of Newburgh, New York: Massachusetts: “My grandmother Katharine Gibbs School was a block “I’m an Army brat from the old genera- Marilyn (Leach) Schmid attended from NEHGS at 126 Newbury.) Forty- tion, and my father was a lieutenant Katharine Gibbs in Providence and it three colonel from an even older generation. qualified her for a job at a bank in that He told me that there were only three city at the beginning of World War II. appropriate careers for women: nurse, Later, she and my grandfather started teacher, or secretary. So even though their own business, a marina in south- I was offered several college scholar- ern Rhode Island. She was a shrewd ships and an opportunity to attend businesswoman and attributed her abil- the stewardess school at Pan Am, off ity to run the office like a tight ship to I went to secretarial school. Little the education she had at Gibbs.” did he know that I would end up as Susan B. Strange of Potomac, Maryland: a high-level computer specialist at “After graduating from junior college West Point. I’m happily retired now, in 1966, I attended Katharine Gibbs but I wish he could have seen my in Boston, taking the ‘Special Course success.” for College Women.’ The course work Anne Crockett of Woburn, was more difficult than one might Massachusetts: “My mother expect, especially the class in gram- was at American University in mar and punctuation called ‘Business Washington, D.C., until World Communications and Report Writing.’ War II started. Her parents While half my class of approximately wanted her home in Newton 100 girls (the common term then [Massachusetts] so she for women in their early 20s) was in moved back and went to shorthand class, the other half was in Katy Gibbs in Boston.” another room learning to type. There were perhaps ten electric typewriters, Nan Lauder Eckfeld of much in demand by classmates, lined Columbus, Ohio: “My up along the walls where there were mother, Lois Kathryn electrical outlets, but most of us were Hayes Lauder, gradu- stuck using clunky manuals. The names ated from the Katharine of our teachers have been lost to time, Gibbs School in New but I remember the typing teacher as a York City on June 17, round, friendly woman. The shorthand 1927, and her first job teacher was tall, angular and a stickler was secretary to Gordon for rules. There was to be NO talking as Gibbs, Katharine’s son. She the classes shifted between the short- commuted by train, first hand room and the typing room, where to the school and then to we would transcribe the shorthand we her job there, from South had just taken. The instructors would Norwalk, Connecticut. All stand in the hallway watching us closely. throughout our child- We were silent. We knew the rules. We hoods, Mom would make were Gibbs Girls in the making.” out her Christmas list in shorthand and leave it out where we kids could see it. But her secrets were

Left: A Katharine Gibbs School booklet, “The Secretary Knows Where to Find Facts,” and Susan Strange’s January 1967 Gibbs report card. Images courtesy of Susan Strange.

34 Need help? Call 1-888-296-3447. AmericanAncestors.org/american-ancestors-magazine & Do not reproduce without permission of NEHGS.