Katharine Gibbs: Beyond White Gloves

How does a 46–year–old widow with no income, two sons to support, and only a high school education survive? If you are Katharine Gibbs, you found a secretarial school in 1911 that becomes the best in the world and gives women the ability to support themselves. Katharine Gibbs was CEO of three schools two years before women could vote. She was an entrepreneur who educated women for business when they were not welcome. She created her school in hostile times when a Harvard Medical School doctor said that higher education could cause the uterus to atrophy! After her death, the family fostered the icon of Gibbs excellence worldwide and added Chicago, Bermuda, and suburban New Jersey campuses. Gordon Gibbs, son of the founder, said, “This is not my school or my family’s; it’s a national institution.” The national institution underwent many changes in its one hundred years. The last owners were large corporations who kept the core tradition of excellence. Multiple campuses, new programs of study, the introduction of degrees, and male students remade Gibbs with adaptability reminiscent of the founder. The Gibbs family motto Tenax proposit, Hold to your purpose, motivated graduates from 1911 to 2011. The stories of Gibbs graduates–bank president, college president, US ambassador, CIA operatives, lawyers, writers, graphic designers, professionals in many fields–are told in each chapter.