New England Icon Is Subject Of Needham Author’s Manuscript

BOSTON (December 18, 2007) – The most influential people are often those who seem to glimpse the future. Katharine Ryan Gibbs, who in 1911 founded the first Gibbs school in Providence, RI, was just such a person. At a time when only men were eligible to vote, Gibbs took a belief in the value of career education for women and pioneered an educational institution that has today grown into eight college-level schools in seven states. Tens of thousands of students have received quality educations through the network of learning that Gibbs established.

Needham resident Rose Doherty – chair of the board of trustees of Gibbs College of Boston, Inc., a private, two-year college -- is currently penning a biography of the school’s founder and a history of the institution. Doherty, who served two stints in senior administration at Gibbs, and also worked as a Northeastern University administrator until her 2004 retirement, views her efforts as a labor of preservation.

“She was brilliant, and so insightful,” says Doherty. “It’s hard to imagine the challenges that women in the business and education communities faced in those days, but she had already established three schools by the time the 19th Amendment guaranteed women the right to vote.”

“Time is passing rapidly, and I’m trying to fill in a historical gap,” says Doherty, who notes that no other full-length biography of Gibbs and her schools has been published. “She was an amazing woman, who was far ahead of her time, yet people in New England really aren’t aware of her. Essentially, Katharine Gibbs is a piece of American history, and she ought not to be forgotten.”

To that end, Doherty is putting the finishing touches on research as she moves on to the third draft of her manuscript. She will soon be seeking an agent for a project that currently has no specific deadline. Doherty will say only that she intends for the book to be completed prior to the centennial of the first Gibbs school in 2011.

Katharine Gibbs’ story begins back in 1863, when she was born on the Illinois frontier. In 1896 she married William Gibbs and had two children with him. At the age of 46, Gibbs was widowed when William fell from the mast of his boat. Quite suddenly, she was left with insufficient income to support her two young children, as well as her unmarried sister.

And so, with a $1,000 loan from various friends, Gibbs founded what was initially known as the Providence School for Secretaries. Interestingly, while intended primarily for women, the school’s first enrolled student is said to have been a man.

“She was married and approaching middle age – she certainly never thought she’d have to work,” Doherty explains. “But when faced with tragedy and very difficult circumstances, her response was truly amazing.”

After publishing an improved manual of shorthand in 1915, Gibbs borrowed additional funds and in 1917 opened additional schools in Boston and New York. All three schools grew rapidly, as Gibbs continued the revolutionary process of training women to be full fledged secretaries, rather than stenographers.

Today, in addition to Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New York, there are Gibbs campuses in Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia. The student population is evenly divided – approximately 50:50 – between men and women, and secretarial studies are long gone, replaced by such programs as Criminal Justice, Visual Communications, and Computer Network Operations.

“It really is an amazing story,” says Doherty. “And I just felt compelled to tell it.”

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