The official & full title of this non-fiction history is "EXPECT GREAT THINGS!: How the Katharine Gibbs School Revolutionized the American Workplace for Women" but that seemed like a lot to put in the title of my review.

Which is no commentary at all on the quality of the book other than an agreement that the Katharine Gibbs School, which I had never heard of until I got the chance to read Ms. Krefft's book, absolutely did revolutionize and shape the role of women in America and American history in general. It could possibly be argued that the subtitle is too restrictive given the impact the women who studied at the school had on all of us through to this day, but that would also in no way take away from the value of the book.

And the value is largely in womens' history, and the stories of women we might not have ever heard of but who have changed our lives.

The school Katharine Gibbs started when she was left a mostly penniless widow with two young sons to raise is the thread that ties this particular part of history together. Being born out of Katharine Gibbs' near ruin because she was entirely at the mercy of men and their decisions, and her subsequent resolve that no woman would be in that place if she could help it made the school incredibly important in a wide variety of ways.

The author weaves a huge number of personal, individual stories together seamlessly as the passage of time in the American story carries on. It was a pleasure to read and I learned so much from the story of this school.

I received a an early copy of EXPECT GREAT THINGS! from NetGalley and Algonquin Books.

This is a serious and thoroughly engaging book about a unique cohort of educated women who worked in corporate America in the 20th century. The Katharine Gibbs School was founded in the 1930's to give women rigorous training in the skills required of secretaries so that they might become financially independent women at a time when women's opportunities to support themselves were extremely limited. The rise of large, prosperous corporations after World War II created an even greater need for highly skilled secretaries. The unique contributions of the Gibbs School lay in their rigorously high standards in training office skills but also in creating young women who were "cultured." They were offered courses taught by professors at Ivy League universities in art, history, and literature as well as workshops offered by fashion editors and etiquette coaches. Graduates were in high demand and readily found jobs working in a wide variety of settings. The heart of the book is the series of chapters offering detailed and engaging portraits of some of the school's most accomplished graduates. They were extraordinary women and I enjoyed reading their stories. I appreciated the depth of research the author brought to these compassionate portraits. However, I detected a whiff of disdain for the activism of second wave feminists, which the author contrasted with the character of the Gibbs graduates she chose to portray in this book. While it's true that the Gibbs School did not encourage their graduates to push for fundamental changes in corporate life, but rather to serve its purposes, one wonders whether the school was able to fully indoctrinate all of their students in avoiding controversy. There is no doubt that the Gibbs School gave the women depicted here a foot in the door to a richly rewarding work life, but it didn't create a juggernaut the changed the landscape of working life in America. Thus, the panegyric tone in describing the importance of the Gibbs School was a bit unjustified in places. Nevertheless, this book is an important contribution to the history of working women in 20th century America. I'm glad to have been educated about the unique education Katharine Gibbs offered and to be inspired by the stories of some of its most interesting graduates.