Katharine Gibbs School records (Ms.2011.019)

Katharine Gibbs was born Katharine Ryan in Galena, IL in 1863. She was educated at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Manhattanville, NY and graduated as a member of the first class in 1882. She married William Gibbs in 1896. They settled in Cranston, RI and had two sons: William Howard Gibbs in 1898 and James Gordon Gibbs in 1900. Katharine was widowed in 1909 at the age of 46 when her husband (Vice-Commodore of the Edgewood Yacht Club) fell from the mast of his boat. She had to support her 2 young sons and her unmarried sister, Mary Ryan.

Katharine Gibbs borrowed $1000 from friends who were Brown University faculty members and bought the Providence School for Secretaries in 1911. Her goal was to educate young women to be secretaries rather than stenographers. Ironically, the first student was a man, Marshall H. Sheldon. The school was first located at 155 Angell Street in Providence, RI later known as Churchill House and the home of the Africana Studies Department at Brown University.

The school was boosted by World War I when more women were needed in the business world as the men went off to fight in Europe. The American Red Cross invited Katharine to manage the secretarial training school in Boston in 1917. That same year, Katharine opened the Boston School for Secretaries with "a wartime call for college women with business education." The following year she opened the New York School for Secretaries on Park Avenue at 40th Street. In 1920 the name was changed to the Katharine Gibbs Schools of Secretarial and Executive Training for Women and in 1928 the school was incorporated.

Katharine Gibbs died at the age of 71 in 1934. James Gordon Gibbs succeeded his mother as President and expanded the schools to Chicago, IL (1943) and Montclair, NJ (1950). The Chicago School closed in 1954 but the New York school expanded and moved into the brand new Pan Am Building (later MetLife Building) on Park Avenue. James Gordon sold the schools to Macmillan, Inc. in 1968 and retired when neither of his 2 daughters showed an interest in business. His wife, Blanche Gibbs (former Executive Secretary to Katharine Gibbs), then became President until 1970.

Starting in 1970, the school expanded by adding an additional 7 locations: Long Island, NY (1971); Norwalk, CT (1973); Philadelphia, PA (1977); Rockville, MD (1983); Valley Forge, PA (1983); Tysons Corner, VA (1984); Piscataway, NJ (1984).

It also expanded the courses offered to include: Word Processing Program (1980), Travel and Conference Planning Program (1986), Legal Assistant Program (1986), Administrative Assistant Program (1986), Hotel and Restaurant Management Program (1987), Microcomputing / Accounting Associate Degree Program (1988), Graphic Design (circa 1999), Criminal Justice, Computer Technology, Health Care Administration, Business Administration, Fashion Design and Merchandise Degree program (2001).

The Montclair, NJ branch of the school was authorized as a college in 1999 by the New Jersey Commission on Higher Education. It changed its name to Gibbs College.

Macmillan, Inc. sold the Katharine Gibbs Schools to Phillips Colleges, Inc. in 1989. It was then bought by K-III Communications Corporation in 1994. The final owner was Career Education Corporation which purchased it in 1997. All branches of the school closed in 2011.