Expect Great Things!

“Ms. Krefft brings prodigious research to bear. And she does a thorough job of analyzing the school’s evolving role in the culture.”

“An exuberant and fascinating look back at how the uphill battle women faced inspired them to be creatively subversive. Readers will be engrossed.”

“The book features impressive stories and photographs of students… Readers interested in women’s rights, feminism, and the history of the Barbizon Hotel for Women (where many students resided) will find this piece of history informative and entertaining.”​

“A fresh contribution to women’s history.” ​

“Readers can indeed expect great things from Vanda Krefft’s engaging new book. Deeply researched with vivid historical details, the book both inspires and entertains. This cinematic portrait of the Gibbs women is Mad Men in reverse—sure to be picked up for its own television series!”

"Vanda Krefft conducts a thorough survey of the fascinating Katharine Gibbs School and the women it produced—women who went on to break real ground in a sexist world. These stories of the Katharine Gibbs graduates give us a new way to look at American history in the 20th century, through the beautifully detailed tales of their accomplishments and audacity. A dynamic portrait of an heretofore overlooked piece of American culture."

"During the twentieth century, most educational establishments catered only reluctantly to the changing status and aspirations of women. But one gutsy young widow from Rhode Island was ahead of the game, as Vanda Krefft shows in this splendid account of the life of Katharine Gibbs and the schools she founded. In lively prose, Krefft outlines how the schools evolved from training perfect (and perfectly groomed) helpmates for male bosses, to educating modern women eager and qualified to take control of their own lives. Her accounts of the varied and often astonishing careers of Gibbs graduates sparkle with drama. Expect Great Things! is a fascinating exploration of how one woman’s example of self-assurance, hard work, and imagination quietly helped lay the groundwork for feminist challenges to the status quo."

"The Katharine Gibbs School trained tens of thousands of women—white gloves and all—to battle sexism and succeed in business, government, entertainment, politics, and more. The struggle for workplace equality continues."

“A well-researched history of not only the Gibbs schools but also an era when working women quietly became pioneers.”

"Expect Great Things!" deserves high praise for recovering a significant but underappreciated chapter in American women's history. Through meticulous research and engaging prose, Krefft demonstrates how the Katharine Gibbs School functioned as both a reflection of its time and a catalyst for change."

"Expect Great Things! serves as an important corrective to our understanding of twentieth-century feminism and women's educational history. It reveals how, decades before women openly demanded equality in the workplace, Katharine Gibbs and her graduates were quietly creating pathways to power and influence...For anyone interested in women’s history, educational institutions, or the subtle mechanics of social change, Expect Great Things! is an illuminating and essential read."

“Fascinating... I was captivated by many of women featured in Krefft’s well-researched and nicely written pages.”