Prologue: Manhattan, mid-1950s -- April 4, 1909, Cranston, Rhode Island -- Catherine/Katharine -- A new idea in education -- "Expect great things!" -- Where do all the girls come from? -- "Give to courage a smiling face" -- The Tiffany's of secretarial schools -- "What a job you've done!" -- What are we in for now? -- "Yes, we fight" -- Civilians -- Wonder Woman -- "Heavens to Elizabeth, girls" -- "Greatest show on Earth" -- Life at the top -- It's showtime! -- The writers -- The game changers -- Setting sun -- The end

"A social history of the famed Katharine Gibbs School, which from the 1910s to the 1960s trained women for executive secretary positions but surreptitiously was instilling the self-confidence and strategic know-how necessary for them to claim equality, power, and authority in the wider world"--