Films
Johnson & Wales: A University Comes of Age
Johnson & Wales: A University Comes of Age is a three-episode series written, directed and produced by Marian Gagnon of Goodnight Irene Productions.
The trilogy -- HERstory: The Founding Mothers, Men of Vision, and Finding a Sense of Place -- was shot and edited by Emmy award-winning videographer Jim Karpeichik of Ocean State Video.
It chronicles the unique history of Johnson & Wales and the exceptional individuals who, from 1914 to 2004, brought the school from one student and one typewriter to the world-renowned University it is today.
The three documentaries can be viewed below.
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Their story was on the cusp of being lost forever. But this documentary, nominated for a New England Emmy, gives voice to Gertrude I. Johnson and Mary T. Wales who had been rendered historically invisible.
A combination of historical, narrative, feminist, and anecdotal research – including interviews with a handful of their former students – brings their remarkable story to life for the first time.
HERstory: The Founding Mothers of Johnson & Wales University is a 30-minute documentary told in a narrative style which captures and preserves the history of Gertrude I. Johnson and Mary T. Wales, founders of a business school for women in 1914, in Providence, Rhode Island.
Beginning in Gertrude’s own home with one student and one typewriter, the Johnson & Wales Business School was born and thus began Gertrude and Mary’s lifelong commitment to educating women, affording them the opportunity to leave behind their lives as maids and factory workers and enter the “professions” – namely – office work.
This documentary explores Gertrude’s and Mary’s personal life choices, their trailblazing within the institution of higher education, and their contributions to the women’s movement. Interviews include the few living students of Miss Johnson and Miss Wales who attended the school in the 1930s and early 1940s.
Despite countless obstacles in their path – including two world wars, the Great Depression, the Hurricane of 1938, and blatant sexism in the workplace – Gertrude Johnson and Mary Wales persevered for 33 years and built the foundation for what is now an internationally recognized career university.
This is their story. A story that was all but forgotten.
This production was made possible by Johnson & Wales University and with the support of University President John J. Bowen, Class of 1977.
HERstory: The Founding Mothers of Johnson & Wales University
Johnson & Wales University’s Men of Vision
This second documentary released in 2008, picks up where Gertrude and Mary left off when they retired in 1947 and sold Johnson & Wales Business College to two Navy buddies just home from WWII. This documentary chronicles the unique history of a small business school that grew into an internationally recognized career university due to the inexhaustible entrepreneurial spirit of Morris Gaebe and the engineering and management savvy of Edward Triangolo.
This 30-minute documentary – the second in a trilogy – also utilizes the narrative approach to storytelling. It chronicles the unique history of a small business school that grew into an internationally recognized career university due to the inexhaustible entrepreneurial spirit of Morris Gaebe and the engineering savvy of Edward Triangolo.
Building on the foundation – and, in fact, the very mission of Misses Johnson and Wales “to teach a thing not for its own sake, but for what lies beyond” – Gaebe and Triangolo worked together to bring higher education not only to women, but to veterans returning from the war desperate to learn employable skills so they could support their families. Their remarkable partnership propelled Johnson & Wales from a small business school to a junior college to a college and then to a university within four decades.
With interviews from family members, friends, and long-time employees at Johnson & Wales, this documentary reveals, for the first time, the story of two exceptional men who had the vision for a school like Johnson & Wales that takes the student who isn’t going to Brown, Harvard or Yale and gives them a chance for a college education that can lead to a life-long career in which they can take enormous pride.
This production was made possible by Johnson & Wales University and with the support of University President John J. Bowen, Class of 1977.
Jack Yena's Legacy: Finding a Sense of Place
This third and final documentary brings the story of Johnson & Wales full circle as it explores the University’s meteoric expansion in the last 20 years. Released in January 2011, it illustrates how University President Jack Yena took a modest university out of the past and drop-kicked it into the future as well as led the charge to establish campuses in North Miami, Denver and Charlotte.
However, his greatest contribution is how he gave JWU a real “sense of place,” something it never had before. Now that it is completed, this trilogy is collectively called, “A University Comes of Age. Along with HERstory and Men of Vision, Jack Yena’s Legacy routinely airs on R.I.’s PBS station.