The Ceremony
The Story
Hilda Watson Gifford was Cornell Hotel School’s first female graduate. Her path to Cornell was by way of Dean Meek’s industry connections. He recognized that industry was his most important constituency and thus focused on developing a network of industry leaders. He generated enthusiasm for the program and encouraged hotel managers to send their children to Cornell. One of those children was Hilda Longyear, who became a member of the second graduating class.
THROUGH MUCH OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY the hospitality industry was anything but hospitable to women. Men who were otherwise competent leaders often failed to appreciate the talents women possessed. The prevailing view was that hotel administration was “a man’s profession,” while a proper course of study for women was home economics.
This industry bias was apparent from the beginning at Cornell’s Hotel program. For all his vision, Dean H.B. Meek was unable to overlook the common prejudices of the day to see that women would be important contributors to the industry. Recalls Dorothy Daly Johnson ’26, one of five women in the department’s second graduating class,
“He had not wanted any women in the course, and he gave the five of us a particularly hard time.” Meek was hardly alone in his views. Hilda Longyear Gifford ’26 recalled that the American Hotel Association “told Professor Meek not to train any women.”
Yet it was Longyear herself who was crucial to saving the first Hotel Ezra Cornell (HEC). It was May 1926 and students were preparing to play host to their first conference for industry leaders. There was only one problem: no one had addressed the school’s lack of proper banquet facilities to entertain those executives. The quick-thinking Longyear appealed to Anna Grace, director of Cornell’s dining services, who gave the HEC team permission to use Risley Hall for the banquet—provided that Longyear was put in charge. The conference was a resounding success, so much so that the Hotels Statler Company contingent came away convinced of the program’s viability. The following year E.M. Statler himself was persuaded to attend HEC— and the rest, as they say, is history.
Longyear was one of several early women graduates who would build a successful career. Years later she and her husband, John P. Gifford ’29, donated more than $250,000 to the Statler Hall capital campaign. Yet even as Longyear and other women thrived, the bias against women remained entrenched. In 1935 only 15 of 209 enrolled students were women. By 1940 the university’s total enrollment of 5,798 included 1,378 women, or 24 percent. The hotel program’s enrollment of 326 included just 18 women—or less than 6 percent. Between 1933 and 1943 a total of 20 women graduated from the Hotel program.
When Margaret McCaffrey Kappa ’44 (Hotelie Hall of Fame Inductee, Inaugural Class 2022) and her mother met Meek at a hotel show in Chicago in 1940, “Maggie” recalls a cool reception. “He said that not many women entered because good jobs for women upon graduation were scarce.” At her mother’s urging, however, Meek allowed Kappa in. Kappa went on to run housekeeping for 26 years at The Greenbrier, consult for many leading hotels, and in 1980 become the first female president of the Cornell Society 0f Hotelmen (Renamed Cornell Hotel Society in 1995).
Industry Advocate
Hilda was an advocate for hospitality management education throughout her career. She was founder and first director of the Hotel & Restaurant Department at City College of San Francisco, she was instrumental in the founding of the Council on Hotel, Restaurant, and Institutional Education (CHRIE), and later became an official with the American Hotel Association (AHA).
City College of San Francisco
The college’s Culinary Arts and Hospitality Studies, formerly known as the Hotel and Restaurant Department, was founded in 1936 by John and Hilda Watson Gifford. It was the first two-year hospitality program in the country and the first emphasizing culinary arts. The department was first located in the basement of San Francisco’s Galileo High School with only 12 students. In 1955, the department relocated to Smith Hall at the Ocean campus. In 1963, with financial assistance from the Statler Foundation, Statler Wing was built adjacent to Smith Hall and again expanded in 1973. The Educated Palate restaurant at the original Downtown Campus opened in 1982 and was completely renovated in 2005.
CHRIE
The foundational years of CHRIE (1946-51) reveal a small group of dedicated educators and industry leaders with a desire to move the hotel and restaurant field forward. Playing a key role among this small group was Hilda Watson Gifford. She held many key leadership positions during her tenure with CHRIE, including Board of Directors, Executive Committee, Treasurer, Curriculum Committee Chair, and Chair of the Junior College Committee.
The California Hotel & Lodging Association Hospitality Foundation
The prestigious Hilda Watson Gifford Award is the highest award given by the Foundation. Named in honor of Hilda Watson Gifford, a lifelong advocate and crusader for culinary arts and hospitality management education, this annual scholarship award supports the next generation of hospitality leaders.
Hotel School’s Capital Campaign
The centerpiece of the Statler Hotel’s Loews lobby is the Wall of Honor, a permanent collection of twelve-inch lead crystal plates. Each plate was engraved with an appropriate symbol of the donors who gave $1 million or more to the capital campaign: Banfi Vintners, Marjorie Blanchard *62 and Kenneth H. Blanchard *61, the Joseph Drown Foundation, Duty-Free Shoppers, Christopher Hemmeter ‘ 62, Hilton Hotels, HVS (Hospitality Valuation Services) Stephen Rushmore ’67 and Judith Kellner Rushmore, International Business Machines, Ichiro Inumaru ’53 and Imperial Hotels, Loews Hotels, the Marriott Corporation, the J. Willard Marriott Foundation, Search America Foundation, the Ellsworth Statler Foundation, Stouffer Hotels and Resorts, the Taylor Foundation, and United Airline Foundation / Westin Hotels. Eleven other donors gave between $250,000 and $1 million: Marion and Aaron Binenkorb *25, Burger King Corporation, CSX / Rockresorts, Carrier Corporation, the Coors Foundation, Hilda Longyear Gifford ’26 and John P. Gifford ’29, Dorothy and Hubert R. Heilman *39, Hilton International, Regent International Hotels, Laurance S. Rockefeller, and Hubert E. Westfall ’34. Altogether, more than 1,600 individuals, companies, and foundations gave to the Hotel School’s capital fund campaign.
Sources:
Entry page from the 1926 Cornellian
Class of 1926 photo and 1926 Cornellian entry page – courtesy of the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library
Hospitality Leadership – by Brad Edmondson; page 50
Hospitality Goes Global – by Bill Summers; page 99-100
https://www.ccsf.edu/academics/schools/business-fashion-hospitality/culinary-arts-and-hospitality-studies-department/about-cahs-faqs
https://www.chrie.org/birth-of-ichrie
https:/calodging.com/news/chla-hospitality-foundation-proudly-awards-165000-college-scholarships
