Mary A. Ripley

Mary Ann Ripley was born in Windham, Connecticut, January 11, 1831. She was the daughter of John Huntington Ripley and Eliza L. Spalding Ripley. The Huntington family was prominent in New England. One of its members, Samuel Huntington, signed the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation. Ripley was, on her mother's side, of Huguenot ancestry, and was descended from the French family, D'Aubigné, anglicized into Dabney.{{sfn|Willard|Livermore|1893|pp=610-11}}{{sfn|Moulton|1894|p=12}} The family, originally from Connecticut, came to Buffalo from Alden. Her mother's family name was Spaulding.{{cite news |last1=Rogers |first1=P. P. |title=A Girl Who Conquered Difficulties |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/327122102/?terms=Mary%20Ann%20Ripley&match=1 |access-date=21 January 2021 |work=Buffalo Evening News |via=Newspapers.com |date=10 June 1893 |pages=7}} {{open access}}

In early childhood, Ripley was studious and had literary tastes. When very young, she was already writing stories. She was educated in the country district-schools of western New York, and in the free city-schools of Buffalo.{{sfn|Willard|Livermore|1893|pp=610-11}}{{sfn|Moulton|1894|p=12}}

When Ripley began teaching, she also had to care for an invalid mother and an infant sister. Her early career was as an assistant in primary schools. She taught in Buffalo for 40 years spending 27 years as a teacher in the Buffalo high school. It was in the management of boys that she had the most marked success. Her clear-cut distinctions between what is true and what is false, and her abhorrence of merely mechanical work, gave her a unique position in the educational history of Buffalo. In 1887, she resigned her position in the Buffalo high school on account of temporary ill health. She returned after Christmas, but resigned permanently in March 1888.

Upon retirement from her teaching career, she went to live with relatives at Kearney, Nebraska. After some rest and when her health was restored, she became a lecturer.{{sfn|Willard|Livermore|1893|pp=610-11}}{{sfn|Moulton|1894|p=12}}

She was also active in good works. She held the position of State superintendent of scientific temperance instruction in public schools and colleges for Nebraska.{{sfn|Willard|Livermore|1893|pp=610-11}} In addition to her association with the Women's Educational and Industrial Union, Ripley was a member of the Society for the Advancement of Women, the Nebraska state branch of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union,{{cite news |title=Mary A. Ripley's Will |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/494884664/?terms=Mary%20A.%20Ripley&match=1 |access-date=21 January 2021 |work=Buffalo Weekly Express |via=Newspapers.com |date=15 February 1894 |pages=6}} {{open access}} and served as president of the 19th Century Club.{{cite news |title=In Memory of a Noble Life. Services for Miss Mary A. Ripley at the Church of Our Father. |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/269728921/?terms=Mary%20A.%20Ripley&match=1 |access-date=21 January 2021 |work=The Buffalo Commercial |via=Newspapers.com |date=12 June 1893 |pages=9}} {{open access}}

Ripley's contributions to the press were, principally, poems (characterized by vigor and sweetness), vacation letters, terse communications on questions of the day, and brief, common-sense essays, which attracted attention and exerted a wide influence. In 1867, she published a volume, Poems (Adams & Ellis; Rochester, New York, 1867); and, later, a small book entitled Exercises in Analysis and Parsing (Buffalo; Peter Paul & Brother) for school room use was issued. That was followed by Household Service, published under the auspices of the Women's Educational and Industrial Union of Buffalo.{{sfn|Willard|Livermore|1893|pp=610-11}}{{sfn|Moulton|1894|p=12}}

Ripley died suddenly on June 3, 1893, in Kearney{{sfn|Moulton|1894|p=12}} or Bostwick, Nebraska. She was survived by a sister, Charlotte E. Bushnell, and a niece.

File:Women's Union (Buffalo, New York, 1894).png

The Mary A. Ripley Memorial Library{{cite web |title=Women's History Month: Miss Mary A. Ripley, Harriet Townsend and Buffalo's Women's Union |url=https://buffalostreets.com/2015/03/12/ripley/ |website=Discovering Buffalo, One Street at a Time |access-date=21 January 2021 |language=en |date=12 March 2015}} inside the Women's Educational and Industrial Union of Buffalo was named in Ripley's honor.{{cite news |title=It has already been noted in this column |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/354197389/?terms=Mary%20A.%20Ripley&match=1 |access-date=21 January 2021 |work=The Buffalo Sunday Morning News |via=Newspapers.com |date=15 April 1894 |pages=6}} {{open access}} The room was finished in cherry and was lined on three sides with bookcases. At the farther end was a mantelpiece whose paneling reached to the ceiling, and against this hung a portrait of Ripley by Rudolph Menzel.{{cite news |title=The Mary A. Ripley Room at the Women's Union |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/354429862/?terms=Mary%20A.%20Ripley&match=1 |access-date=21 January 2021 |work=Buffalo Courier |via=Newspapers.com |date=21 January 1894 |pages=12}} {{open access}} The library was furnished with leather-covered chairs and a long table. A small reading room was connected with the larger room.{{cite news |title=Opened at Last. The Beautiful New Home of the Women's Union. |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/354414967/?terms=Mary%20A.%20Ripley&match=1 |access-date=21 January 2021 |work=Buffalo Courier |via=Newspapers.com |date=30 October 1894 |pages=6}} {{open access}}

File:Poems by Mary A. Ripley (1867).png

• Poems, 1867
• Exercises in Analysis and Parsing, 1878
• An Essay on Household Service: Also Legal Points and Other Matter Concerning Domestic Service : Form of Contract and Blank Receipts for Wages, 1889

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• {{Source-attribution| {{cite book|last=Moulton|first=Charles Wells|title=The Magazine of Poetry|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yAcTAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA12|edition=Public domain|volume=6|year=1894|publisher=Charles Wells Moulton|chapter=Mary A. Ripley. By E. H. M.}} }}
• {{Source-attribution| {{cite book|last1=Willard|first1=Frances Elizabeth|author1-link=Frances Willard|last2=Livermore|first2=Mary Ashton Rice|author2-link=Mary Livermore|title=A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life|chapter=Mary A. Ripley |url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Woman_of_the_Century/Mary_A._Ripley|edition=Public domain|year=1893|publisher=Charles Wells Moulton}} }}

• {{wikisource-inline|Woman of the Century/Mary A. Ripley}}
• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Mary A. Ripley}}

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Category:1831 births

Category:1893 deaths

Category:19th-century American poets

Category:19th-century American women writers

Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating text from A Woman of the Century

Category:People from Windham, Connecticut

Category:Educators from Connecticut

Category:Poets from Connecticut

Category:American women poets

Category:Woman's Christian Temperance Union people