Sophia Willard Dana Ripley (1803-1861), wife of George Ripley, was a nineteenth-century feminist, a Transcendentalist and later a Catholic. A friend of Margaret Fuller, she was among the few regular women guests of the Transcendental Club in the 1830s, and she published an essay on women in The Dial. In the 1840s she co-founded Brook Farm along with her husband; but she became drawn to Catholicism and eventually converted, straining her relationship with George Ripley.
Ripley prepared for the ministry at the Cambridge divinity school; in 1826 accepted a call to be pastor and preacher of the church, organized but eighteen months before, and within two months worshipping in their new meeting-house on Purchase street, Boston.
Ripley associated himself at once with people of no worldly consideration, avowed principles that were voted vulgar in refined circles, and identified himself with an enterprise which the amiable called visionary, and the unamiable wild and revolutionary.
Ripley, the Managing Editor, supervised the whole; wrote much himself on the different aspects of Association; reported the progress of the cause at home and abroad; answered the objections that were current in the popular prejudice, and gave to the paper the encouraging tone of his cheery, earnest spirit.
George Ripley's exact date of birth is unknown, but what is known is the impact he made on the Transcendentalist movement in the 1840's.George and his wife Sophia are credited with being the chief promoters of Brook Farm which was a utopian experiment begun in 1841.
George Ripley was a native of Greenfield Massachusetts and a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Divinity school.
Sophia fell ill with cancer, and after a long and painful illness, sucumbed to the disease in 1861.Sophia's work had been so much a part of her husbands, and he credited her with being loyal and supportive.
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