George Ripley (October 3, 1802 – July 4, 1880) was an American social reformer, Unitarian minister, and journalist associated with Transcendentalism. He was the founder of the short-lived Utopian community Brook Farm in West Roxbury, Massachusetts.
Born in Greenfield, Massachusetts, Ripley was pushed to attend Harvard College by his father and completed his studies in 1823. He went on graduate from the Harvard Divinity School and the next year married Sophia Dana. Shortly after, he became ordained as the minister of the Purchase Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts, where he began to question traditional Unitarian beliefs. He became one of the founding members of the Transcendental Club and hosted its first official meeting in his home. Shortly after, he resigned from the church to put Transcendental beliefs in practice by founding an experimental commune called Brook Farm. The community later converted to a model based on the work of Charles Fourier, although the community was never financially stable in either format.
After Brook Farm's failure, Ripley was hired by Horace Greeley at the New York Tribune. He also published the New American Cyclopaedia, which made him financially successful. He built a national reputation as an arbiter of taste and literature before his death in 1880.
Biography
Early life and education
Ripley's ancestors had lived in Hingham, Massachusetts for 140 years before Jerome Ripley moved his family to Greenfield, a town in the western part of the state, in 1789. He was moderately successful as the owner of a general store and tavern and was a prominent member of the community. His son George Ripley was born in Greenfield on October 3, 1802, the ninth child in the family.
George Ripley's early life was heavily influenced by women. His nearest brother was thirteen years older than he was and he was raised primarily by his conservative mother, who was distantly related to Benjamin Franklin, and his sisters. He was sent to a private academy run by a Mr. Huntington in Hadley, Massachusetts to prepare for college. Before going to college, he spent three months in Lincoln with Ezra Ripley, a distant relative who also married the aunt of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Although Ripley wanted to attend the religiously conservative Yale University, his Unitarian father pushed him to attend Harvard College, then known as a hotbed of liberal Unitarianism. Ripley was a good and dedicated student, although he was not popular with students because of his trust of the establishment. Early in his time at Harvard, he had sided with the administration during a student-led protest against poor food, and his attempts at reconciling the two sides prompted ridicule from his peers. Ripley, seeking a socially useful role, found work as a teacher in Fitchburg during winter vacation of his senior year. He graduated in 1823.
During his time at the school, Ripley became disenchanted with his father and his home town, admitting "no particular attachment to Greenfield". He hoped to enroll at Andover but his father convinced him to stay in Cambridge to attend Harvard Divinity School. There, he was influenced by Levi Frisbie, Professor of Natural Religion, who was largely interested in moral philosophy, which he termed "the science of the principles and obligations of duty". Ripley was becoming very interested in more "liberal" religious views, what he wrote to his mother as "so simple, scriptural, and reasonable". He graduated in 1826. A year later, on August 22, 1827, he married Sophia Dana, a fact which he originally kept a secret from his parents. He asked his sister Marianne to inform them shortly after.