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Separate Lives
Uncovering the Hidden Family of Victorian Professor Mary Rippon
Foreword by Julia Bricklin
Published by Lyons Press
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
Table of Contents
About The Book
Unveil the untold story of trailblazing educator Mary Rippon in this updated edition, featuring two new chapters revealing her enduring legacy.
A pioneer woman educator in the male-dominated world of nineteenth-century academia, Mary Rippon was the first female professor at the University of Colorado and is believed to have been the first woman in the United States to teach at a state university. Mary received wide acclaim for her teaching, but Victorian society forced her to lead two very separate lives. "Miss Rippon," as she was always known, was both a professional woman and a mother in an era when these two roles could not be combined. To keep her job and provide for her family, she hid her husband and child behind a Victorian veil of secrecy that spanned two continents. Separate Lives reveals the full story of the conflicts between this extraordinary woman’s public and private lives.
In January 1878, after several years of education in Germany, France, and Switzerland, the soft-spoken twenty-seven-year-old was welcomed at the newly opened University of Colorado in the then-small frontier town of Boulder. The growth of her lengthy career paralleled the early growth of the university, where she worked her way up from first female faculty member to the university's first female professor, eventually chairing the Department of German Language and Literature.
The truth of Mary’s separate lives was not disclosed until nearly a century later, in 1976, when her elderly grandson revealed to a university librarian that he was Mary’s descendant. In 2006, Mary received a posthumous honorary degree from the University of Colorado, and in 2020 a scholarship was endowed in her name. Silvia Pettem’s carefully researched biography weaves together the story of Mary’s private life with her professional career—not to tarnish Mary's well-deserved reputation, but rather to uncover the human side of a woman whose circumstances clashed with the mores of her times.
A pioneer woman educator in the male-dominated world of nineteenth-century academia, Mary Rippon was the first female professor at the University of Colorado and is believed to have been the first woman in the United States to teach at a state university. Mary received wide acclaim for her teaching, but Victorian society forced her to lead two very separate lives. "Miss Rippon," as she was always known, was both a professional woman and a mother in an era when these two roles could not be combined. To keep her job and provide for her family, she hid her husband and child behind a Victorian veil of secrecy that spanned two continents. Separate Lives reveals the full story of the conflicts between this extraordinary woman’s public and private lives.
In January 1878, after several years of education in Germany, France, and Switzerland, the soft-spoken twenty-seven-year-old was welcomed at the newly opened University of Colorado in the then-small frontier town of Boulder. The growth of her lengthy career paralleled the early growth of the university, where she worked her way up from first female faculty member to the university's first female professor, eventually chairing the Department of German Language and Literature.
The truth of Mary’s separate lives was not disclosed until nearly a century later, in 1976, when her elderly grandson revealed to a university librarian that he was Mary’s descendant. In 2006, Mary received a posthumous honorary degree from the University of Colorado, and in 2020 a scholarship was endowed in her name. Silvia Pettem’s carefully researched biography weaves together the story of Mary’s private life with her professional career—not to tarnish Mary's well-deserved reputation, but rather to uncover the human side of a woman whose circumstances clashed with the mores of her times.
Product Details
- Publisher: Lyons Press (August 6, 2024)
- Length: 272 pages
- ISBN13: 9781493079360
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Raves and Reviews
The riveting, stranger-than-fiction story of Mary Rippon, the first female professor at a state university, whose secret private life tore up the Victorian American script. Silvia Pettem immerses the reader in Rippon’s extraordinary life and career with meticulous research and narrative flair and zest. A fascinating must-read.
– Betsy Prioleau, author of the New York Times Editors’ Choice Diamonds and Deadlines: A Tale of Greed, Deceit, and a Female Tycoon in the Gilded Age
This astonishing story uncovers the life of Mary Rippon, a smart, ambitious nineteenth-century college professor who chose to keep her private life a secret so she wouldn’t have to sacrifice her career. Thanks to Silvia Pettem’s intimate, humanizing portrait, readers will be riveted by Rippon, and her unconventional experiences will stay with them long after they’ve read the final page.
– Theresa Kaminski, author of Queen of the West: The Life and Times of Dale Evans
“An engaging juxtaposition of late 1800s morality and millennial openness.”
– Clay Bonnyman Evans, author of Bones of My Grandfather: Reclaiming a Lost Hero of World War II
“Pettem has done an excellent job of reconstructing Rippon's secret life and turning it into an absorbing narrative.”
– Sandra Dallas, New York Times best-selling author of Where Coyotes Howl
“This book is highly recommended for both public and academic libraries. A real page-turner.”
– Nancy Carter, Colorado Libraries
“Charmingly written and carefully documented. . . . Americans everywhere with an interest in the fortunes of women of the West should delight in this gem unearthed by Silvia Pettem. Separate Lives humbles and uplifts us at the same time.”
– Adrian Del Caro, professor of German literature and former chair, University of Colorado
“In these pages you will find an amazing woman who lived life to the fullest, shattering the mold in which nineteenth-century men wrapped women. Beautifully written and carefully researched and told, this story is vivid and unforgettable.”
– Tom Noel, author of many books on Colorado; professor emeritus of history, University of Colorado Denver
“With skill and compassion, Silvia Pettem has revealed a previously unknown side of a remarkable educator. . . . This absorbing biography is the story of a modern-minded woman trapped in the mores of the Victorian age.”
– Jane Valentine Barker, author of Mari: A Novel
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