Dorothy Ripley

Dorothy Ripley (1767-1832) was an English missionary and writer who spent thirty years in the United States trying to secure better conditions for the slaves. Later in her life she became involved in prison reform.

Ripley was the daughter of a Methodist preacher who had been expelled from his native home and had settled in Whitby, North Yorkshire, Yorkshire and the Humber, England, Kingdom of Great Britain.

Through her father Dorothy acquired a love of religion. In 1797 she had a mystical experience during which she felt that God commanded her to leave her home in England and travel to the United States on a mission to help the African slaves. During the course of this mission, which she made her entire life’s work, she had occasion to meet with Thomas Jefferson, then President of the United States, preach to congregations in various churches and meetings, and write several books about her own life.

Speech before Congress

According to one Library of Congress source, she was the "first woman to preach before the House (and probably the first woman to speak officially in Congress under any circumstances)." She conducted this service on 12 January 1806. Among those in attendance were Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr.

It was not until twenty-one years later that another woman preached before the House of Representatives, when Harriet Livermore (1788-1868), the daughter and granddaughter of Congressmen, did so in 1827.

Source:

Downloaded October 24, 2014, from Wikipedia, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Ripley

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Dorothy Ripley was an independent, itinerant evangelist from Whitby, England, who travelled to the United States on a mission to join the fight against the exploitation of African slaves — to proclaim “the joyful tidings of salvation” to “Ethiopia’s children” living under “base tyranny” — the indigenous natives, & others marginalized [e.g., in prisons, almshouses, etc.] in the new Republic. In her An Account of Rose Butler (1819), written under the pseudonym of “Benevolus,” she also inveighed against the “immorality” of capital punishment.

Assured of her divinely appointed call to preach the Gospel, nevertheless, she constantly was confronted by malicious misogyny and vituperative censure, especially among the patriarchal established clergy. Even when she met with occasional approbation and acceptance, she found herself, for example, thrown into jail for holding a revival that an official in New York City termed “inciting a riot.”

She crossed the Atlantic at least seven times, traveling up and down the eastern seacoast from Rhode Island to South Carolina, presenting her cause to politicians, and on plantations. On her first trip in 1802, after disembarking, she immediately travelled to Washington to seek an audience with President Jefferson, where she informed him of her anti-slavery views and intentions for ministry, especially among slave women.

On January 12, 1806 she became the first woman to speak in the in the newly constructed Hall of Representatives when she delivered a sermon. Jefferson & Vice President Aaron Burr were among those in a “crowded audience.” Sizing up the congregation, Ripley concluded that “very few” had been born again, and broke into an urgent, camp meeting style exhortation.

Ripley preached in the chamber at a time when it was used frequently by itinerant missionaries & clergy from local congregations. Until the mid-19th century, the House Chamber was often utilized as a place of worship. Jefferson would often, during his two terms, ride a horse from the White House to the Capitol in order to attend church services in the House of Representatives. The House of Representatives, the Treasury Building, and the Supreme Court chambers continued to be used as churches until well after the Civil War and Reconstruction, with preachers of various denominations, including Roman Catholics, conducting services.

Although she drew from her Wesleyan background [she was the daughter of a Methodist lay preacher, who had accompanied John Wesley on preaching tours] & Quaker sentiments, she maintained no membership in any particular denomination, which afforded her autonomy from denominational dictates. Her Wesleyan theology is reflected not only in her preaching about, but working for social justice; a doctrine of atonement that assumes universal salvation; the assurance of one’s salvation, and Wesley’s holiness doctrine of sanctification. Her “inner light” mystical experiences found resonance among her Quaker friends.

Sources:

Ripley, Dorothy The Bank of Faith & Works United. Phila.: J. H. Cunningham, 1819

Everson, Elisa Ann “’A Little Labour of Love’: The Extraordinary Career of Dorothy Ripley, Female Evangelist in Early America,” PhD diss. Georgia State Univ., 2007

Smith, Margaret Bayard. Forty Years of Washington Society. Ed. Gaillard Hunt. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1906

Warner, Laceye Saving Women: Retrieving Evangelistic Theology & Practice Waco, TX: Baylor, 2007

Downloaded October 24, 2014, from http://personalpedia.wordpress.com/2008/06/10/dorothy-ripley-1767-1...

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