[2] Ripley joined the suffragists in 1875 and worked to establish an active suffrage group in Middleton, becoming close friends of Boston suffragettes Lucy Stone and Henry Browne Blackwell.

[4] Ripley's concern over the health issues facing women who worked in the Massachusetts textile mills prompted her to go to medical school.

[3] Now dependent financially on Ripley's ability to earn a living, the couple moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where William had relatives and where a growing industrial sector offered scope for enterprising incomers.

During her six-year tenure as president, she often spoke out about public health issues such as city sanitation, clean water, food adulteration, and crowding of patients in hospitals.

[4] Upon the adopting a law during the 26th Legislature of Minnesota in 1889 empowering fathers to deny rights to their unborn children, Ripley replied the bill to be "worthy of the Dark Ages".

Ripley was also a professor of children's diseases at the Homeopathic Medical College in Minnesota and was active in the Women's Rescue League, which aided prostitutes.

In 1939, a plaque honoring her as a pioneer woman physician and hospital founder was installed in the Minnesota state capitol building's rotunda.

In 2007, the hospital building was converted into apartments and renamed Ripley Gardens, a redevelopment funded in part by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

[1] In the book, History of the City of Minneapolis, Minnesota " written before her death said, (...) she has proven herself friend of the friendless, the consoler of the sorrowing, the wise counselor and efficient helper of the unfortunate.