BOULDER — I bought a pair of pants recently and, without thinking much about it, slipped my hands into the pockets. Cozy, and I could carry everything I needed.

The presence of pockets in women’s clothing is finally a common phenomenon. But it wasn’t always so. 

In the American past, there lived a patriarchy where women were not given pockets. After all, why would women need to carry anything if the men are responsible for the money, the keys, the property, the house?

Pockets for all

When I attended boarding school in the late 1990s, girls’ pants were considered formal only if they lacked pockets. Pockets were not allowed at semi-formal dinners. Even in a modern school setting, utility was not part of the dress code for young women.

Sometimes, in women’s clothing today, designers will add pockets, or the appearance of pockets, but sew them shut—as if they were purely aesthetic. Many girls and women know the delight of discovering a new outfit that has pockets, acting as if they have been awarded a prize.

Clothing alone does not determine women’s independence, but it often reflects cultural expectations. 

In the 18th century, women wore tie-on pockets hidden under their skirts. By the 19th century, as fashion changed, visible pockets became less common in women’s garments, being replaced by purses and handbags. 

Men’s clothing continued to be designed for carrying tools, money, and documents. Women’s clothing emphasized appearance over function. And the style reflected the legal restrictions of the time.

A brief history of women’s rights in the U.S.

Since the mid-1800s, married women in the United States were subject to a legal doctrine known as “coverture,” under which a woman’s legal identity was absorbed into that of her husband. Her property and wages could become his by default. She could not sue or be sued. She could not sign contracts.

Western states, including Colorado, granted married women property rights earlier than some other states, but the practical exercise of financial independence remained limited.

Colorado women gained the right to vote in 1893, making the state the second in the nation to adopt women’s suffrage by popular referendum.

National suffrage did not arrive until 1920, and financial autonomy took much longer. It was not until the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 that lenders were prohibited from denying credit on the basis of sex. 

Before that, many women were required to have a husband or male co-signer to obtain certain loans or credit. Access to mortgages was often restricted in practice, even where ownership was technically permitted. Basically, an independent woman could not buy a house prior to 1974.

Almost 100 years before, in 1878, a woman stepped into a classroom at the University of Colorado in Boulder and took her place at the front. Her name was Mary Rippon, and she became Colorado’s first female professor at a coed university.

The life of Mary Rippon

Archival records at the university offer a clear picture of Rippon’s impact. According to the Mary Rippon Collection in the Archives at the University of Colorado Boulder Libraries, she was invited in 1877 by University President Joseph A. Sewall to join what was then a two-member faculty and began teaching in 1878.

Born in 1850 in Lisbon, Illinois, Rippon sought higher education at a time when most American universities did not admit women. She instead spent five years studying abroad in Germany, France, and Switzerland before returning to the United States to teach. 

Sewall, her former chemistry teacher, persuaded her to join the fledgling university in Boulder.

In 1881, she was promoted to professor of German and French and became head of the Germanic Languages and Literature department, a position she held for the rest of her career. 

She also served as the university’s informal Dean of Women until the role was officially recognized in 1901. During her tenure, the student population grew from 15 to more than 3,000.

Boulder’s growth in the late 19th century was closely tied to the mining districts stretching toward Nederland and the surrounding mountains. Young men connected to those communities filled university classrooms. And Rippon stood before them as a credentialed academic in a state that had not yet granted women full political equality.

She was on the faculty for more than four decades. By then, Colorado women had been voting for 26 years, and the national suffrage amendment was one year away.

Rippon normalized female authority in a public institution and demonstrated that women could occupy intellectual and professional space without apology. She exercised authority in a public university during an era when many Americans questioned whether women belonged in higher education at all.

She taught at the University of Colorado from 1878 until her retirement in 1919 and remained in Boulder until her death on Sept. 16, 1935.

The Mary Rippon Outdoor Theatre was dedicated in 1936 between the wings of the Hellems Building. It remains one of the most recognizable outdoor performance spaces on the CU campus.

What’s next

Progress is often marked by amendments and court rulings, but also by expectations. Over time, what once seemed unusual slowly became routine—a woman teaching in a university classroom.

Later in this three-part series, we will examine Central City’s first female mayor, Margaret “Maggie” Doud, and a former Boulder County Clerk, Clela Rorex, who issued the first same-sex marriage licenses in 1975.