Blanche Ames Ames
Personal Information
Born: 1878
Died: 1969
Country of Birth: USA
Nationality: USA
Ethnicity: White
Education
Smith College & School of Art AB Art History 1899
" “The long arm of the Catholic Church is reaching into our legislative halls and is directing our legislators to act according to its will… We have all been troubled by the fear that this Catholic threat to our free institutions would materialize if Catholics were given positions of power in our government, but never before in so short a time have events developed in such irrefutable sequence as in this case of opposition to the Doctors’ Birth Control Bill.” (harvardsquarelibrary.org); "
— Blanche Ames Ames
Professional Life
Field of Study: Botanical Illustrator; Artist; Suffragette; Inventor
Institution/Corporation: Borderland State Park; Smith College
Degrees & Memberships: Member: Easton Women Suffrage League; Massachusetts Woman Suffrage League; Birth control League of Massachusetts (1916); Board of New England Hospital for Women & Children
Awards & Achievements
Awards: None found
Achievements: invented and patented a method for using strings held by balloons at high altitudes to try and trip up the propellers of enemy planes; patented a toilet design; developed, with her brother, Adelbert, a scientific method for mixing paints to certain color specifications & their Ames Chart is still used today; created a method for cutting hexagonal shapes in wood; 1915 she became the art editor of Woman's Journal along with Fredrikke Palmer and Mayme B. Harwood; helped to form The Doctors Bill to Clarify the Law, which regulated the ability of doctors to provide birth control counseling to married women with health problems, and later helped establish universal access to birth control; 1916 she cofounded the Birth Control League of Massachusetts;
designed and created plans for many of the dams and ponds surrounding her home at Borderland
worked on ways to breed a more disease-resistant turkey
was president of her college graduating class
illustrated her husband's botanical research on orchids
her family estate, Borderland, is now a State Park opened to the public in Massachusetts
hired a newspaper clipping service to save suffrage news from 1915 to 1916
designed the orchid decorations on the graves of her husband & herself
during the 1910s she produced a number of political cartoons promoting women's suffrage, which appeared in publications including Woman's Journal, and the Boston American
her work called, "Cradle of Liberty", was selected to be Massachusetts' suffrage poster
her etchings are on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and her oil painting can be seen at Harvard, Dartmouth, and Columbia University
supported birth control
held patents for inventions which included a hexagonal lumber cutter and a method for entrapping enemy aircraft
at age 80 wrote a biography about her father, Adelbert Ames, called: "Adelbert Ames, 1835-1933; General, Senator, Governor, the story of his life and times and his integrity as a soldier and statesman in the service of the United States of America throughout the Civil War and in Mississippi in the years of Reconstruction" (1964)
had an athletic childhood & learned golf, tennis, football and sailing
created formulas for spermicidal jellies and provided instructions on how to make a diaphragm by using such everyday objects as a baby’s teething ring
established a fund in her name for the medical education of women at the New England Hospital for Women and Children
designed and the abandoned a swimming pool at Borderland with pipes so complicated that the secret of their operation died with her
husband was a botanist who discovered over 1,000 new species of orchids in the Caribbean, the Philippines, & Central & South American which she drew & illustrated for his 7-volume compendium of orchids
was arrested after carving a wooden penis & using it to demonstrate proper condom usage in the middle of boston's busy Commonwealth Avenue
the Ames Charts of Economic Plants she created for herhusband's botany classes are still in use today
designed Borderland which was the family home until her death & was featured in the 2019 movie "Knives Out"