Blanche Ames Ames, 1878-1969

Blanche Ames was an artist; a suffragist active in the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association and the League of Women Voters; co-founder and a president of the Massachusetts Birth Control League; founder of the Family Welfare Foundation; and a president and member of the Board of Directors of the New England Hospital, Boston.

From the guide to the Papers, 1860-1961, (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute)

Blanche (Ames) Ames, artist and suffragist, was born in Lowell, Mass., in 1878. She graduated from Smith College in 1899 and attended Smith College Art School. In 1900, she married Oakes Ames (OA), a professor of botany at Harvard University; they had four children.

BAA illustrated several of her husband's books, including Orchidaceae, and published a number of political cartoons promoting suffrage. She was a member of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association, College Equal Suffrage League, and the Women's Educational and Industrial Union. In addition, BAA served as treasurer of the Massachusetts League of Women Voters, co-founder and president of the Birth Control League of Massachusetts, and president of the New England Hospital for Women and Children, Boston.

For additional biographical information, see the Blanche Ames collection (MC 193) at the Schlesinger Library, and the Ames entry in Notable American Women: The Modern Period (Cambridge, Mass., 1980), which includes a list of additional sources.

From the guide to the Woman's Rights Collection (WRC), (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute)