Blanche Ames Ames (1878–1969) and Oakes Ames (1874–1950)

Cultivating That Mutual Ground

Elizabeth F. Fideler

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN:
  9781666771916
  9781666771923
• eBook ISBN:
  9781666771930
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies

Blanche Ames Ames and Oakes Ames advanced women's suffrage, reproductive rights, artistic expression, and scientific knowledge, among other accomplishments, in the first half of the twentieth century. Blanche was part of women's history for nearly seven decades and deserved to be better known for that and other reasons. Oakes's contributions to the women's suffrage movement and his extraordinary scientific accomplishments might have received greater recognition had he not avoided the spotlight so successfully. Their story is one of mutual enabling. Believing in gender equality, even if outside the bounds of what was considered socially acceptable, they named their home "Borderland" to represent boundary pushing. One lasting influence is found in the social justice arena. The Harvard professor of botany and supervisor of the university's major botanical institutions and his sociable, highly independent wife were both active in the fight to secure the vote for women, with Blanche contributing original political cartoons to newspapers. Blanche led the Birth Control League of Massachusetts for nearly twenty years, then used her position and skills on behalf of the New England Hospital for Women and Children. Unity Church and Memorial Hall in Easton, Massachusetts, were family gifts, as was their home, now Borderland State Park.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Family Background
• Chapter 2: Courtship, Marriage, and Early Days
• Chapter 3: Creating Borderland
• Chapter 4: Borderland Experiences
• Chapter 5: The Ameses and Woman Suffrage
• Chapter 6: Blanche Ames Ames and the Birth Control Movement
• Chapter 7: Oakes Ames’s Career and the Ames Partnership
• Chapter 8: At the Arnold Arboretum
• Chapter 9: The New England Hospital for Women and Children
• Chapter 10: Conclusion: Still Aiming and Spinning
• Epilogue
• Bibliography
• About the Author