Borderland: The Life and Times of Blanche Ames Ames

Released: 2020
Rating: NR
Runtime: 55 mins
Borderland: The Life and Times of Blanche Ames Ames
Blanche Ames came from a long line of strong women and powerful men. Her grandmother, Sarah Hildreth Butler, was a popular Shakespearean actress. Her grandfather? Civil War General Benjamin Franklin Butler. Adelbert Ames, her father, was also a Union General and, later, a Reconstruction governor. But it was her mother, Blanche Butler Ames, who posed the question that would serve as the touchstone for young Blanche’s life: Will women ever have the same rights as men? For Blanche Ames, the only possible answer was yes.

Beginning with a speech she delivered to President McKinley as president of her class at Smith College (1899), Blanche became a leader of the woman suffrage movement in Massachusetts. She used her talents as an artist to create pro-suffrage political cartoons that both inspired and enraged. President Taft responded personally to one of her cartoons. Later, Blanche would turn her attention to reproductive rights, becoming the first president of the Birth Control League of Massachusetts in 1916. She eventually split with Margaret Sanger over the issue of eugenics. Blanche took on society’s elite, the Catholic Church, even her in-laws while advocating for women’s rights. Fortunately, she chose a partner, husband Oakes Ames (the two were not related, though they shared the same last name before marriage). Oakes was equally dedicated to women’s rights. Together, the couple wrote, drew, rallied, and organized, all while raising four children at their home called Borderland, now a state park in North Easton, Massachusetts.

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