Born Blanche Ames in Lowell, Massachusetts, Ames was the daughter of Civil War General and Mississippi Governor Adelbert Ames and Blanche Butler Ames. The fourth of six children, she was the sister of Adelbert Ames Jr., a prominent scientist. She was also granddaughter to Civil War General and Massachusetts Governor Benjamin Butler and actress Sarah Hildreth Butler.
Ames attended the Rogers Hall School in Lowell. She was later one of few women of her time to attend college, earning a B.A. in Art History and a diploma in Studio Art from Smith College in 1899. She was the president of her graduating class.
In 1900 she married Harvard University botany professor Oakes Ames (no relation) and took the married name Blanche Ames Ames. The Ameses had four children together.
Blanche Ames is best known for being an artist, particularly talented at oil portraiture and botanical illustration, a talent she honed in collaboration with her husband. She was also a political activist, agitating for Women's Suffrage as well as working with the American Birth Control League to fight for doctor's rights to provide birth control counseling to married women with health problems. Her artistic talent was put to use in political cartoons.
Finally, she was also an inventor, holding patents for a hexagonal lumber cutter and a method for entrapping enemy aircraft.
She died of a stroke in 1969. The family estate in North Easton, Massachusetts, called Borderland, is now Borderland State Park.
Sourced mainly from Wikipedia.