Figure 5. Specimen of Malaxis dentata collected by Oakes Ames with watercolor by Blanche Ames, in the Oakes Ames Herbarium at Harvard University.
source: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Specimen-of-Malaxis-dentata-collected-by-Oakes-Ames-with-watercolor-by-Blanche-Ames-in_fig1_307883026
Blanche Ames Thesis Project
http://30471410.weebly.com/home.html
During WW-II, she patented a new kind of fabric wire to dangle from barrage balloons and trap enemy airplanes.
source: https://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1795.htm
During World War II, Ames came across the realization that thread could snarl and jam a sewing machine motor, Blanche then used that same principle to design a device to ensnare low-flying aircraft. The machine was demonstrated on the lawn at Borderland for guests from the Pentagon. Although it was accepted by the U.S. Army, it came too late for it to be applied in war.[16] wkipedia
Ames attended the Rogers Hall School in Lowell.[3] She was later one of few women of her time to attend college,[4] earning a B.A. in Art History and a diploma in Studio Art from Smith College in 1899.[3][5] She was the president of her graduating class.[4]wkiipedia
source: https://huh.harvard.edu/pages/oakes-ames-orchid-herbarium-ames
Blanche Ames’ name is familiar to many for her varied accomplishments as an artist, botanical researcher, and activist. Her truly pioneering spirit and action-oriented attitude also led her to create a number of inventions, adding to her reputation in the early 20th century as somewhat of a “renaissance woman.”Born into a prominent family in Lowell, Massachusetts, on Feb. 18, 1878, Ames was the daughter of General Adelbert Ames, an American Civil War union officer who would later become Governor of Mississippi, and Blanche Butler, daughter of Benjamin Butler, who was Governor of Massachusetts and ran for President in 1884 against Grover Cleveland. Ames was one of six children.
She earned a bachelor's degree at Smith College in 1899, where she also served as class president. In 1900, she married Oakes Ames (who was unrelated), a botany instructor at Harvard University. The couple had four children before 1910. Meanwhile, Ames, a talented artist, published cartoons in favor of women’s suffrage and, continuing from her college days, was involved with the Massachusetts Suffrage Association. She and her husband built a mansion in North Easton, Massachusetts on land they called Borderland, where she had an art studio. There she painted portraits for prominent people in the area, continued to draw political cartoons for publication, and began illustrating orchids for her husband to accompany his research.
Ames became very well known for her orchid drawings, producing hundreds of them over a 50-year span, mainly related to her husband’s research in orchidology. Together, the Ames created a comprehensive body of research on the Orchidicae class of plants and also developed the Ames Charts, watercolor-illustrated charts showing important plants’ phylogenetic relationships.
A staunch Republican, Ames was a political activist as well, an outspoken feminist who worked hard to achieve women’s right to vote and women’s rights to birth control. She co-founded the Birth Control League of Massachusetts in 1916, a regional chapter affiliated with Margaret Sanger’s national initiative.
Through all of these activities, Ames was an innovator who was constantly thinking up new devices, processes, and policies that she hoped would make the world a better place. This included inventing. During World War II, she invented and patented a method for using strings held by balloons at high altitudes to try and trip up the propellers of enemy planes. The concept was said to have been demonstrated to military officials at Borderland, but it came a bit too late and was never actually used in the war effort.
She also patented a toilet design that she hoped would be better for the environment. She also developed, with her brother, Adelbert, a scientific method for mixing paints to certain color specifications. She created a method for cutting hexagonal shapes in wood. She designed and created plans for many of the dams and ponds surrounding her home at Borderland, and even worked on ways to breed a more disease-resistant turkey.
source: http://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/blanche-ames
Blanche Ames Ames was well known as a witty pro-suffrage political cartoonist. In all of her political endeavors, she was actively supported by her husband.
In 1941, Ames became a member of the corporation of the New England Hospital for Women and Children. NEH was run entirely by women for women and children. Its purpose was to offer same sex medical care to women. In 1952 due to financial difficulties, the board of directors opened itself to the possibility of hiring male staff. Ames vigorously fought to maintain the hospital’s almost 100 year old charter. In 1952, as president of the board, Ames successfully spearheaded a massive fundraising effort which raised sufficient funds to ensure an exclusively female staff and administration for the hospital.
source: http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/biographies/blanche-ames-ames/
Blanche was a creative thinker and sought out ways to improve the quality of life. She received three patents over the span of 50 years. Her first patent was on January 4, 1927 for a system of color standards which she invented with her brother Adelbert Ames, Jr. The object of the system of colors was to provide uniformity of colors through individual color cards in order that a desired color could be identified. Up to this point there was no such system in place for professions that worked regularly with colors, such as painters, decorators, dressmakers, and potters. Figure 1 displays a drawing of the system of color standards.(Ames & Ames, 1927)
Source: Ames & Ames, 1927
Blanche’s second invention was a propeller snare. She received the patent for this invention on April 24, 1945. The purpose of this invention was to entrap enemy airplanes by entangling their propellers in suspended cables. Once the propellers came into contact with the propeller snare’s they would act like a brake bringing the entire airplane to a stop. The propeller snares were made of inflammable material which could also be equipped with explosives. (Ames, 1945)
The specifics of this invention are not complex, but attention to detail is required. The snare was made of a strand of string cord or rope wire that formed a sequence of loose lengths that were suspended in air without tension. These snares could be supported in a variety of ways. One method was that a second strand would be attached to a main strand with clips or knots spaced at various intervals. Another form of support was to connect two or more strands with rings at various locations along the propeller snare. The snares were most often suspended with balloons. The propeller snares were successfully use during World War II to entrap enemy planes. Figure 2 displays a drawing of the propeller snare. (Ames, 1945)
source for above images and text: https://brendapolendey.wordpress.com/cultural-research/4-technology-blanche-ames-inventions/
Once, in Rio de Janeiro, Oakes learned of a Brazilian orchid that had been discovered decades earlier and sent abroad to the foremost authority on the area’s orchids. The specimen was lost en route; its only ghost was a watercolor drawing that had been made before it was sent. Because the drawing did not show enough detail to classify the orchid, and no further specimens had been found, the species remained in a kind of scientific limbo. Returning later from an expedition to Brazil’s Mount Itatiaia, Oakes and Blanche found a large fallen tree blocking their path. Growing on that tree was a single orchid—incredibly, it was a specimen of the lost species. Blanche, not Oakes, was given the discoverer’s honor of the taxonomic name: Loefgrenianthus blanche-amesiae.
above text and images source: https://harvardmagazine.com/2017/07/blanche-ames
OrchidaOrchidaceae, titled after the family that orchids belong to, was written by the world-renowned botanist Oakes Ames. Ames began collecting orchids at the ripe age of 15 in his hometown of North Easton, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard College in 1898, and soon thereafter founded the Ames Botanical Laboratory, where he studied both orchids and ethnobotany. Ames was a pioneer in both fields, being one of the first botanists to study plants that are economically and culturally important to human cultures, as well as writing the most thorough treatise on orchids the botany community has ever seen--the seven volume Orchidaceae.
above image and text source: https://cumuseum-archive.colorado.edu/Research/Objects/apr09_orchidbook.html
source: http://www.orchidspecies.com/malwercklei.htm
source: http://www.orchidspecies.com/telpfavii.htm
Blanche Ames Ames drawing at her desk
Photographs courtesy of Borderland State Park.
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