She was rich, beautiful, and happily married, but Blanche Ames was also a political reformer par excellence who created political cartoons to defend the right of women to vote, attacked male politicians who opposed woman suffrage through political action committees, and pursued the right of women to control the number and spacing of their families at a time when birth control was anathema to the minds of many.
«Anne Biller Clark offers us a brilliant and artful biography, steeped in primary documents, of Ames' personal life and her public work as a pioneering a political cartoonist, suffragist, and president of the Birth Control League of Massachusetts. Clark, a cartoonist as well as scholar, offers an unusual insight into the artistic as well as the political dimensions of Ames' life. Clark, through her crisp and cogent presentation of the historical background and milieu for Ames' trailblazing endeavors, enables the reader not only to understand emphatically Ames' dilemmas and choices but also to gain a broad understanding of U.S. cultural and political history. This definitive and engaging biography is essential reading for anyone interested in the shaping of the twentieth century.» (Joyce A. Berkman, History Department, University of Massachusetts)