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.
Elizabeth F. Fideler, Ed.D., is a founding member of the Sloan Research Network based at the Center on Aging & Work, Boston College. Earlier, after several years of classroom teaching in the Framingham, MA public schools, she earned a doctorate in Administration, Planning, and Social Policy from Harvard University. She continued working for many years as an education researcher and senior manager in non-profit organizations—Massachusetts Bay Community College, Recruiting New Teachers, Inc., Judge Baker Children’s Center, and Education Development Center. Her primary interests are biography of interesting subjects whose stories deserve to be told, extended work life, and cross-generational connections. Her recent books include Margaret Pearmain Welch (1893–1984); The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook on Aging & Work; Aging, Work, & Retirement; Men Still at Work; and Women Still at Work.