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A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

3.93 · Rating details · 7,237 ratings · 743 reviews

Drawing on the diaries of a midwife and healer in eighteenth-century Maine, this intimate history illuminates the medical practices, household economies, religious rivalries, and sexual mores of the New England frontier.

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Paperback, 444 pages

Published December 22nd 1991 by Vintage Books (first published 1990)

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Dec 27, 2019 Barbara rated it it was amazing

This book won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1991. The author does an excellent job of weaving the diary of Martha Ballard with the political and economic events of the late 18th Century in what is now Augusta, Maine. Without the diary of one courageous but ordinary woman, we would now know little about the obstetrical practices of midwives of that period.

Martha, known only as Mrs. Ballard, provided the needed care of women and children in that part of Maine. Her high rate of successful deli ...more

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Oct 08, 2008 Lisa Butterworth rated it it was amazing

I read this book 15 years ago shortly after it won the Pulitzer, and it was amazing then, and I was equally impressed this time. In fact I was surprised as I read how much of it I could remember reading even that many years ago, so it must have made a deep impression.

I'm just in awe if LTU, the depth and breadth of information that she gleans from Martha Ballard's spare diary entries is mind boggling, for instance, she'll throw out a comparison of the number of people, male and female that MB m ...more

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Feb 07, 2009 Leslie rated it really liked it

“A man works from sun to sun, but a woman’s work is never done.”

Martha Moore was born in 1735 in the town of Oxford, MA. She married Ephraim Ballard in 1754 and gave birth to nine children, lost three of them to diphtheria and eventually died in Maine, in 1812 at the age of 77.

Between 1785 and 1812, Martha Ballard kept a diary. Without it her life would’ve been just a succession of born and died dates in some town registry. We would know nothing about her. We would not know she was a midwife. T “A man works from sun to sun, but a woman’s work is never done.”

Martha Moore was born in 1735 in the town of Oxford, MA. She married Ephraim Ballard in 1754 and gave birth to nine children, lost three of them to diphtheria and eventually died in Maine, in 1812 at the age of 77.

Between 1785 and 1812, Martha Ballard kept a diary. Without it her life would’ve been just a succession of born and died dates in some town registry. We would know nothing about her. We would not know she was a midwife. That she delivered 816 babies during that time period with a higher living birth rate than some countries today. She kept an exhaustive record of her travels from house to house, helping not just the pregnant women but the sick and afflicted, her daily accounts of the weather, and her business dealings. We hear of her gardening, her cooking, the washing, and the spinning of wool to sell.

As she ages, we feel the effects of time as she complains of being tired and not well, but still she works, delivering babies, battling prejudice from male doctors, handling religious squabbles, dealing with armed settlers, and most especially loneliness when her husband is kept in debtor’s prison for over a year.

Such “trivia” would’ve been all but ignored but for Ulrich, who looked between the lines and found a heart-felt story within; a story that won a Pulitzer. By uncovering the subplots of Martha’s daily life, from someone’s hasty marriage, lingering labor, or sojourn to jail, she revealed a grander hidden picture of eighteenth-century social history.

I found this book to be fascinating, and I can’t believe I’ve never read it before. What women had to go through just amazes me. So many of their children died and yet these women persevered. And the medical practices, I just couldn’t believe what they used for remedies, and yet I found their return to a simpler time somehow comforting. Everything was much less complicated back then. Martha did really well for herself. She made her own money and took care of her and her own families needs, as well as countless of her neighbors. She did not sit idly back and let history write her off. She wrote her own. What would’ve been lost if she hadn’t? A treasure. For anybody that likes history, this is an excellent read.

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Feb 07, 2009 Stephanie rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: History lovers, Women

Recommended to Stephanie by: Idahospud's Book Club

I kept journals fairly religiously while I was in high school. They are so full of rampant sentimentality (i.e. boy craziness) that reading them now makes me want to fetch the lighter fluid and matches straightaway.

Martha Ballard avoided this problem neatly by keeping her entries brief, factual and largely devoid of emotion or interpretation. She kept careful track of her work as a midwife, her gardening and household chores, and the comings and goings of friends, family, and neighbors; basical I kept journals fairly religiously while I was in high school. They are so full of rampant sentimentality (i.e. boy craziness) that reading them now makes me want to fetch the lighter fluid and matches straightaway.

Martha Ballard avoided this problem neatly by keeping her entries brief, factual and largely devoid of emotion or interpretation. She kept careful track of her work as a midwife, her gardening and household chores, and the comings and goings of friends, family, and neighbors; basically, the daily happenings in her life. Consequently, her diary (of 1785-1812) was long dismissed as “not of general interest” and “trivial and unimportant” by historians. Ulrich, however, chose to take another look, and the result is A Midwife’s Tale, winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

On its most basic level, this book is a fascinating look at life in Maine in the decades following the American Revolution. Each chapter uses a passage from Martha’s diary to explore a specific topic: midwifery, the religious environment, the legal system, the role of women, marriage, and so on. History buffs will certainly enjoy this glimpse into day-to-day life in Martha’s time and place.

On another level, however, this book is a detective story. The format of the book – each chapter is an excerpt from the diary, followed by Ulrich’s commentary – allows us a glimpse into the brilliant detective work that Ulrich undertook to craft this book.

Take, for example, the sentence, “Was Calld in at Mrs Husseys.” To a casual reader, Martha simply visited her friend Mrs Hussey, nothing more. Ulrich knows better. Throughout the diary, Martha speaks of going to Mr Bullins or Capt Coxes or Mr Goodins. In Martha’s world, houses belong to men. So why refer to the house as belonging to Mrs Hussey? Ulrich can tell you why (and she does, in the Introduction, so you don’t have to read far), and she tells you how she came to her conclusion so that we can share in the feeling of discovery.

I enjoyed Ulrich’s writing style. It was scholarly (lots of footnotes, for you footnote lovers!), but readable and laced with humor. I did find it impossible to keep track of all the people in the book; Martha did know most of the people in town after all. Ulrich warns her readers in the Introduction that this can happen (and that it shouldn’t really matter), but it made my head spin nonetheless. In spite of this (very, very minor) annoyance, I quite enjoyed this book and would recommend it to all history lovers. ...more

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Jan 23, 2020 Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship rated it really liked it

Shelves: history, medical, united-states, historical-women, nonfiction, biography, research, 4-stars, best-10-books-read-in-2020

This is an interesting history/biography that’s both accessible and scholarly. Ulrich uses the bare-bones journal of a midwife in early New England, kept from age about 50 through her late 70s, to illuminate the social history of early Maine, as well as Martha Ballard’s own life and family drama. Ulrich clearly digs deep, cross-referencing many sources including official documents and other diarists from the area.

The result is surprisingly rich, and includes some major events (a backwoods rebell This is an interesting history/biography that’s both accessible and scholarly. Ulrich uses the bare-bones journal of a midwife in early New England, kept from age about 50 through her late 70s, to illuminate the social history of early Maine, as well as Martha Ballard’s own life and family drama. Ulrich clearly digs deep, cross-referencing many sources including official documents and other diarists from the area.

The result is surprisingly rich, and includes some major events (a backwoods rebellion, a mass murder) as well as the details of Ballard’s life (visiting neighbors, gardening, delivering babies, marrying off her daughters and left in old age unhappily relying upon her son). Some of the information is surprising or illuminating: for instance, that 40% of first babies were conceived out of wedlock (overwhelmingly the parents soon married, however). Some of it seems fairly obvious now, though perhaps less so 30 years ago when this book was published: for instance, the fact that the women of Ballard’s small farming community had independent social and economic lives, typically visiting separately from their husbands and carrying on their own small-scale transactions with their neighbors.

Meanwhile, Ballard had an eventful career in midwifery, often rushing from one home to another when multiple women were in labor at once, walking across frozen rivers or canoeing across partially-frozen ones to reach her patients. Ulrich presents her as part of a complicated network of “social medicine,” which ranged from neighbor women who showed up to assist at births or sit with the sick, through midwives who also acted as doctors, nurses, apothecaries and morticians depending on the situation, up through physicians, who were only beginning to monopolize the practice of medicine. In Ballard's lifetime doctors and midwives seem to have worked together mostly harmoniously – she witnessed several autopsies at the doctors’ invitation – though they sometimes butted heads.

I would have liked to see a little more analysis of the medical techniques Ballard used. She was pretty clearly a practitioner of traditional rather than experimental medicine, but she also had a fantastic success rate for the time, losing only 5 mothers out of 1000 births. (Contrast with hospitals in London and Dublin, which had far higher maternal death rates, one as high as 1 in 5.) Ulrich mostly dismisses this with the notion that birth is a natural rather than a medical event, over-dramatized in fiction (though, 1 in 24 of the babies Ballard delivered were dead at birth or soon after). But what could those hospitals have been doing so badly wrong? Perhaps New England's colder climate and sparser population, making the spread of disease more difficult, was a major factor here? Overall Ulrich is more focused on the role of women in medicine than the effectiveness of the medicine, but I don’t think discussion of the latter would have undermined the impressiveness of the former at all. Yes, Ballard’s treatments included things like putting onions on people’s feet, but this was a time period when the most celebrated treatment promoted by the male medical establishment was bloodletting, which goes beyond just ineffective to be actually harmful.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this to those who are interested as a strong piece of original scholarship that’s also quite interesting and accessible to those who enjoy popular history. Ulrich’s ability to draw meaning out of what might first appear to be a dry and abbreviated record is nothing short of impressive. ...more

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Apr 09, 2019 Katy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle, pulitzer-challenge-2019

An interesting account of one woman's day to life in the late 1700's to early 1800's in New England. ...more

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Oct 06, 2013 Rina rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: anyone

Though seemingly aimed at an audience who eat up popular history like its cake, Thatcher's book is well researched and obviously the child of a social historian. It may actually be in its favour to be so accessible by those that don't live in the same world as Thatcher in terms of gaining understanding of it and the implications Thatcher's work holds for both gender and medical history. While some parts are questionable in terms of putting thoughts on the person of Mrs. Martha Ballard, A Midwife ...more

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Sep 14, 2010 Jacob rated it it was ok

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. The topic of the book is Martha Ballard and how she represented women in late 18th century America. It focuses on the role of midwives, women in the home, in a market economy, sexual relations of the time period, family hierarchy and structure, a women’s place in society as a whole. The book is an analysis of her life and her work. It is represented as a true eulogy to early American women and their often unrecorded lives.

The story takes place in the town of Hallowell along the Kennebec River i The topic of the book is Martha Ballard and how she represented women in late 18th century America. It focuses on the role of midwives, women in the home, in a market economy, sexual relations of the time period, family hierarchy and structure, a women’s place in society as a whole. The book is an analysis of her life and her work. It is represented as a true eulogy to early American women and their often unrecorded lives.

The story takes place in the town of Hallowell along the Kennebec River in Massachusetts, what is now Augusta, Maine. It covers the time period from 1785-1812 with an epilogue detailing Martha’s descendants’ actions pertaining to her diary. This time period was from when Martha Ballard moved to Hallowell from Oxford, MA until her death in 1812.

The central argument is that women in late 18th century America, while often over looked, played a major role in all aspects of society. In fact each chapter of the book focuses on a different aspect of Martha Ballard’s impact on her surroundings. These individual themes include women’s impact on the local economy, the definition of women’s work, women’s influence on local politics, the nature of sexual relations at the time, the nature of childbirth, the nature of marriage and family interdependence, how women coped with local and often intimate scandals, and how the role of women was changing during the time period. The author concludes that women had significant influence in several areas of local life including the market economy, medicine, and childbirth. These different aspects of the diary combine to tell the tale of the American women at the turn of the 19th century.

The primary source for the analysis was the diary of Martha Ballard. However, the author, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, cross-references the diary with documents from the time period. These documents include court transcripts, prison logs, land records, wills and testimonies, newspapers, sermons, census records, town records, maps, and other diaries. This detailed work of scholarship let Ulrich piece together much more of the story about the surrounding area than the diary alone would have allowed her.

The thesis is very well constructed. I believe that Ulrich’s argument is foolproof. Women most certainly had a crucial, if often unrecorded effect on society and daily life. The close look at the experiences of Martha Ballard was extremely enlightening. I especially found the nature of the market economy of the time to be captivating. Women often had an entire economic structure all their own. The author’s separation of topics and themes by chapter also was useful as it allowed a segmented and detailed study of the different topics. Her cross referencing of the diary with other sources paints a broader picture of the time period and allows certain of Martha’s sometimes mundane or unnoticed comments to stand out. The book was informative as to the nature of family and sexual relationships and also neighbor and town associations. As a whole it explained the role of women during the time period extremely well.

The book itself is rather boring but for anyone interested in the topic it is an excellent piece of scholarship. ...more

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Jul 09, 2018 Danette rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2018-reading-challenge

I am so thankful to live in the age of modern medicine!
Martha Ballard was a caring, talented midwife who helped to deliver hundreds of babies. She also nursed neighbors through their illnesses and prepared the dead for burial. She had a strong faith in a sovereign God which gave her much comfort in the many trials she encountered.
Ulrich weaves a tapestry of the social, political, economic, familial, religious, & medical ways of Martha's day along with her journal of the every day work she faith ...more

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Nov 04, 2014 Emily rated it really liked it

Shelves: biography-or-memoir, non-fiction

History is endlessly fascinating to me. Learning about how real people lived decades, centuries, even millennia ago - so different in so many ways to our lives today, yet so similar in others - makes me feel connected to those who have gone before.

I'm also fascinated by the process historians go through to better understand the past. It seems obvious to me that whether in science or history or any other area of study, as new information is discovered, as new data is gathered, as new connections History is endlessly fascinating to me. Learning about how real people lived decades, centuries, even millennia ago - so different in so many ways to our lives today, yet so similar in others - makes me feel connected to those who have gone before.

I'm also fascinated by the process historians go through to better understand the past. It seems obvious to me that whether in science or history or any other area of study, as new information is discovered, as new data is gathered, as new connections are made, as distance provides broader perspective, our understanding will change, sometimes radically. I've seen the phrase "revisionist history" thrown around as a condescending epithet to describe new interpretations of historical events that challenge the traditional interpretation, but shouldn't we constantly be revising our understanding of history? Shouldn't it be a goal to replace our mistaken assumptions or misunderstandings with a better picture of how it really was, or to try to fill in the gaps a little more, even if that challenges previous conclusions?

Early on in her introduction to the Pulitzer-Prize-winning A Midwife's Tale, historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich mentions that several other historians have been aware of Martha Ballard's diary and even quoted parts of it in their histories of Augusta, Maine, but "those few historians who have known about the diary have not known quite what to do with it." The repetitive structure, the rhythm of domestic chores and seasonal planting, growing, and harvesting cycles of life on a farm, were dismissed as unimportant "trivia". "Yet," Ulrich claims, "it is in the vary dailiness, the exhaustive, repetitious dailiness, that the real power of Martha Ballard's book lies." She goes on to explain :

The problem is not that the diary is trivial but that it introduces more stories than can easily be recovered and absorbed...Taken alone, such stories tell us too much and not enough, teasing us with glimpses of intimate life, repelling us with a reticence we cannot decode. Yet, read in the broader context of the diary and in relation to larger themes in eighteenth-century history, they can be extraordinarily revealing.

Martha kept her diary for more than twenty-seven years, "9,965 days to be exact,"...

To read the rest of this review, visit Build Enough Bookshelves. ...more

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Jan 08, 2013 Stacy rated it liked it

Shelves: history

This was a unique read. So each chapter starts with a section of Martha Ballard's diary. She was a real person who lived in Maine and worked as a midwife there. The diary covers her day-to-day notes between 1785-1812.

Women's journals from this time period are not at all common to have been preserved to modern day, but her family descendants preserved her writings all these years, and thank goodness they did. Her journal tells us much about life at that time and place, as well as medicine at the This was a unique read. So each chapter starts with a section of Martha Ballard's diary. She was a real person who lived in Maine and worked as a midwife there. The diary covers her day-to-day notes between 1785-1812.

Women's journals from this time period are not at all common to have been preserved to modern day, but her family descendants preserved her writings all these years, and thank goodness they did. Her journal tells us much about life at that time and place, as well as medicine at the time. (If you ever think your life is boring and you have nothing to write in your journal, this book will show you that even a record of the mundane details will probably be of interest to people hundreds of years later!)

Life was tough for women then, but in different ways. Keeping a house and garden was an endless chore. Illness and discomfort were prevalent. Some perks were that, in Martha's case at least, neighbors lives were very intertwined and synergistic. Also, her strong faith in God's goodness helped her remain steady thought she saw lots of tragedies, illness, and adversity. On the downside for women: It was a little shocking how women who were raped were shamed into silence. Martha herself told a women who claimed she'd been raped never to tell anyone about it. Eek!

I found the loose sexual morality of the time period a little surprising. I was expecting something more Puritan and chaste, but it turns out, Martha attended quite a few deliveries for unwed mothers, which weren't considered scandalous as long as a wedding soon followed.

From an editing point of view, there were a few times when I would have advised the author to move things around. For example, the author will mention something several times without explaining it, and only explain it much later in the book. (Like the reason Martha is paid different sums for different deliveries, mentioned often but not explained until the 3rd chapter I think.) Also, the book is written like a scholarly historical paper rather than a readable novel, so it could be a little dry for some readers who aren't used to that style. But kudos to the author for wading through all those years of journal entries and sharing the most relevant bits! That must have been a monumental task. ...more

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Feb 25, 2008 Rachel rated it it was amazing

This book is a labor of love. Laurel Ulrich Thatcher (who is LDS, incidentally) sifted through thousands of journal entries & period documents to reconstruct the life of Martha Ballard--a woman history forgot. The result is stunning. You get to know, intimately, what life was like for an average American woman in the late 18th/early 19th C. This is not idealized portrayal, just wonderfully realistic.

And of course, the reason I first picked this book up is that I'm obsessed with midwifery and car ...more

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Jan 18, 2020 Sandi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

From a simple casebook / diary the author extrapolates a wealth of information about the lives of an entire community in early American New England. Using just the clues written by Martha, we learn about the most mundane to the most scandalous events that happen to these most ordinary of citizens. Martha wasn't just a midwife, but a healer, confidante, and keen observer of humankind. Strikingly, it's amazing how much of Martha's story parallels what our own lives are like more than 200 years lat ...more

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Sep 01, 2020 Mitch Rogers rated it really liked it

I mean, talk about historian’s craft as performance art. “See this diary? With it I shall make... history!”

Or, describing her approach in her own words,

“There is no center, only a kind of grid, faint trails of experience converging and deflecting across a single day.”

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Mar 10, 2013 Maryk rated it really liked it

Until recent times, not many people would have recognized the name Martha Ballard as a name of historical significance. Though relatively unknown by the masses, most scholars agree that her written diary profoundly contributed to current knowledge of early New England women’s lives, especially those in the field of midwifery. It was the great effort of Laurel Thatcher Ulrich in her Pulitzer Prize winning book, A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812, which unc Until recent times, not many people would have recognized the name Martha Ballard as a name of historical significance. Though relatively unknown by the masses, most scholars agree that her written diary profoundly contributed to current knowledge of early New England women’s lives, especially those in the field of midwifery. It was the great effort of Laurel Thatcher Ulrich in her Pulitzer Prize winning book, A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812, which uncovered the knowledge that illuminated the life and significance of women and midwives during the late seventeen hundreds and early eighteen hundreds. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich is a professor at Harvard University and is a widely known author of books concerning early New England life. She was also the winner of the Bancroft Prize, the Joan Kelly and John H. Dunning Prizes of the American Historical Association, and Winner of the Berkshire Conference on the History of Women Book Prize. The diary of Martha Ballard is important because as Ulrich says, “By restoring a lost substructure of eighteenth century life, it transforms the nature of the evidence upon which much of the history of the period has been written.”(p. 27)
Women of the late seventeen hundreds and early eighteen hundreds held an undoubtedly vital and important place in history. Though official documents did not include details concerning women’s contributions, the diary of Martha Ballard gave a consistent and relatively thorough insight to the contributions made by women and midwives. She was a woman who moved to Hallowell, Maine with her husband, who was a surveyor. The profession of midwifery was one that many women held during that time because giving birth was a social event. Ulrich’s research revealed that younger women were also present during births and it was not until Martha moved to Hallowell that she was considered an experienced enough woman to hold that official position.
Though she held the title of midwife, her job was much more encompassing than birthing babies. In the words of Ulrich, “She was simultaneously a midwife, nurse, physician, mortician, pharmacist, and attentive wife.”(p. 40) Martha Ballard farmed herbs for salves, teas, and poultices. She administered these remedies as they were needed on men and children in addition to the women she served. She was also instrumental in assisting her husband with the upkeep of their property and in transforming crops such as flax seed into cloth to sell. The writings in her diary simply elaborated some of the hard work that many women of the time did in order to help their families survive.
Ultimately, A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812, written by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, was an extremely interesting book containing much insight into how women carried on during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. I liked the book because it showed a human and thoughtful side to life that included daily details such as the weather, family problems, and how communities dealt with them together. I specifically liked the references to the medicines that she created. One of the downsides to the book was trying to read Ballard’s entries. Though Ulrich changed much of the wording in order to make it more understandable, the misspellings were still a great barrier. Anyone interested in studying women’s history, midwifery, or daily life in early New England times will enjoy this book immensely. A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 is a very important work that bridges the gap between ordinary historical accounts and the real life accounts of women experiencing late eighteenth and early nineteenth century life.
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May 17, 2020 Cynda rated it really liked it

Shelves: biography-or-memior, women, medical-folkways, read-2020

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Read in honor of the centennial of US Women's Suffrage. In The Woman's Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote, Elaine F. Weiss points out that women's professional work experience made possible their getting the vote.

Forever women have helped each other birth babies. The women who assisted best were called.midwives, others sitters, assistants, after nurses. Levels of skills and.abilities differed, allowed for medical, economic, and social stratification.

So what mades Martha Ballard special enoug Read in honor of the centennial of US Women's Suffrage. In The Woman's Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote, Elaine F. Weiss points out that women's professional work experience made possible their getting the vote.

Forever women have helped each other birth babies. The women who assisted best were called.midwives, others sitters, assistants, after nurses. Levels of skills and.abilities differed, allowed for medical, economic, and social stratification.

So what mades Martha Ballard special enough to write a biography of? Martha incorporated some elements of professionalization in her women's work.

Martha Ballard had some education. She had some basic 18th-century-style education, enough to maintain her journal which incorporated household, social, home production (often for pay), midwifery. Her spelling was what we would call substandard, which she found adequate and serviceable.

Martha Ballard kept a succint, well organized journal of her days. She used the journal as her aid for organization and aid for memory. This journal server her as householder, member of women's economic web, and as medical practitioner.

Martha Ballard had progressed through the levels of medicine from servant-as-nurse, sitter, midwife attendant, midwife. There were also herbalists and preparers of the dead. As a midwife, she was present sometimes days before birth, during birth, stayed until either the after nurse arrived--or--conducted an autopsy, washed a body, and comforted family until others arrived. Anytime between birth and death, Martha Ballard provided received wisdom and brought simples. As a midwife, hers was a traditional birth-to-death business.

Martha Ballard consulted other professionals. Through most of Ballard's practice, doctors who were part-time medical providers often left the birthing to midwives. When a complication arose that required the doctor's medical tools or consult, Ballard called for one of the doctors to consult and assist.

In a number of ways, Martha Ballard was medical professional. Her journals confirm that assertion

Martha Ballard practiced the medicine that English traditional and educated (same) medical providers practiced from growing and funding plant sources to making medical simples (teas, syrups, tonics, etc.)

Martha Ballard

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Nov 28, 2007 Meredith Watts rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: Anyone interested in micro-history

This book was amazing. It is set in the largely uncharted territory of Maine after the Revolutionary War. Few regular folks were literate at that time, which is why Martha Ballard, a largely self-educated midwife, gave us such a gift in keeping a diary. It's not a diary in the ordinary sense, but rather her accounts of her business as a midwife, sometimes punctuated with other short references to events in her life. Her husband was quite a guy -- a surveyor, who lived into very old age. Ulrich i ...more

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Mar 27, 2019 Amanda rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: pulitzer-non-fiction, books-i-own

I very much enjoyed this look into Martha Ballard's life. I had expected this book to be primarily about her midwifery, but was pleasantly surprised to see that her diary delved into aspects of daily life, social interactions, and local scandals as well. The discussions about premarital sex and pregnancy were particularly interesting, and getting insight into debtors' imprisonment was also fascinating. I loved the index of herbs/medicines/etc. that was included at the end as well.

The nonstandar ...more

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Feb 26, 2021 Laura Jane rated it it was amazing

Absolutely stunning work. I was completely immersed in the world of Martha Ballard what care the author took to uncover her life truthfully and respectfully. The research was meticulous.I’ll be thinking about this for a long time.

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Mar 07, 2017 Jackie rated it really liked it

Historian's historian. Took a midwife's journal with entries that were each maybe two or three sentences long and along with other research, built out the story of a woman, a town and a career. Just incredible. ...more

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Jul 04, 2021 becca rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: us-hist, hist-theory, feminist-theory

masterclass in primary sources analysis & social history. oh you think reading about women weaving and growing plants and visiting people's houses is boring? well you have to read it now and you have to respect women's economy and you have to not care about what men care about and instead shape your view of history from the perspective of the attendants of life and death. what now? ...more

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Feb 25, 2022 Douglas rated it it was amazing

Besides being a wonderful intriguing story, this 'Tale' offers timeless insight into social economies, family struggles, eternal truths of aging and more. Having built around the bones of my father's letters from WW2 combat, I was particularly intrigued and impressed by the additional research, even the willingness to offer conjecture, that filled out ( and in) the rich fullness of the story. I hope I am a better, more compassionate, patient, justly committed person for having read this "Tale". ...more

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Dec 03, 2018 Sandra The Old Woman in a Van rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audiobook, z-2018-50-states-challenge, region-us, nonfiction-read, history, biography

This Pulitzer Prize winning biography/history may not be for everyone but I loved it. It is the rendering of the diary of an 18th century midwife in Maine, interpreted along with corresponding documents of the same time and place. Basically it an accounting of an ordinary woman’s life at the time. I was so impressed with Martha and enthralled to see the economy, medical care, home and community life from the eyes of a woman. This is a rare text indeed, and expertly put together in a book. It imp This Pulitzer Prize winning biography/history may not be for everyone but I loved it. It is the rendering of the diary of an 18th century midwife in Maine, interpreted along with corresponding documents of the same time and place. Basically it an accounting of an ordinary woman’s life at the time. I was so impressed with Martha and enthralled to see the economy, medical care, home and community life from the eyes of a woman. This is a rare text indeed, and expertly put together in a book. It impresses me with the magnitude of information we are missing because women did not publish letters and historical texts throughout history to the degree men did. I also was inspired by the book on a very personal level. I volunteer as a birth doula so am facinated by midwifes and peripartum medical care in general. Reading the details here was facinating - and I was amazed (although thinking about it I should not be) that Martha struggled with her work and the demands of home. She tended her garden, did laundry - and came home from a long birth to find her home “up in arms” just like women do today - as in coming home to find no one did the dishes, laundry, tended to the animals, swept, etc. She struggled with her family/children- real life worries just like today.

Additionally, the information the author put together during her research was facinating, especially regarding the economic impact of women - they all had side gigs beyond homemaking. The interconnectedness of the web of women in her community, the bartering, shared work, production of textiles, was striking, and not well described in other histories. The information within her records on social systems such as marriage and premarital pregnancies (I think it was about 30-40% of all first births were within the first 4-5 months or less of marriage). Out of wedlock births were common and the women were not treated ala The Scarlet Letter. This work helped dispel the myth of purity we often attribute to peoples from the past. Martha’s daily life was not disimilar to most women I know - work hard to earn money, but always making a grocery list, planning home projects and juggling children (and struggling to “adult” children). In her case it was a garden, not the store - but I could relate to her life very much. I just inherited my grandmother’s diaries which seem to be written in a very similar format. I am inspired to now go back and read them entry by entry.

Some may find this book slow, but I did not. It was very worthy of the Pulizter it won. ...more

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Feb 23, 2011 David Nichols rated it really liked it

Shelves: reviewed

This pathbreaking, Pulitzer-prize-winning book is a study of the life, labor, and social connections of a rural midwife, Martha Ballard, based on her manuscript diary in the Maine State Library. A MIDWIFE'S TALE changed the way historians researched and wrote women's history. In the 1970s and '80s, students of women's history primary focused on the records of literate, middle- and upper-class women, and defined their lives as a struggle against the strictures of a patriarchal society. Ulrich, by ...more

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Apr 13, 2009 Ellen rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

This started out really slowly. The introduction just about killed me with the dry and convoluted information. I had trouble following it and caring. Then I started on the rest of it. I really liked the format; being able to read some of the diary but then being told the back story from lots of other sources. The diary itself was hard to read but got easier as things went on.

I thought Martha's life was very interesting. All the comings and goings. It all made me want to live in an area that has ...more

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Dec 21, 2009 Susan rated it it was amazing

I began reading this book because Martha Ballard, the midwife, was a knitter who recorded her progress in winding wool and knitting socks and mittens while she attended births (lots and lots of them). Ulrich won a Pulitzer for this book, an astonishing interpretation of the diary of a midwife in Maine during the late 1700s/early 1800s. It is amazing that Martha Ballard kept this diary and equally amazing that her family preserved and donated her diary to the Maine State Library. Ulrich. Interest ...more

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Nov 08, 2012 Doris rated it liked it

This book was not what I expected. I thought I was getting a biography based on Martha's diary from the late 1700s to early 1800s. It actually reads more like a text book as the author disects the diary and uses other historic documents to describe life as a midwife in the time period. It was very interesting but not necessarily entertaining.

Very few of my preconceived notions of what it was like to live in the time period as a woman were true. Martha was a very independent person, but that may ...more

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Nov 30, 2007 Sandra D rated it it was amazing

Shelves: american-history, women, biography, medical-health

I first happened upon Martha Ballard's diary online a few years ago and found it interesting but difficult to decipher, so I was happy to find this book.

In it, Ms. Ulrich has skillfully woven diary entries with local history records in order to create a fuller picture of life in a small New England town in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. She used entries in the diary as a jumping-off point to elaborate not only on the larger themes of birth, death, religion and political upheaval, but al ...more

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Jan 15, 2009 Tracy rated it really liked it

This book took me F O R E V E R to finish. This is the first time in my life the library has almost refused to let me keep a book. I had to beg them to let me check it out one last time. Luckily, they let me, and I finished it. It's a good book, gets a little tedious by the end, but still a worthwhile history of Maine in the late 1700's taken from the diary of a midwife who wrote nearly every day for something like 37 years. I've forgotten already how long it was... Won the Pulitzer Prize for Hi ...more

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May 10, 2010 Charlotte rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, 4-star, biographies-memoirs, historical

This book has stuck with me for almost a decade. It is based on the journal of a midwife in the early 1800's. You see her entry one day about delivering a baby and then the next day laying out the mother and baby for their funeral.

What I remember most is a comment that, if you looked at the historical documents, you wouldn't even know this woman's name. Yet, because she kept a journal, you see an intimate view of her life and the important role she held in the community. Not to mention a fascin ...more

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NonFiction Pulitzers: Midwife's Tale: March/April 2019 Group Read	56	24	Apr 15, 2019 10:27AM
So how do you all think this captured a glimpse of the typical American life in the 18th century?	5	29	Nov 09, 2015 05:04AM
500 Great Books B...: A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary 1785-1812 - Laurel Thatcher Ulrich	1	10	Jul 27, 2014 07:55PM

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About Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

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Laurel Thatcher Ulrich is 300th Anniversary University Professor at Harvard University. She is the author of Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Early New England, 1650-1750 (1982) and A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 (1990) which won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1991 and became the basis of a PBS documentary. In The Age of Homespun ...more

Books by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750

A House Full of Females: Plural Marriage and Women's Rights in Early Mormonism, 1835-1870

The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth

Tangible Things: Making History Through Objects

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“[She] was a true light upon a hill. She was a person of humility, affability, compassion and on whose tongue was the law of kindness. Her ear was open to the complaints of the afflicted, and her hand was open for the supply of the needy. If others were so unhappy as to divide into parties and to burn with contention, yet she remained a common friend to all. She was...ready to minister to them to the utmost of her power.” — 0 likes

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