Martha Ballard

Diaries are truly a beautiful concept. Not only does it serve as a glance into the past but it’s also passing on life memories down your family line. To me Martha Ballard seemed like an independent and intelligent women. It may seem far fetched to think of it that way due to society's perspective on women back in the day, however, she practically ran her own personal business. Additionally, she was part of the few whom surpassed barriers to learn to write during a time where female education was…

A Midwife’s Tale is the story of Martha Ballard’s life based off her diary written from 1785-1812. The film depicts what the life of Martha Ballard was like, including sickness, birth, and death. The film showed the life of Marth as a town midwife and doctor in the 18th and 19th centuries. The film was told through reconstructions of the past based on Martha’s writing throughout her life. Historian Laurel Ulrich told the life of Martha Ballard based on the primary source, Martha’s diary.…

Tale, she organizes and recounts thoughts, feelings, and events depicted in Martha Ballard’s diary. Martha Ballard was able to see and experience a lot in her time in Hallowell and was able to immortalize her experiences through her diary. Throughout the entirety of the novel the central theme is the different experiences the men and women, including Martha, have in the Massachusetts territory, Hallowell. The majority of Martha Ballard’s diary is a daily recap of the work and weather she…

time. Rosa Parks’ action took an excellence in history, but that the same time, it made a stand for people to rebel against the whites for their rights. Finally, Martha Ballard made history by writing in the diary she kept, containing stories and powerful words about a murder that a judge had committed. As Ulrich was describing Martha Ballard’s diary and her actions that…

1812 in American history when a journal was left behind from Martha Ballard, a midwife, giving us first hand knowledge on how the changes occurred. During this time period we see the slowly fading tradition of healing women and midwives getting replaced by that of opiates and doctors with their forceps. Though Midwives were still respected…

Does acting out of the ordinary give you a better chance of making history? History professor at Harvard University, Laurel Thratcher Ulrich, who was appointed the 300th Anniversary University Professor, describes at the beginning of her article, “Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History”, how she slightly made history by writing her frequently used quote "well-behaved women seldom make history". In this article she points out that news mainly focuses on law makers and law breakers. She explains…

With every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. All actions, regardless of their intentions, produce outcomes that are unforeseen and can last for years to come. The British colonists ' decision to populate the east coast of North America came with a list of negative repercussions. Vickers’s Farmers & Fishermen allows readers to enter another period and describes the hardships and their ability to overcome them as an explanation of how the colonists were successful, while Ulrich’s A…

understand early colonial America -- the era’s growth of trade, its religious practices, its medicinal practices, or its colonists’ interpersonal and professional relationships with one another. In Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s monograph, A Midwife’s Tale, Martha Ballard’s diary explores all of these factors. One crucial factor of understanding colonial America is through understanding the gender roles of colonial women and their influences on the colonies. Although women were seen as insignificant…

Women were treated differently on the frontier from how they are treated today. There was almost a gender division between men and women. Men were the independent gender on the frontier and women were the ones who were dependent on them. On the frontier, women had certain roles that they had to follow in their home. Generally, they would work only inside the home as a “domestic house wife” while their husbands and sons worked on the farm outside, although there were occasions, which were slim to…

is truly two different worlds compared to present day America. In Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s, A Midwife’s Tale the drastic difference between women now compared to women during the erection of the United States is shown through the journals of Martha Ballard. The journals take place between 1785-1812 right in the thick of the creation of the United States. Laurel Thatcher uses the journal excerpts to show what it was like to be a woman back when men ran almost every aspect of life during this…