Martha Ballard

It is not often that I’m able to write an essay with a blatantly obvious feminist perspective. Women, as I see them, can be more moving in their words and actions than men. They have been tamed and silenced in many societies at one point or another, but men who wrote tales we now consider classic literature were inspired by the muffled fire behind women. Dangerous, alluring creatures of myth displayed the traits women harbored in their hands, fisted behind their backs. Weaved tapestries and…

Martha Ballard left behind a diary of her life story, but what was unusual was that Ulrich finds that there is not much evidence from women (AMT). Men were the ones that had evidence because they left behind documents, such the Mayflower Compact and the Declaration…

change in Ulrich’s work A Midwife’s Tale, Martha Ballard is used to a subsistent market economy where neighbors help each other out and don’t necessarily need to pay with currency or on time for that manner. Ulrich mentions that in the first half of the book Martha has lots of autonomy, the subsistent economy allows her to perform her job as a midwife and allows her to control her own life. Near the second half of the book is when the economy changes and Martha starts to degrade, and become old…

Brown, Irene Quenzler and Richard D. Brown. The Hanging of Ephraim Wheeler: A Story of Rape, Incest, and Justice in Early America. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003. Thesis: Brown and Brown argue that through the use of "micro history," readers and researchers are able to "explore large questions of policy and principle at the level of actual people and specific experience (7). They challenge the reader to not ascertain Wheeler 's guilt or innocence, but rather if…

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s essay Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History, is an excellent example of analytical social history, that is aimed to educate other historians, women, and others interested in social history (the history of groups that might not have participated in mainstream life), the intersectionality of women’s history, and pop-culture. Ulrich’s essay uses several rhetorical devices to create a convincing argument for the existence of collaborative history and the importance of…

The piece of music that this paper will focus on is “Sing Sing Sing” by Benny Goodman. “Sing Sing Sing” is a fast pace swing song that features mainly trumpets and saxophones, a driving drum, and an unmistakable solo by the famous clarinetist- Benny Goodman. Benny Goodman was one of the driving forces of band desegregation during his time as a bandleader. “Sing Sing Sing” by Benny Goodman was a killer diller number, a popular dance piece, that embodies the swing era, and brought jazz out of the…

When drafting the Constitution of the United States, the framers stated that they were establishing the constitution “in order to form a more perfect Union”, but less than hundred years later, the unity of the Union was in jeopardy. Even before the independence of the nation, the northern states and the southern states were deviating from one another and over time, these differences between two parts of the nation became increasingly apparent. Due to their differences in ideas of slavery and…

is a very typical description of their marriage. Charles would often be absent for weeks or months at a time, while Mary would stay home, teaching and caring for their three children. Their system of marriage was very similar to Martha Ballard and her husband. Like Ballard, Platt had an obligation to have outside employment, while also caring for her children and managing the house. Meanwhile, her husband Charles, like Ephraim, would often be gone for his job, leaving Platt to care for home,…

labor forces. In the diary of Martha Ballard, a Hallowell midwife, we can see that in the late 18th century, the economy was characterized by family production. She “employed her daughters” and “her nieces” for textile production, and at the same time, letting them to “[weave] for other families in town” in exchange for the help from those families, eventually, they ended up producing “hundreds of skeins of cotton, wool, linen, and tow thread” (Ulrich 75, 79). Martha Ballard’s diary shows that…

From the moment the nurse in the delivery room states those three words, “It’s a girl,” the limitations that come from being a girl begin. For most people, the simple fact of being a girl throws you into a specific category, which includes the limitations. These limitations decide how women act, who they should be, and what kind of rights they are entitled to. Women in history act out to establish their place, to fulfill a larger purpose, or defeat an oppressive body. If you cut out weeds but do…