A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 Hardcover – March 10, 1990 by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
 
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.From the Trade Paperback edition.
 
From Library Journal
This book is a model of social history at its best. An exegesis of Ballard's diary, it recounts the life and times of this obscure Maine housewife and midwife. Using passages from the diary as a starting point for each chapter division, Ulrich, a professor at the University of New Hampshire, demonstrates how the seemingly trivial details of Ballard's daily life reflect and relate to prominent themes in the history of the early republic: the role of women in the economic life of the community, the nature of marriage and sexual relations, the scope of medical knowledge and practice. Speculating on why Ballard kept the diary as well as why her family saved it, Ulrich highlights the document's usefulness for historians.- Marie Marmo Mullaney, Caldwell Coll., N.J.Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
8.3
4.21*