A Midwife’s Tale is a detailed biography of Martha Ballard, a midwife in the late period of the 1700s to the early 1800s who wrote a diary of her daily operation’s ranging from 1st January 1785 to 8th May 1812. Ballard’s everyday life can be categorized as being a very extraordinary woman that lived an ordinary lifestyle in the community of Puritan. Ballard’s life represented many women in America in the late 18th century who had less power and minimal rights compared to men. The book continues to illustrate the daily chores of Martha Ballard, which entails; the herbal healing, the births of her nine babies, the baby delivery processes as well as various challenges she encountered from her surroundings. This paper will focus on A Midwife’s Tale an imperative and educative book in the historical field of study.
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, the author of A Midwife’s Tale, transforms the entire humble account dairy of Ballard, a midwife of the 18th century into a magnificent commentary based on the American lifestyle at the time of the early Republic. Indeed, Ballard’s diary avails a broad-ranging glimpse of the New England community at the period when the people of America were struggling for different identity, a distinctive from the native country. Further, Ulrich grounds her argument on the 9,965 daily diary entries of Ballard, which she made in three decades that covered the transition year of the American Society on various steps such as religion, family life, and medicine. On this account, Ulrich central issue of focus; medicine professionalism, especially in the childbirth area, gives us an excellent analytical view of the historical background of the American medical level.
Additionally, the book can also be classified as an informative reference to both the historical studies of health care of the early American as well as the area of women’s studies. For example, the unusual nature of the dairy of Ballard, and the balanced judgment, the impressive erudition as well as disciplined imagination employed by Ulrich in the book brings out its treasures and put them in an elaborate historical context. In addition to the above argument, the information Ulrich extracted from the dairy serves as a full augment benefit of other historical sources, which enables a historian to have a deeper understanding of this unique American historical era. Consequently, the ability of Ulrich to weave Ballard dairy with several historical documents, allows a modern reader to relate and apply the Martha Ballard’s story to the daily life studies.
Further, Ulrich writes in a more beautiful manner, in which she gives a plethora of quotable parts starting from the sage to the comedic to the touching ones. The methodological advice of the story that the first time a person opens a diary; it seems like being in a house full of strangers in which the reader is highly advised to be happy with the company without engaging into remembrance of any name. Ulrich also explores the rural debt, which she uses the Ballard’s diary to shifts the primary focus from lawyers and mortgages to the sons and the wood boxes. Ulrich elaborates on how the history of the family changed the incarceration patterns in the period of social and political transformation. Significantly, Ulrich story in this book has had many impacts on the political and social history of America and has been considered as a monumental achievement in the historical work.
The book is highly graded as one of the best books in the historical field that combines both the commercial and scholarly potentials in illustrating the bottom-up view, which is told through applications of similar degrees of the modern appeal and academic thoroughness. A Midwife’s Tale also gives an educative background to the historical field that paves a clear way for a proper understanding of its achievement as a great man's biography, which is highly critical in the past evaluation of events especially the Revolutionary and the Civil War. Resultantly, the Ulrich book, A Midwife’s Tale is a significant reference to the whole ancient field of study. Ulrich also uses the diary of Ballard to pave more light on the economic ways of the 18th century. Moreover, this application shows that the Ballard’s diary was not only a book of daily deeds, but also, a way of recording payments received and debts owed. Consequently, the entire book was a beneficial economic and historical reference.
Inclusion, Ulrich did fantastic work in depicting the whole daily life of the early Americans through the female eye in the 1800s. Also, she brings out the stereotypical image of women during this era, in which women were only subjected as housewives, whose duties were majorly cleaning, cooking as well as taking care of husbands and families. However, the author uses the protagonist Ballard as a representation of a very significant woman figure, who can get equal earnings as her husband with similar life experience. Ballard’s story as a strong woman gives out the educative measures to the present historians on the life history of the early American women.
In conclusion, A Midwife’s Tale is a great testament that influence and impact many scholars to have an illustrative understanding on the economic, social and political nature of women in America during the period of the 18th century. Ulrich’s work is phenomenally well-written, well-researched, and substantially historical educative sources, which took a refreshing and an in-depth perspective on the life of the early American Republic.
Work Cited
Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher. A Midwife's Tale. New York: Knopf, 1990. Print.
