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

"Laurel, who taught at New Hampshire and then at Harvard, wrote this brilliant picture of rural New England life, set from the 1780s to the 1820 or so based on the diary of a midwife named Martha Ballard. It took virtuosic interpretive work to tease meaning out of the cryptic writings in this diary. She managed to assemble what coastal Maine was like in this time period. You get a stunning portrait of what it was like to live in that time and place. It’s a beautifully written book, a literary gem. It follows Martha through her life and each chapter moves around the calendar. The first chapter will be, say, September in one year and then the next one will be October of another year; on and on around the calendar. One of the things you imbibe by reading it is the way seasons shaped life. You learn the different chores, delights and diseases that came at different times of the year. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . There’s a tendency to view the pastoral past as simple; A Midwife’s Tale also reveals the complexity and challenges of rural economic life. Not only is Martha Ballard a midwife, she’s also engaged in cloth production and food production. Her husband is a farmer who also runs timber mills. The book helps us appreciate the tremendous stock of knowledge that New Englanders, like the Ballards, had, and the complexity of their communities. So, anyone who is interested in books about New England ought to read A Midwife’s Tale . That’s complicated. The world that Ulrich wrote about is patriarchic. Males, by law and by custom, were heads of the household. Females, whether as wives or as daughters, were under the authority of husbands or fathers. Women weren’t able to vote or hold property in their names until far later. Yet, at the same time, the partnership that Martha had with her husband entailed codependence. Both husband and wife were engaged in the household-based economy. Domestic life in the northeast changed quite dramatically soon after the end of Ulrich’s story. Due largely to the growth of the New England textile industry, starting in the eighteen teens, we see a separation of women’s work and men’s work. The normative division becomes men work in offices, shops, and factories, while women’s work becomes confined to the home. That wasn’t true in the time of Martha Ballard. Even though she was living under a patriarchal legal and political structure, as a midwife, as a weaver, she was in engaged in the community. So, it’s an interesting question that you asked."