A Midwife's Tale
The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 (Pulitzer Prize Winner)
Published on 22. December 2010
464 pages
978-0-307-77298-5 (ISBN)
Description
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE
Drawing on the diaries of one woman in eighteenth-century Maine, this intimate history illuminates the medical practices, household economies, religious rivalries, and sexual mores of the New England frontier.
Between 1785 and 1812 a midwife and healer named Martha Ballard kept a diary that recorded her arduous work (in 27 years she attended 816 births) as well as her domestic life in Hallowell, Maine. On the basis of that diary, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich gives us an intimate and densely imagined portrait, not only of the industrious and reticent Martha Ballard but of her society. At once lively and impeccably scholarly, A Midwife's Tale is a triumph of history on a human scale.
Drawing on the diaries of one woman in eighteenth-century Maine, this intimate history illuminates the medical practices, household economies, religious rivalries, and sexual mores of the New England frontier.
Between 1785 and 1812 a midwife and healer named Martha Ballard kept a diary that recorded her arduous work (in 27 years she attended 816 births) as well as her domestic life in Hallowell, Maine. On the basis of that diary, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich gives us an intimate and densely imagined portrait, not only of the industrious and reticent Martha Ballard but of her society. At once lively and impeccably scholarly, A Midwife's Tale is a triumph of history on a human scale.
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Additional editions
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
A Midwife's Tale
The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 (Pulitzer Prize Winner)
Book
06/1991
Vintage Books
€19.00
Shipment within 10-20 days
Book
03/1990
Alfred A. Knopf
€44.84
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Person
LAUREL THATCHER ULRICH was born in Sugar City, Idaho. She holds degrees from the University of New Hampshire, University of Utah, and Simmons College. She is 300th Anniversary University Professor at Harvard University and past president of the American Historical Association. As a MacArthur Fellow, Ulrich worked on the PBS documentary based on her Pulitzer Prize-winning book A Midwife's Tale. Her work is also featured on an award-winning website called dohistory.org. She is immediate past president of the Mormon History Association. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Content
- Intro
- Other Books by This Author
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- Maps and Illustrations
- Tables and Graphs
- Introduction "A Great Sea a Going"
- Chapter One - August 1787: "Exceeding Dangerously Ill"
- Chapter Two - September 1788: "Warpt a Piece"
- Chapter Three - October 1789: "Mrs Foster Has Sworn a Rape on a Number of Men"
- Chapter Four - November 1792: "Matrimonial Writes"
- Chapter Five - December 1793: "Birth 50. Birth 51"
- Chapter Six - January 1796: "Find My House Up in Arms"
- Chapter Seven - February 1801: "A Desection Performd"
- Chapter Eight - March 1804: "What a Scean Had I to Go at Evening"
- Chapter Nine - April 1806: "Polly Purington Here"
- Chapter Ten - May 1809: "Workt in my Gardin"
- Epilogue
- Appendix: Medicinal Ingredients Mentioned in Martha Ballard's Diary
- Notes
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Also By Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
