Martha ballard biography
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Martha Ballard
American midwife, healer and diarist (–)
Not to be confused with Martha Moore (footballer).
Martha Ballard | |
|---|---|
Artist representation of the proposed Martha Ballard memorial statue to be erected in Mill Park, Augusta Maine. | |
| Born | Martha Moore February 9, Oxford, Province of Massachusetts |
| Died | May 7, () (aged&#;77) Hallowell, Maine, US |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation(s) | Midwife, healer, mortician |
| Known&#;for | Diary with 10, entries kept over 27 years |
| Spouse | Ephraim Ballard (m. 19 December ) |
| Children | 9 |
| Relatives | Clara Barton Mary Hobart |
Martha Moore Ballard (February 20, &#; May 7, ) was an American midwife, healer, and diarist. Unusual for the time, Ballard kept a diary with thousands of entries over nearly three decades, which has provided historians with invaluable insight into colonial frontier-women's lives.[1]
Ballard was made famous by the publication of A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard
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Ballard, Martha
Excerpt fromA Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard Based
on Her Diary, –
Written by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich,
For twenty-seven years, Martha Ballard kept a diary, from until her death in Ballard served as a midwife, a woman experienced in helping the birthing process of other women, and primary health-care giver for the pioneering community of Hallowell, Maine. During that time, she delivered babies and treated countless ailing residents. Ballard was not only a midwife and nurse but an herbalist, pharmacist, mortician, wife, mother, and grandmother. In her diary, she recorded the daily weather and the household activities she participated in, including planting a garden, spinning yarn, weaving cloth, quilting, knitting, preparing foods, and brewing beer. She recorded the names of visitors at the Ballard home each day and all the visits she made to other homes. Amid all these regular occurrences, she recounted her medical calls and every baby delivery
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A Midwife&#;s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary,
Description
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich&#;s Pulitzer Prize-winning A Midwife&#;s Tale beautifully portrays the life of midwife and healer Martha Ballard in Hallowell, Maine, based on the diary she kept between and Ulrich gives us an intimate and densely imagined portrait, not only of the industrious and reticent Martha Ballard but of her kultur &#; a portrait that sheds light on its medical practices, religious squabbles and sexuell mores. This triumph of history on a human scale fryst vatten one of our favorite books. (Interesting notes: Among Martha Ballard&#;s ancestors were Ballards of Andover, MA. Brothers namn and John Ballard played crucial roles in the Salem witch trials. Martha Ballard&#;s grandniece was Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross.) (paperback, )
Reviews for A Midwife&#;s Tale:
&#;Expertly executed and endlessly interesting. [An] offbeat gem of scholarship.&#; &#;Washington Post Book Worl