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HistoryA Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812
(By Laurel Thatcher Ulrich)
Wondering if anyone else has read this one and wanted to discuss it? It's a bit dry and academic as Ulrich unpacks the scant words of Martha's historic diary and places them into context, not a page turner, but I still thought it was a fascinating dive into one of those times and places where a society was living on the edge enough that men couldn't pretend that women were incompetent because they needed us too much. It's a very different view than we often get of women's roles in society pre-20th century, and a different view of the broader culture than is often presented. It's also a work I would put on the reference shelf if it came to trying to figure out how to design a working small community, since it goes into a fair bit of detail on how that was organized.
Martha Ballard was also a badass who continued to be a badass into old age. Think galloping across a frozen river with a prolapsed uterus and almost getting struck by lightening because there are women in labor and it can't wait. Then wrote about it in her diary with the kind of sparse matter-of-factness that was typical of the time.