The story that Laurel Thatcher Ulrich tells in A Midwife’s Tale brings the reader into the world of an eighteenth century midwife. It might be more accurate to say that she “assist in telling” the story, however, since she blends blocks of her own scholarly text with the terse entries from Martha Ballard’s diaries. The result is an interesting combination of perspectives, similar to what the result might be if the two women were somehow able to sit in the same room together and discuss Martha’s daily routine.
And just as it is easy to imagine uncomfortable silences between the two women, it is often easy to see that the blending is a bit forced at times. This discomfort occurs when Ulrich attempts to impose her values and the values of the modern era on the women of the eighteenth century. One example of this imposition occurs when Ulrich appears to attempt to portray Martha as a shrewd business woman who networks with other women.
She points out that “it was not the Colonel, however, but ‘Mrs Betsy Howard & Mrs Colman’ who the next day ‘sent some things here for Polly Taylor’” (95). Although it might appear that it these women networked in such a manner as to support Martha in her work, it might be closer to the truth to assume that the Colonel could not trouble himself to send the requested items himself, or that he ‘gave the women permission’ to take the items to her.
Despite indulging in the occasional author-imposed anachronism, Ulrich’s research and scholarship is impressive. Martha Ballard’s story is so notable, not because Ulrich makes her seem to be so much more than what she was, but because Ballard lived an notable life, no matter how ordinary many of her actions were. She cooked, cleaned, and spun thread and, just like the classical Fates, she was there for many people when the threads of life were started in birth and when they were also cut in death.
For the most part, it was an interesting book. Even the parts that were somewhat dry and spare kept my interest enough to keep me reading the book in its entirety. Ballard’s life provides valuable insight on what it was like to life in her time. Ulrich, despite her occasional attempt to impose her own beliefs on that time, seems to have been the right person to bring us this story.
Work Cited
Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher. A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812. New York: Random House-Vintage, 1991.