Martha Ballard
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Martha Moore Ballard (February 20, 1735 – May 7, 1812) was an American
midwife A midwife (: midwives) is a health professional who cares for mothers and Infant, newborns around childbirth, a specialisation known as midwifery. The education and training for a midwife concentrates extensively on the care of women throughou ...
, healer, and diarist. Unusual for the time, Ballard kept a
diary A diary is a written or audiovisual memorable record, with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. Diaries have traditionally been handwritten but are now also often digita ...
with hundreds of entries over nearly three decades, which has provided historians with invaluable insight into colonial frontier-women's lives. Ballard was made famous by the publication of ''A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard based on her diary, 1785–1812'' by historian
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (born July 11, 1938) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American historian specializing in early America and the history of women, and a professor at Harvard University. Her approach to history has been described as a tribute to ...
in 1990.


Early life and family

Martha Moore was born in
Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...
,
Province of Massachusetts The Province of Massachusetts Bay was a colony in New England which became one of the thirteen original states of the United States. It was chartered on October 7, 1691, by William III and Mary II, the joint monarchs of the kingdoms of Engla ...
, on February 9, 1735, to the family of Elijah Moore and Dorothy Learned Moore. There is little known about her childhood, education, and life before she began keeping her diary at age 50, but it is known that her family had medical links. Her uncle Abijah Moore and brother-in-law Stephen Barton were both physicians. In addition, her family is linked to
Clara Barton Clarissa Harlowe Barton (December 25, 1821 – April 12, 1912) was an American nurse who founded the American Red Cross. She was a hospital nurse in the American Civil War, a teacher, and a patent clerk. Since nursing education was not then very ...
, founder of the
American Red Cross The American National Red Cross is a Nonprofit organization, nonprofit Humanitarianism, humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief, and disaster preparedness education in the United States. Clara Barton founded ...
and granddaughter of Ballard's sister. She married Ephraim Ballard, a
land surveyor Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. These points are usually on the ...
, in 1754. The couple had nine children between 1756 and 1779, losing three of them to a
diphtheria Diphtheria is an infection caused by the bacteria, bacterium ''Corynebacterium diphtheriae''. Most infections are asymptomatic or have a mild Course (medicine), clinical course, but in some outbreaks, the mortality rate approaches 10%. Signs a ...
epidemic An epidemic (from Greek ἐπί ''epi'' "upon or above" and δῆμος ''demos'' "people") is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of hosts in a given population within a short period of time. For example, in meningococcal infection ...
in Oxford between June 17 and July 5, 1769. Ballard moved to the Kennebec Valley in
Maine Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and ...
in 1777, two years after her husband moved there for surveying. There, Ballard earned an income as a midwife until her old age. She and her family experienced difficult times during 1803–1804, when her husband was imprisoned for debt and her son was
indicted An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felonies, the most serious criminal offense is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use that concept often use that of an indi ...
for fraud.


Midwifery and medical history

Ballard never received any formal medical training, but her methods of treating local maladies seem to have been a culmination of her experience as a colonial woman. She was, in many ways, an herbalist. She harvested herbs, creating teas, salves, syrups and vapors to treat anything from a cough to an aching limb. This type of medicine was practiced often by women as they were not allowed to attend medical school. Thus, books such as '' The Compleat Housewife: OR, Accomplish'd Gentlewoman's Companion'' accompanied many women in their daily medical tasks. Ballard never mentions any such books in her writing, implying she must have gained her medical knowledge through her life's experience as opposed to education. Ballard delivered 816 babies over the 27 years that she wrote her diary and was present at more than 1,000 births; the
mortality rate Mortality rate, or death rate, is a measure of the number of deaths (in general, or due to a specific cause) in a particular Statistical population, population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit of time. Mortality rate is typically ...
s of infants and mothers that she visited were ordinary for the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
before the 1940s. Ballard was among community medical personnel, with numerous male doctors often called as well as Ballard at births; however, male physicians could override midwives when they wished to, despite the experience and expertise of the midwife. Ballard was sometimes called to observe
autopsies An autopsy (also referred to as post-mortem examination, obduction, necropsy, or autopsia cadaverum) is a surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse by dissection to determine the cause, mode, and manner of death; ...
and recorded 85 instances of what she called "desections" in her diary. She also took testimonies from unwed mothers that were used in
paternity suit Paternity law refers to body of law underlying legal relationship between a father and his biological or adopted children and deals with the rights and obligations of both the father and the child to each other as well as to others. A child's p ...
s. In addition to her medical and judicial responsibilities, Ballard frequently carried out tasks such as trading, weaving, and social visits.


Legal context

In addition to aiding in births and illnesses, the time that she spent with patients was often used in the local court systems as expert testimony. She often weighed in on paternity cases in Hallowell. Under a 1668 Massachusetts law, midwives were often asked to pressure young unwed mothers into naming the father of her child in the throes of labor, an action which Ballard frequently participated in. Ulrich notes that "for thirteen of the twenty" out of wedlock births Ballard had attended she had ""taken testimony"" of the father in accordance with the laws. It appears that these records were not taken to shame women for participating in premarital sex, but more so to prevent the state from having to support children with unknown parentage.


Foster case

Martha Ballard served as a witness in the trial of Judge Joseph North in 1789 held at Pownalborough Courthouse. In this case, Rebecca Foster, the wife of a local minister, Issac Foster, claimed to have been brutally "ravisht" by a local judge of Hallowell and two other men. At first not believing her due to the social standing of the judge, Ballard began to serve as a witness for the case, providing crucial contextual evidence to the validity of Foster's accusation. Foster began to confide in Ballard, reporting her fear of the abuses by the local men. In her diary, Ballard writes that "shee ebeccahad received great abuses from people unknown to her," and even experienced groups of men throwing rocks at the windows of her home. Ballard was not one for judgement or gossip about the goings on in Hallowell so it was out of character for her when Ulrich writes that it was "the great surprise" when Judge North was acquitted.  This trial was a significant event for the tiny town of Hallowell and was born out of dislike for Mr. Issac Foster due to his unorthodox preaching style and religious history. In the event of Rebecca Foster’s rape and accusation of the Colonel Judge North, the town inevitably turned their backs on the family, resulting in their flight from Hallowell shortly after the trial. The occurrence and sentiment around the trial of Mrs. Foster follows very closely the way in which many rape trials at the time were treated. If reported, these women's cases were largely ignored or treated with disdain, so much so that there were popular satirical plays made about cases of sexual assault. One of the most notable of these, "The Trial of Atticus, Before Justice Beau, For a Rape" was published in 1771 in Boston and was used to mock Rebecca Foster at the time of her trial.


Diary

From when she was 50 (1785) until her death in 1812, Martha Ballard kept a
diary A diary is a written or audiovisual memorable record, with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. Diaries have traditionally been handwritten but are now also often digita ...
that recorded her work and domestic life in Hallowell on the
Kennebec River The Kennebec River (Abenaki language, Abenaki: ''Kinəpékʷihtəkʷ'') is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed June 30, 2011 natural river within the U.S. state of Ma ...
,
District of Maine The District of Maine was the governmental designation for what is now the U.S. state of Maine from October 25, 1780, to March 15, 1820, when it was Admission to the Union, admitted to the Union as the List of U.S. states by date of admission to ...
. The log of daily events, written with a quill pen and homemade ink, records numerous babies delivered and illnesses treated as she travelled by horse or canoe around the
Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...
frontier in what is today the state of
Maine Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and ...
. For 27 years, she wrote in the diary daily, often by candlelight when her family had gone to bed. The diary consists of more than 1,400 pages, with entries that start with the weather and the time. Many of her early records are short and choppy, but her later entries are longer and detailed. Her writing illustrates struggles and tragedies within her own family and local crimes and scandals. One includes the comment that children in New England are allowed to choose their romantic interest if they were in the same economic class, rare for the time. Many of the people mentioned in the diary do not appear on official records, such as censuses or deeds and probate, and so the diary helps to provide insight into the lives of ordinary people who might otherwise have remained invisible. Because of the scale of the diary, scholars have been able to use digital tools to mine it for information. Such studies have revealed, for instance, that because Ballard's deliveries spike significantly between February and April, her neighbours are most likely to be having sex between May and July. The last birth that Ballard attended was on April 26, 1812. Ballard's final diary entry, dated May 7th, 1812, ends thusly: "Revd mr Tippin Came and Converst Swetly and made A Prayer adapted to my Case." After Ballard's death, the diary was kept by Dolly Lambard. The diary was then passed on to Dolly's daughters, Sarah Lambard and Hannah Lambard Walcott after Dolly's death in 1861. Sarah Lambard and Hannah Lambard gifted the diary to Ballard's great-great-granddaughter, Mary Hobart, one of the first female US
physician A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...
s to graduate from the New York Infirmary for Women and Children in 1884, the same year that she received the diary. In 1930, Hobart donated the diary to the Maine State Library in Augusta. Maine State Library promised Hobart a transcript of the diary, but the promise was never fulfilled. Charles Elventon Nash included parts of the diary in a proposed two-volume history of Augusta, which was kept in a descendant's home for almost 60 years before the descendant offered it to the Maine State Library. Edith Hary took the papers and published ''The History of Augusta: First Settlements and Early Days As A Town Including The Diary of Mrs. Martha Moore Ballard'' in 1961. In July 1982, E. Wheaton of the Maine State Archive created a microfilm copy of the diary. Robert R. McCausland and Cynthia MacAlman McCausland later spent ten years producing a verbatim transcription on the diary, which they made freely available online as well as for purchase in hard-copy.


Representations in Media


Legacy

Ballard's
obituary An obituary (wikt:obit#Etymology 2, obit for short) is an Article (publishing), article about a recently death, deceased person. Newspapers often publish obituaries as Article (publishing), news articles. Although obituaries tend to focus on p ...
was published on June 9, 1812, in the ''American Advocate'' and simply stated:


''A Midwife's Tale, by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (1989)''

For many years, Martha Ballard's diary was not considered to be of scholarly interest since it was generally dismissed as repetitive and ordinary. However, historian
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (born July 11, 1938) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American historian specializing in early America and the history of women, and a professor at Harvard University. Her approach to history has been described as a tribute to ...
saw potential in the diary, realizing how rare Ballard's first-hand account was after having researched a previous book on women in early New England. After eight years of research, Ulrich produced ''A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard based on her diary, 1785–1812''. Each chapter in ''A Midwife's Tale'' represents one aspect of the life of a woman in the late 18th century. The overriding theme is the nature of women's work in the context and community. Ulrich stated that: Supporting documents construct Ulrich's interpretation of terse and circumspect diary entries, dealing with medical practice and the prevalence of violence and crime. In "A Midwife’s Tale", Ulrich highlights ten key entries from Martha's diary. Ulrich places these entries in a historical context, elevating a seemingly-ordinary woman's life into a key figure of Kennebec.


Reception

The book received a positive critical response and was praised for its insight into the lives of 18th-century women and life in early
New England New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...
. In 1991, ''A Midwife's Tale'' received the
Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...
, the
Bancroft Prize The Bancroft Prize is awarded each year by the trustees of Columbia University for books about diplomacy or the history of the Americas. It was established in 1948, with a bequest from Frederic Bancroft, in his memory and that of his brother, d ...
, the
John H. Dunning Prize John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second Ep ...
, the
Joan Kelly Joan Kelly, also known as Joan Kelly-Gadol (March 29, 1928 – August 15, 1982) was a prominent American historian who wrote on the Italian Renaissance, specifically on Leon Battista Alberti. Among her best known works is the essay "Did Women Ha ...
Memorial Prize in Women's History, the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians Book Prize, the Society for Historians of the Early Republic Book Prize, the
William Henry Welch Medal The William H. Welch Medal is an annual award given by the American Association for the History of Medicine (AAHM) to the author or co-authors of an outstanding book in medical history. According to the current rules, the award is not for editorial ...
of the American Association for the History of Medicine, and the New England Historical Association Award.


PBS Documentary

In 1997, the PBS series ''
The American Experience ''American Experience'' is a television program airing on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the United States. The program airs Documentary film, documentaries, many of which have won awards, about important or interesting events and peop ...
'' aired ''A Midwife's Tale''. This documentary film was based upon Ulrich’s book, and Ulrich served as a consultant, script collaborator, and narrator for the film. It was directed by Richard P. Rogers, and produced by Laurie Kahn-Leavitt. Actress
Kaiulani Lee Kaiulani Lee (born 1950) is an American actress. She is best known for her portrayal of Rachel Carson in both the film and stage version of ''A Sense of Wonder'', which she also wrote. Career Lee is also a well-known stage, television, and film ...
played Martha Ballard. Lee is a direct descendant of the Sewall family of Maine, members of Ballard's community. It was funded in part by the
National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...
. When filming the series, details were given close attention. The production crew chose King's Landing Historical Settlement in
Fredericton, New Brunswick Fredericton (; ) is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of New Brunswick. The city is situated in the west-central portion of the province along the Saint John River (Bay of Fundy), Saint John River, ...
, and
Historic Richmond Town Historic Richmond Town is a town and farm museum complex in the neighborhood of Richmondtown, Staten Island, Richmondtown, Staten Island, in New York City. It is located near the geographical center of the island, at the junction of Richmond Ro ...
on
Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is the southernmost of the boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County and situated at the southernmost point of New York (state), New York. The borough is separated from the ad ...
to capture Maine's three seasons: "black flies, snow and mud." The actors wore mud-soaked shoes below historically-accurate costumes, and replicas were made of the hand sewn booklets that formed the diary, so that Lee could write in them. The music in the film, played by the ensemble Orison, included
shape note Shape notes are a musical notation designed to facilitate congregational and Sing-along, social singing. The notation became a popular teaching device in American singing schools during the 19th century. Shapes were added to the noteheads in ...
singing by the Word of Mouth Chorus.


''The Frozen River'', by Ariel Lawhon (2023)

In 2023, author Ariel Lawhon's ''The Frozen River'' was published. The work of fiction was inspired by Martha Ballard's life and, specifically, her role in the 1789 trial of Judge Joseph North.


References


Further reading

* McMahon, Sarah F. "Review: ntitled" ''The William and Mary Quarterly'' 55, no. 3 (July 1998): 470. * Wolfe, Thomas J. "Review: ntitled" ''Isis'' 84, no. 2 (June 1993): 390. * Rogers, Deborah D. "Review: ntitled" ''Eighteenth-Century Studies'' 26, no. 1 (Autumn, 1992): 180–182 * Alison Duncan Hirsch. "Review: ntitled" ''The Public Historian'' 19, no. 4 (Autumn, 1997): 107. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ballard, Martha 1735 births 1812 deaths 18th-century American diarists People from Oxford, Massachusetts People from Augusta, Maine American midwives American women diarists People from colonial Massachusetts 19th-century American diarists 18th-century American women writers 19th-century American women writers