Ballard, Martha | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

Ballard, Martha

Excerpt from A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard Based
on Her Diary, 1785–1812

Written by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, 1990

For twenty-seven years, Martha Ballard kept a diary, from 1785 until her death in 1812. 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 816 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.....

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