Authors Intent: A Midwifes Tale

Looking through a diary of a midwife of the late 17th Century and early 18th Century takes a lot of patience and hard work. Not only to look through a diary of such depth and emotion but to analyze it and write a award winning novel takes much much more than just patience and hard work. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, the author of the Pulitzer Prize for her book A Midwife's Tale looked into the story of a woman in Maine and found deep emotion and scandal of the 1700's. In writing this book she gives the readers newly formed images of the early years in Maine. She shows people that life in the early days is much more than what we imagined for a midwife. I believe that Ulrich wanted to give people a new perspective of life now, and to realize how much different life is than what it was when Martha Ballard was writing this diary. She wanted us to remember the life of a wonderful woman and how she lived. Her words make you realize how far we have come, and how far we have fallen. She shows us a world where life does have the same unfortunate events, but it is much more peaceful and caring. Where their is love and religion and neighbors caring for each other everywhere. In taking all the care and attention of writing this book through Martha Ballard's diary she has shown and given readers new ideas and images of life in the late 17th century and has remined readers how peaceful and loving it was even through all the hard times. She makes us crave for that and leaves us with a better understanding of how life used to be not only for a midwife, but for the world she lived in.

Identifies Week 2

John Cabot: Italian explorer and the first European to discover North America in 1497.

Giovanni Verrazano: Italian explorer who explored the American in the service of the king of France.

Jacques Cartier: Explorer who claimed Canada for France.

Jamestown, 1607: 1st permanent English settlement.

Walter Raleigh: Helped in the colonization of Jamestown.

Croatoan: Indian tribe from Croatoan Island.

Indentured Servitude: Immigrants coming to America to work as laborers.

Wahunsonacock: Indian tribe.

Powhatan: Indian tribe.

Ferdinand Magellan: Portuguese explorer who tried to find a westward route to the Spice Islands of Indonesia.

John Rolfe: 1st successful cultivation of tobacco as an export crop. Husband of Pocahontas.

Puritans: Religious group wanting more purity.

Mayflower Compact: 1st governing document of Plymouth Colony.

William Bradford: Military commander of the Plymouth forces.

John Winthrop: Led a group of English puritans to the New World.

The Great Migration: 7 million African Americans out of Southern United States to the North, Midwest, and the West.

Anne Hutchinson: Unauthorized puritan minister of a dissident church. Pioneer settler in Massachusetts Bay.

Thematic Question Week 2

What was the role of a Midwife during the late 18th and early 19th century in Maine? What changes did Martha Ballard see in medical practices during her lifetime?

The duties of being a midwife were exhausting, dangerous and daring yet very satisfying. Midwives were skilled to deliver babies and mend and heal the sick. They had to be ready at all times of the day and night to go out and make a journey to either deliver a baby or to save someones life from disease and sickness. However, midwives didn't just do these tasks. When they returned home from a delivery or a house call due to sickness they had to take care of the children and their daily household chores of cooking, cleaning, laundry and all of the tiring tasks it takes to take care of many children and a husband.

Martha Ballard was a midwife of the late 18th century and early 19th century in Hallowel, Maine. She had to always be ready to be called out to another household and sometimes another town. The journeys to other towns were sometimes dangerous and lenghty but this was also a duty of a midwife. Martha sometimes didn't get sleep and would be extremely tired doing all of the things she had to do. These are some of the negative things about being a midwife. However for Martha delivering a new baby into this world or to heal someone that is dying is very satisfying and that overrides the negative.

Being a midwife of this time means that you deliver babies and heal the sick. When the cases are very serious or to much for a midwife to handle that is when a doctor is brought in. A doctor only took over a midwives position during those times. However near the end of Martha's time being a midwife doctors were starting to become more dominant. They started to do more deliveries when the cases weren't serious and were the ones called in for mending when someone was sick. During Martha's lifetime she new her career and what her duties were as a midwife. She new where her place was and where a doctors place was. Towards the end what she new started to change. Her duties of a midwife started to diminish and doctors started to get credit.

The role of a midwife during the late 18th and early 19th centuries was very hard and tiring. Martha put in a lot of time and pain during her years of a midwife to see the career she loved be turned over to doctors. Martha however had a satisfying but very hard career as a midwife and did her job well.