A Midwife's Tale

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Summary

Martha Ballard was a midwife and mother living in the wilds of Maine during the chaotic decades following the American Revolution. Her diary is an up-close view of the poverty, disease, and day-to-...

Martha Ballard was a midwife and mother living in the wilds of Maine during the chaotic decades following the American Revolution. Her diary is an up-close view of the poverty, disease, and day-to-day hardships of a struggling young nation. Some two hundred years later, in a quest to understand 18th-century America through a woman's eyes, historian and author Laurel Thatcher Ulrich spent eight years working through Martha's massive, but cryptic, diary. A Midwife's Tale, from the PBS American Experience collection chronicles their interwoven stories: an 18th-century midwife and the 20th-century historian who brought her words to light. This film pieces together a picture of Ballard's life in Hallowell, Maine, the characters inhabiting her daily routine, and the role of women in the post-revolutionary world.

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