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  • A Midwife’s Tale

  • The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812
  • Written by: Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
  • Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
  • Length: 15 hrs and 42 mins
  • 3.0 out of 5 stars (2 ratings)

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A Midwife’s Tale

Written by: Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
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Publisher's Summary

Drawing on the diaries of one woman in 18th-century Maine, this intimate history illuminates the medical practices, household economies, religious rivalries, and sexual mores of the New England frontier.

Between 1785 and 1812, a midwife and healer named Martha Ballard kept a diary that recorded her arduous work (in 27 years she attended 816 births) as well as her domestic life in Hallowell, Maine. On the basis of that diary, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich gives us an intimate and densely imagined portrait, not only of the industrious and reticent Martha Ballard but of her society. At once lively and impeccably scholarly, A Midwife's Tale is a triumph of history on a human scale.

©1990 Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (P)2017 Tantor

What the critics say

"A truly talented historian unravels the fascinating life of a community that is so foreign, and yet so similar to our own." ( New York Times)

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