Customer Reviews
The delight is in the detail - By: Essex Girl, 29 May 2008 
This is one of the best history books ever written: I first read it about ten years ago when I livedin the States & I've lost count of the times I've dipped back into it since. It's both a wonderful work of scholarship (Ulrich can tell us exactly who's whoin Martha's world) & an engaging, well-written story. It also shows,in these days of medicalised childbirth, just how effective a good midwife can be: Martha's stillbirth & neonatal deathrate of about 4% is high by modern standards, but she delivered twins & breeches, had no forceps, no antibiotics, & no recourse to c-section. It's not just about midwifery, though: it's also a social history of a particular society at a particular time, almost an anthropology of the past.
If you're interestedin women's livesin other cultures, orin life at the turn of the nineteenth century, or pregnancy & parturition, give this a go. You'll make the acquaintance of a fascinating woman.
Inspired me to major in history in college. - By: , 16 May 1999 Ulrich's book provides a fecundity of specifics to a genre destined to be overgeneralized. Her excruciatingly detailed research & beautiful writing together create a book which both explores an individual biography & illuminates women's historyin the period. The depth of her look at one womanin a single town inspired me to do my own local history research using women's diaries. For anyone interestin women, American history or the techniques of social history this book is a must-read.
This is one of the most interesting nonfictions available. - By: , 28 Apr 1999 I had to read this book for World Civilizations II & it was definitely worth it. This book shows a new approach to defining past cultures. Ulrich does a fantastic job of pointing out the important facts & letting the not-so-important facts rest.
Martha was fantastic! - By: , 09 Mar 1999 Martha Moore Ballard is my great x5 grandmother, to read the book & to view the movie was very moving to me. I am alsoin the medical field. I am a descendant of her son Jon. I attended the movie with other ancestors of Martha & we all enjoyed it. The book shows life was not easy for a pioneer woman.
a moving account of a woman's life - By: , 04 Mar 1999 Ulrich's book is a moving accountin an underexplored area of American History--the lives & economies of early American women. This book is a double triumph--Martha Ballard kept a detailed diary for almost three decades & Ulrich rescued the dairy from oblivion to create a luminous work of scholarship. This book was moving & engaging beyond almost any work of history I have ever read. Nothing else I have ever read has given me a better feeling of what it would be like to live as a womanin those days. What a triumph!
