The biography, “A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812,” by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, focuses on a womans, Martha Ballard, everyday life. This biography was winner of the pulitzer prize making it a “triumph of history.” In Martha's diary we learn how difficult her life was balancing both family and career. At the time women working was rare, making Martha a well known woman. Although Martha plays a huge role in this biography, so does the author Laura Thatcher Ulrich. Ulrich makes sure to include some of Martha's diary entrees, then follows by explaining them.

The setting of this book takes place in a town called Hallowell, Maine. Martha gave birth to nine children, of those which 3 died. In 1773 Martha, …show more content…
She understands the difficulties and struggles Martha had to go through. She does a well job analyzing Martha's thoughts. The tone of the story would be more depressed. In a lot of her entrees it seemed that Martha would feel sorry for herself. Being depressed made Martha lose interest in her job. Ulrich thought that she should have felt sorry for herself since she went through a lot. Supporting a family was not easy especially when there were diseases going around. In 1812 of June 9, Martha passes away. Her diary is then passed down to her daughter.

Martha Ballard's diary is an important part of American history. She affected american history by helping us, the present readers, know what life was like in the earlier years. Without her diary we would not be sure how life back then was. Thanks to Martha we are able to know the everyday lives of people, the struggles and obstacles they had to overcome. Not only that but we got to experience one of the well known person in towns thought and feelings.

In conclusion, “A Midwife’s Tale,” was an interesting book that captured the past very well. We got to learn about the past and what life had been. Ulrich analyzed the book helping the reader better understand Martha, which in my opinion helped a lot. Although life was very difficult then, it seemed that Martha had a wonderful life, standing up for what she believed in and doing what she loved