What challenges does Martha Ballard face as a midwife during early colonial America?

What challenges does Martha Ballard face as a midwife during early colonial America?

Indepth Facts: major conflictMartha struggles through the many challenges of raising a family and having a career in early New England. rising actionAs Martha assists midwives with deliveries, she gives birth to eight children of her own, losing three of them to a diphtheria epidemic.

Why is Martha Ballard diary important?

Unusually for the time, Ballard kept a diary with thousands of entries over nearly three decades, which has provided historians with invaluable insight into frontier-women’s lives….

Martha Ballard
Nationality American
Occupation Midwife, healer, mortician
Known for Diary with 10,000 entries kept over 27 years

Where was Martha Ballard’s diary found?

the Maine State Library
The original diary in two hand-sewn bound volumes can be found in the Maine State Library: call number Ms B B189. Martha Ballard’s diary was transcribed and indexed by Robert and Cynthia McCausland and is available in hardback from Picton Press.

When did Martha Ballard come to the colonies?

In 1777, 42-year-old Martha Ballard and her husband, Ephraim, moved to the town — if you could call it that — of Hollowell, Maine. Hollowell’s 100 log cabins were strung out along the wide, flat Kennebec River — an Atlantic seaport, 46 miles inland. Ephraim was a 4th-generation millwright.

How would you describe the relationship between Martha and Ephraim Ballard?

Though Martha rarely says so explicity, her actions show that she loves her family and has a comfortable, mutually helpful marriage with Ephraim. Martha takes her duties as a nurse and midwife very seriously, giving help to anyone who needs it, no matter what their position in society or her own life situation.

Where does the Ballard family move to during the revolution?

Jonathan and Hannah Ballard move their family to Oxford, Massachusetts. Benjamin Franklin begins publication of Poor Richard’s Almanack. Almanacs are common reading material in the colonies and early republic.

Who is Martha Ballard quizlet?

She was a good neighbor, physician, pharmacist, nurse, and midwife. She was respected throughout the community. In 1769, she mostly took care of children suffering from the scarlet fever epidemic in Massachusetts. Unfortunately, Martha lost three children of her own in one summer from the same fever.

What was in Martha Ballards diary?

At a time when fewer than half the women in America were literate, Ballard faithfully recorded the weather, her daily household tasks, her midwifery duties (she delivered close to a thousand babies), her medical practice and countless incidents that reveal the turmoil of a new nation — dizzying social change, intense …

What larger role did Martha Ballard play in her community?

Ballard served as a midwife, a woman experienced in helping the birthing process of other women, and primary health-care giver for the pioneering community of Hallowell, Maine. During that time, she delivered 816 babies and treated countless ailing residents.

What is the significance of the date August 25 1789 for Mrs Foster What was the verdict?

What is the significance of the date August 25, 1789 for Mrs. Foster? What was the verdict? Rebecca gets raped by judge arranged by North Judge but the rapist found innocent.

What did Mrs Foster accuse Judge north of doing did the court convict him?

I tarried with Mrs Daw till Evn when shee had her women. She remained ill through the night. His wife is the 32d woman I have put to Bed since February 5th. Clear forenoon.

How many deliveries did Martha Ballard record in her journal between January 1785 and May 1812?

816 deliveries
Martha, consort of Mr. Ephraim Ballard, aged 77 years.” Without the diary we would know nothing of her life after the last of her children was born, nothing of the 816 deliveries she performed between 1785 and 1812.

Why was the Diary of Martha Ballard important?

The diary of an “ordinary” midwife, Martha Ballard, permitted Laurel Thatcher Ulrich to argue for the importance of women’s medical work in colonial American communities, and how this world helped shape ideas about – and the practice of – care-giving, science, and community values among New Englanders.

Why was Mary Ballard important to the midwife movement?

Ballard was a highly respected and reliable midwife, but in that time period physicians often accused midwife practices of being dangerous towards the mother and the baby. As a women Ballard was able to empathize with the mother in labor, which comforted the mother mentally and physically, making the birthing much easier.

How many babies did Mary Ballard give birth to?

While physicians wrote off midwife practices as posing a danger to the mother and infant, Ballard’s diary shows that out of the 814 births she aided, there were very few deaths of mother and/or child.

Who was the father of Martha Ballard’s father?

Elijah Moore (Martha’s father) is born in Sudbury, Massachusetts. Sarah Campbell Knight travels from Boston to New York, becoming the first white woman known to have made the journey alone. The Treaty of Utrecht ends Queens Anne’s War.

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