Sharon D. reviewed on 11/29/2005 + 224 more book reviews

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 an intimate and densely imagined portrait, not only of the industrious and reticent Martha Ballard but of her society - a portraint that sheds light on its medical practices, religious squabbles and sexual mores. At once lively and impeccably scholarly, this book is a triumph of history on a human scale.

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