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Martha Moore Ballard (February 20, 1735 – May 7, 1812) was an American midwife, healer, and diarist. Unusual for the time, Ballard kept a diary with hundreds of entries over nearly three decades, which has provided historians with invaluable insight into colonial frontier-women's lives.
Ballard was made famous by the publication of A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard based on her diary, 1785–1812 by historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich in 1990.
Ballard moved to the Kennebec Valley in Maine in 1777, two years after her husband moved there for surveying. There, Ballard earned an income as a midwife until her old age. She and her family experienced difficult times during 1803–1804, when her husband was imprisoned for debt and her son was indictment for fraud.
Ballard delivered 816 babies over the 27 years that she wrote her diary and was present at more than 1,000 births; the of infants and mothers that she visited were ordinary for the United States before the 1940s. Ballard was among community medical personnel, with numerous male doctors often called as well as Ballard at births; however, male physicians could override midwives when they wished to, despite the experience and expertise of the midwife. Ballard was sometimes called to observe autopsy and recorded 85 instances of what she called "desections" in her diary. She also took testimony from unwed mothers that were used in . In addition to her medical and judicial responsibilities, Ballard frequently carried out tasks such as trading, weaving, and social visits.
She often weighed in on paternity cases in Hallowell. Under a 1668 Massachusetts law, midwives were often asked to pressure young unwed mothers into naming the father of their child in the throes of labor, an action which Ballard frequently participated in. Ulrich notes that "for thirteen of the twenty" out-of-wedlock births Ballard had attended, she had "taken testimony" of the father in accordance with the laws. It appears that these records were not taken to shame women for participating in premarital sex, but more so to prevent the state from having to support children with unknown parentage.
At first not believing her due to the social standing of the judge, Ballard began to serve as a witness for the case, providing crucial contextual evidence to the validity of Foster's accusation. Foster began to confide in Ballard, reporting her fear of the abuses by the local men. In her diary, Ballard writes that "shee Rebecca had received great abuses from people unknown to her," and even experienced groups of men throwing rocks at the windows of her home. Ballard was not one for judgement or gossip about the goings on in Hallowell so it was out of character for her when Ulrich writes that it was "the great surprise" when Judge North was acquitted. This trial was a significant event for the tiny town of Hallowell and was born out of dislike for Mr. Issac Foster due to his unorthodox preaching style and religious history. In the event of Rebecca Foster’s rape and accusation of the Colonel Judge North, the town inevitably turned their backs on the family, resulting in their flight from Hallowell shortly after the trial.
The occurrence and sentiment around the trial of Mrs. Foster follows very closely the way in which many rape trials at the time were treated. If reported, these women's cases were largely ignored or treated with disdain, so much so that there were popular satirical plays made about cases of sexual assault. One of the most notable of these, "The Trial of Atticus, Before Justice Beau, For a Rape" was published in 1771 in Boston and was used to mock Rebecca Foster at the time of her trial.
The diary consists of more than 1,400 pages, with entries that start with the weather and the time. Many of her early records are short and choppy, but her later entries are longer and detailed. Her writing illustrates struggles and tragedies within her own family and local crimes and scandals. One includes the comment that children in New England are allowed to choose their romantic interest if they were in the same economic class, rare for the time. Many of the people mentioned in the diary do not appear on official records, such as censuses or deeds and probate, and so the diary helps to provide insight into the lives of ordinary people who might otherwise have remained invisible. Because of the scale of the diary, scholars have been able to use digital tools to mine it for information. Such studies have revealed, for instance, that because Ballard's deliveries spike significantly between February and April, her neighbours are most likely to be having sex between May and July.
The last birth that Ballard attended was on April 26, 1812. Ballard's final diary entry, dated May 7th, 1812, ends thusly: "Revd mr Tippin Came and Converst Swetly and made A Prayer adapted to my Case." After Ballard's death, the diary was kept by [1] Dolly Lambard Dolly Lambard. The diary was then passed on to Dolly's daughters, Sarah Lambard and Hannah Lambard Walcott after Dolly's death in 1861. Sarah Lambard and Hannah Lambard gifted the diary to Ballard's great-great-granddaughter, Mary Hobart, one of the first female US to graduate from the New York Infirmary for Women and Children in 1884, the same year that she received the diary.
In 1930, Hobart donated the diary to the Maine State Library in Augusta. Maine State Library promised Hobart a transcript of the diary, but the promise was never fulfilled. Charles Elventon Nash included parts of the diary in a proposed two-volume history of Augusta, which was kept in a descendant's home for almost 60 years before the descendant offered it to the Maine State Library. Edith Hary took the papers and published The History of Augusta: First Settlements and Early Days As A Town Including The Diary of Mrs. Martha Moore Ballard in 1961. In July 1982, E. Wheaton of the Maine State Archive created a microfilm copy of the diary. Robert R. McCausland and Cynthia MacAlman McCausland later spent ten years producing a verbatim transcription on the diary, which they made freely available online as well as for purchase in hard-copy.
Supporting documents construct Ulrich's interpretation of terse and circumspect diary entries, dealing with medical practice and the prevalence of violence and crime. In "A Midwife’s Tale", Ulrich highlights ten key entries from Martha's diary. Ulrich places these entries in a historical context, elevating a seemingly-ordinary woman's life into a key figure of Kennebec.
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