Film Comment a Midwifes Tale Essay

Film Comment a Midwifes Tale Essay

About the Film and Historical Context:
The film is a documentary based on historian, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s (Links to an
external site.) award winning history book, A Midwife’s Tale. (Links to an external site.) Ulrich’s
research was groundbreaking because she was able to piece together Martha Ballard’s enigmatic journal to create an
understandable narrative.
Ballard was a midwife in rural Maine during the inception of the United States as a new nation. She kept a journal for
nearly 27 years from 1785 until the year she died in 1812. The journal is a revelation providing insight into the lives of
women in the early republic Film Comment a Midwifes Tale Essay.
The United States was a brand new republic in 1785. The American Revolution ended
in 1783 with the defeat of the British and the end of colonial rule. However, the
American Constitution would not be ratified until 1787. The new nation was
transitioning from being a colony to a republic. In the “frontier” of rural Maine, women’s
lives had not changed much from the days of early settlement. Maine would not become
its own state until 1850. During this time, it was still part of Massachusetts. It is located
in the most Northeastern part of the United States, and is part of a collection of six
states that were then and are still called New England.

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s book was first published in 1990. The film moves from contemporary scenes of
Ulrich discussing her work to fictionalized scenes of Ballard’s life. Pay close attention to Ulrich’s description of how
difficult it was to create a narrative (or story) from the Ballard’s “scratchings” in her journal.

Historian, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich also describes the difficulty of finding primary sources in women’s history from the
colonial period through the 18

th century. Think about why that might be the case and how this has affected the study

of American women’s history in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Primary sources from women such as journals and diaries increased throughout the 19th century. That is due to the
rise in female literacy during the 19th century (primarily among white women in the North before the Civil War and
among all women after the 1860s.)
In fact, the Revolution did have an impact on women’s lives. You will read in your textbook about the concept of
Republican Motherhood, a new role for women to pass on “republican values” and raise their sons as educated
citizens.*
*The word, republican here does not refer to the political party, which did not exist in the 18th century. Instead, it
refers to the values of supporting a republic, a nation that is not ruled by a monarchy.

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Assignment:
Watchthe film, A Midwife’s Tale on either Kanopy Films (Links to an external site.) or Films on
Demand (Links to an external site.). The film is 90 minutes long. In the film, historian, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
discusses her discovery of Martha Ballard’s journal chronicling Ballard’s experiences as a midwife from 1785-1812 in
Southern Maine Film Comment a Midwifes Tale Essay.

Write a film comment answering the prompts below.
 Your comment should be a minimum of 300 words. Put your word count at the bottom of your
comment.
 Students must have three time stamps from the film.
Questions/Prompts:
 What were the many services that Martha Ballard provided to her
community? Why was she so unusual for a woman in this time
period?
 What is the significance of her journal as a primary source for
women’s historians? Why is her journal so unique? (What did
historian, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich say about finding primary sources
from women in the 18th century?)
 How did historian, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich piece together Ballard’s
story from the cryptic (Links to an external site.) descriptions in
her journal? For example, did she use other primary sources to put
Ballard’s journal in context?
 Describe two specific scenes from the film that illustrate gender
roles on the “frontier” in rural Maine in the late 18th and early
19th century. Include Ballard’s interaction with other women. Your
description of these scene should have the time stamps of where
they appear in the film. You can find the time stamp on the bottom
right of the screen as you are watching the film. Click here for info
about time stamps and how to cite them.
 How did Martha Ballard’s daughters help in the home? What were
their specific chores as depicted in the film? How did these chores
also bring in extra income to the family? In your description you
should provide a time stamp to this description.

PLEASE NOTE:
 Organize your short essay into coherent paragraphs.
 Do not refer to historical figures by their first names. When you first refer
to Martha Ballard, use her full name. After that, it is “Ballard.” Do not
refer to her as “Martha”
 History essays are written in past tense.
 Do not use the “I” voice.
 Do not use slang. For example, you should write “children” not “kids.”

 Do not make non-specific generalizations. For example, avoid saying
something like, “Women were only in the home and took care of the
house and children.” First, that’s a generalization that could be applied
to almost any time period. Second, prior to the Industrial Revolution,
women AND men worked mostly in their homes and on their farms.
Third, there are many exceptions. Martha Ballard was one of them. Also,
there were expectations that women would help supplement the family
income on the farm, which is illustrated by the Ballard family.
 Get your time periods right: the 17th century is the 1600s, the 18th
century is the 1700s, the 19th century is the 1800s.
 Be specific on dates if whenever you know them. For example, do not
say the American Revolution took place in the 1700s. While that is
technically accurate, it sounds as though the war lasted 100 years! Give
the exact dates!
 Review Writing History Discussion Comments in this module. You are
expected to follow those guidelines and will be graded accordingly.
 DO NOT GOOGLE! Answer these questions using your own
observations of the film and readings in the textbook. If you quote the
textbook or any source it must be in quotations marks and you must cite
the source in parenthesis (with page numbers.) Otherwise it is
plagiarism! Film Comment a Midwifes Tale Essay