Ulrich does some fascinating things with her sources in A Midwife's Tale. The work is both more far reaching and focused than I thought would have been possible. It touches on themes ranging from cottage industry, medical theories, gender roles and more all the while exploring the personal histories of a growing new England town in the days of the early republic. By doing so Ulrich demonstrates how microhistory can give us a snapshot of, "an era of profound change," while also showing how Martha Ballard's diary, "does more than reflect an era." (27) By comparing Ballard's diary entries with the writings of prominent male residents of Hallowell like Henry Sewall we see the complex daily reality that is invisible behind the more political concerns on which historians have traditionally focused. The "social medicine" practiced by midwives like Martha permeated throughout the networks of relationships of the community she inhabited, yet women like her are often hard to find, Ulrich argues, because healers like her were almost indistinguishable from the people they served. (61) This is before the so called professionalization of medicine that would develop in western capitalist society as the 19th century progressed. Ulrich's insights into the nature of gender relations in family production and the impact of seasonal changes are strengthened by her talent as a descriptive writer. But for me what makes this work so helpful as a microhistory is the way she structures her chapters. Beginning with the diary accounts she then constructs a narrative and then supplements that narrative with details from other sources. In doing so she manages to inform the reader of so much while not doing the blatant 'zoom-in-zoom-out' technique. I don't even want to think about how long it took to write something like this.
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