A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812

This chapter begins with several diary entries from September 1788, describing the usual medical visits, the records of births and deaths, and a particular focus on weaving and societal interconnectedness in Hallowell. 

Ulrich’s central focus in this chapter is examining the role of women in society and the economy in colonial and postcolonial America. Ulrich describes the metaphor of the “social web,” writing:

For eighteenth-century Hallowell, the metaphor is apt. [A] ‘web’ was a quantity of thread woven—or about to be woven—in a single piece, as on September 5, 1788, when ‘Dolly finisht her web 44 1/2 yds.’ Most textile entries in the diary document a personal relationship as well as a process: ‘Polly [Savage] wound & warpt & I drawd in Mrs Williams webb’ (91).

In what seems like unimportant details about weaving and fabric in the diary, Martha illuminates the connectedness of society and how women’s work in the economy was often communal. 

Ulrich continues the metaphor of the web with a description of Dolly (Martha’s daughter) weaving a web of blue and white thread to make a blue and white checkerboard, some squares only white, some only blue, and some a mixed shade of light blue.