Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (born July 11, 1938) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American historian specializing in early America and the history of women, and a professor at Harvard University.[1] Her approach to history has been described as a tribute to "the silent work of ordinary people".[2] Ulrich has also been a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient. Her most famous book, A Midwife’s Tale, was later the basis for a PBS documentary film.
Laurel Thatcher was born July 11, 1938,[3] in Sugar City, Idaho, to John Kenneth Thatcher, schoolteacher and superintendent as well as state legislator and farmer; and Alice Siddoway Thatcher.[3] She graduated from the University of Utah, majoring in English and journalism, and gave the valedictory speech at commencement.[3]
After completing her Ph.D., Ulrich joined the faculty at the University of New Hampshire, gradually working her way up from graduate assistant to tenured faculty member. She remained on the faculty at UNH through 1995.[4] In 1991, Ulrich received both the Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft Prize for her work of history, A Midwife's Tale.[5][6] In 1992, the MacArthur Foundation chose Ulrich as a MacArthur Fellow.[7][4]
In 1995 she became James Duncan Phillips Professor of Early American History, and director of the Charles Warren Center of Studies in American History, at Harvard University.[8][9] She was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2003.[10] She also served as President of the American Historical Association from 2009 to 2010, and of the Mormon History Association from 2014 to 2015. As of 2018, Ulrich is 300th Anniversary University Professor, Emerita at Harvard.[9]
"Well-behaved women seldom make history"
In a 1976 scholarly article about little-studied Puritan funeral services, Ulrich included the phrase "well-behaved women seldom make history."[11][12] In its original iteration, Ulrich meant the quote to indicate that well-behaved women were not studied by historians, not to encourage contemporary women to rebel or be less "well-behaved".[13] The phrase was taken out of context and picked up and soon went viral, being widely quoted and printed across the country. It continues to be seen on greeting cards, T-shirts, mugs, plaques, and bumper stickers. She recounted how her now-famous quote has taken on a life of its own in an October 2007 interview: "It was a weird escape into popular culture. I got constant e-mails about it, and I thought it was humorous. Then I started looking at where it was coming from. Once I turned up as a character in a novel—and a tennis star from India wore the T-shirt at Wimbledon. It seemed like a teaching moment—and so I wrote a book using the title."[14]Well-Behaved Women examines the ways in which women shaped history, citing examples from the lives of Rosa Parks, Christine de Pizan, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriet Tubman, and Virginia Woolf.
A Midwife's Tale
A Midwife's Tale
A Midwife's Tale examines the life of Northern New England midwifeMartha Ballard, and provides a vivid examination of ordinary life in the early American republic, including the role of women in the household and local market economy, the nature of marriage and sexual relations, aspects of medical practice, and the prevalence of violence and crime. In this book, Ulrich effectively and simultaneously builds historical knowledge of the colonial world and Martha Ballard's biography.[15]
Ulrich's revelatory history was honored with the Pulitzer Prize. A Midwife's Tale also received the Bancroft Prize (prompting a speech by Ulrich which compares her own diary and life to Ballard's[16]), the John H. Dunning Prize, the Joan Kelly Memorial Prize, the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians Book Prize, the Society for Historians of the Early Republic Book Prize, the William Henry Welch Medal of the American Association for the History of Medicine, and the New England Historical Association Award. A Midwife's Tale was later developed into a docudrama film for the PBS series American Experience by producer Laurie Kahn-Levitt and director Richard P. Rogers. The film was based upon both Ulrich's book and her archival process, and Ulrich served as a consultant, script collaborator, and narrator.[17][18] The book also helped her secure a "Genius Grant" from the MacArthur Fellows Program.[19]
The book became a landmark in women's labor history since it provides scholars with rich insights into the life of a lay American rural healer around 1800.[20] It rests not on the observations of outsiders, but on the words of the woman herself. At first glance, Ballard's encoded, repetitive, and quotidian diary often appears trivial, but as Ulrich found, "it is in the very dailiness, the exhaustive, repetitious dailiness, that the real power of Martha Ballard's book lies... For her, living was to be measured in doing."[20]:9 By knitting together "ordinary" sources to produce a meaningful, extraordinary socio-cultural narrative, Ulrich shows how a skilled practitioner functioned within the interstices of the private and public spheres. The book, divided into 10 sections, takes the "dailiness" of Ballard's diary and transforms it into a rich historical source.
A Midwife's Tale was not only methodologically influential for scholars, but also theoretically important. By showing clearly the economic contributions that midwives made to their households and local communities, and demonstrating the organizational skill of multitasking as a source of female empowerment, the book revises the understanding of prescribed gender roles. While A Midwife's Tale is obviously limited in terms of time (1785–1812) and place (rural Maine), it has attracted sustained attention of historians—especially those interested in gender relations and wage-earning, the economic value of domestic labor, and women's work before industrialization.[20] Ulrich invokes these contributions to historical knowledge in a 2009 interview, stating, “I don’t think anonymous people need to be included in the historical record just because of fairness or justice. Studying them more carefully makes for more accurate history,” highlighting the potential for work like hers on historically non-dominant voices.[21] The book has also been taught as an exemplar of archival and historical work and explored in conjunction with Ulrich's own life as a historian, writer, and activist.[22][23][15]
Summary
The first entry in A Midwife's Tale puts midwifery in a broader medical context within the Kennebec region, beginning to put Ballard's diary in context of other primary sources at the time. This chapter establishes the relationship between doctors and midwives during this time period. Ulrich also introduces the concept of “social medicine” in this chapter, referring to the sharing of information among midwives and doctors. This is evident in midwife manuals that Ulrich cites.
Section 2 shows the separate economy among women in Hallowell. Ulrich describes this economy as facilitated by the 'social webs' of production and consumption.
Section 3 follows an important rape trial in Hallowell. A Mrs. Foster accused Judge North of raping her while her husband was away. Historians are able to contrast Martha's account of the trial with Henry Sewall's account. Henry Sewall opposed the Fosters' religious beliefs whereas Martha Ballard felt sympathetic toward the Fosters because others judged them for their religious beliefs.
Section 4 is concerned with the three Ballard family marriages which occurred in 1792, in which Ulrich explores the understanding of marriage and sex at this time. The mid-eighteenth century is seen as a turning point in history when children began only then to choose their own partners[citation needed] and Ballard's diary entries support this. It seems as though all the Ballard marriages in 1792 were courtships chosen by the children as opposed to arrangements proposed for economic benefits. Additionally, there is pre-marital sex.
Section 5 details the fifty-three deliveries of babies Ballard performed in 1793. Ulrich emphasizes that an average of one baby a week seems easy, but Martha often sat for weeks doing nothing, and for others, facing multiple births in a short time during poor weather.
1796, the focus of section 6, is a physically taxing year for Ballard and her husband. She is traveling to deliver babies in flea-infested cabins while her husband works in swamps swarming with mosquitos. Their children also have some health issues that year. In November, her husband Ephraim is at muskie-point and all of his instruments were stolen at the outset of a planned extended surveying journey - canceling the trip, he returned five days later. On the same day, consequently (or around the same time), Martha delivered her 600th baby, a milestone. Ephraim's work continues to be difficult. Martha prays for strength to continue faring through her difficult and laborious life.
Section 7 follows the death and autopsy of John Davis, the son of John Vassall Davis in Kennebec. Ulrich fleshes out the significance of Martha Ballard's presence at the autopsy. Ulrich discusses that in 1820, a Harvard Medical School professor published a treatise stating that women should no longer be midwives as they are not educated enough to practice medicine.
Section 8 tracks Martha's entries while her husband, Ephraim Ballard, is in jail for debt. During this time, Martha's son, Jonathan, takes over Martha and Ephraim's house. These entries highlight Martha and Jonathan's rocky relationship. Additionally, Martha experiences a pseudo-widowhood during this time, acknowledging Ephraim's role in the household that now must be filled by her son. This entry gives important information regarding jail time in Kennebec, as Ephraim is allowed to continue working during the day and only has to sleep at the jail at night. There is flexibility regarding cases of debt.
Section 9 is centered around a mass murder that occurred in Hallowell. James Purrinton, one of Martha's neighbors, murdered his wife and all of his children but one, who escaped. Martha's entry adds another viewpoint on this historic event. Ulrich writes, “The economy of Martha’s telling contrasts with the more self-conscious narrative published (and probably composed) by Peter Edes, editor of Augusta’s Kennebec Gazette.”
In Section 10, Ulrich discusses the importance of women in field agriculture, as characterized by Martha's garden and her records of the flowers and vegetables she planted in her time. As Martha grows older, her diary recounts fewer births. Ulrich hypothesizes that this decrease in births is due to another midwife taking over Ballard's work.
In 2001, Ulrich wrote The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth, published by Alfred Knopf. Historian John Demos praises the book in his review, "Venturing off in a new and highly original direction, she has put physical objects ― mainly but not entirely textiles ― at the center of her inquiry. The result is, among other things, an exemplary response to a longstanding historians' challenge ― to treat objects, no less than writings, as documents that speak to us from and about the past."[25]
Personal life
While she was an undergraduate student, she married Gael Ulrich, now emeritus professor of chemical engineering at the University of New Hampshire.[3] Together they had five children: Karl (b. 1960), Melinda (b. 1963), Nathan (b. 1964), Thatcher (b. 1969), and Amy (b. 1975).[3]
Religion
Ulrich self-identifies as an active feminist and Latter-day Saint (Mormon), and has written about her experiences.[26] She also co-edited (with Emma Lou Thayne) All God's Critters Got a Place in the Choir, a collection of essays about the lives of Mormon women. Ulrich was a co-founder, with Claudia Bushman, Judy Dushku, Sue Paxman and others, of Exponent II, an independent publication on the experience of Latter-day Saint women.[citation needed]
In late 1992, Brigham Young University's board of trustees vetoed without comment a BYU proposal to invite Ulrich to address the annual BYU Women's Conference. Ulrich did give addresses at BYU in 2004[27] and 2006.[28]
Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History. (2007). Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. ISBN978-1-4000-4159-6
Editor, Yards and Gates: Gender in Harvard and Radcliffe History. (2004). Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN978-1-4039-6098-6
The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth. (2001). Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. ISBN978-0-679-44594-4
All God's Critters Got a Place in the Choir, a collection of essays coauthored with the Utah poet Emma Lou Thayne. (1995). Aspen Books, ISBN978-1-56236-226-3
A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard based on her diary, 1785–1812. (1990). Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. ISBN978-0-394-56844-7. Reissued in Vintage paperback, ISBN978-0-679-73376-8
Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650–1750. (1982). Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. ISBN978-0-394-51940-1. Reissued by Vintage (1991), ISBN978-0-679-73257-0
Polygamy was practiced by leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for more than half of the 19th century, and practiced publicly from 1852 to 1890 by between 20 and 30 percent of Latter-day Saint families.
Juanita Pulsipher Brooks was an American historian and author, specializing in the American West and Mormon history. Her most notable contribution was her book related to the Mountain Meadows Massacre, to which her grandfather Dudley Leavitt was sometimes linked, and which caused tension between her and the church authorities. She also made significant archival contributions in the form of collected pioneer diaries documenting early Mormon history in the Dixie, Utah area. Brooks remained a faithful believer throughout her life.
William H. Clayton was a clerk, scribe, and friend to the religious leader Joseph Smith. Clayton, born in England, was also an American pioneer journalist, inventor, lyricist, and musician. He joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 1837 and served as the second counselor to the British mission president Joseph Fielding while proselyting in Manchester. He led a group of British converts in emigrating to the United States in 1840 and eventually settled in Nauvoo, Illinois, where he befriended Joseph Smith and became his clerk and scribe. He was a member of the Council of Fifty and Smith's private prayer circle.
Martha Moore Ballard was an American midwife and healer. Unusual for the time, Ballard kept a diary with thousands of entries over nearly three decades, which has provided historians with invaluable insight into 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.
The Pulitzer Prizes for 1991 included not only awards given in all categories, but two separate awards were given for International Reporting:
New Mormon history refers to a style of reporting the history of Mormonism by both Mormon and non-Mormon scholars which departs from earlier more polemical or faith-based styles of history. Rather than presenting material selectively to either prove or disprove Mormonism, the focus of new Mormon history is to present history in a more humanistic and dispassionate way, and to situate Mormon history in a fuller historical context. Because it is a break from past historical narratives, new Mormon history tends to be revisionist. In many cases, the new Mormon history follows the perspectives and techniques of new history, including cultural history. The Mormon historian Richard Bushman described it as "a quest for identity rather than a quest for authority." New Mormon historians include a wide range of both Mormon and non-Mormon scholars, the most prominent of which include Bushman, Jan Shipps, D. Michael Quinn, Terryl Givens, Leonard J. Arrington, Richard P. Howard, Fawn Brodie, and Juanita Brooks.
Patty Bartlett Sessions was an early member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She was a plural wife to Joseph Smith and is celebrated for her work as a midwife for members of the church. One of her sons, Perrigrine Sessions, was the founder of Bountiful, Utah. She is best known for her diaries, which recorded the daily activities of the Latter-day Saints during the first year of the Mormon migration to the Salt Lake Valley, and the earliest days of their settlement there. These diaries document the physical, social, and religious circumstances of the settlers, especially of the women, and are frequently cited by historians. Her records are also a primary source of birth records for the Latter-day Saint community during this period, and are highly prized for documenting almost 4,000 births. Her journals are also important because they provide an inside look into Mormon polygamy.
Exponent II is a quarterly periodical, the longest-running independent publication for Latter-day Saint women. At its launch, by a women's group in Massachusetts in 1974, it described itself as a "spiritual descendent" of the Woman's Exponent, founded 100 years earlier. A print edition remains available, while the journal has also been published online since 2007. The Exponent II organization also runs a program of annual residential retreats since the 1980s, and supports a blog, The Exponent.
Mary Maples Dunn was an American historian. She served as the eighth president of Smith College for ten years beginning in 1985. Dunn was also the director of the Schlesinger Library from 1995 to 2000. She was acting president of Radcliffe College when it merged with Harvard University, and she became the acting dean of the newly created Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study after the merger.
Mary Hobart was an American physician in Boston, Massachusetts at the turn of the 20th century. She specialized in obstetrics and was known for her independence and resourcefulness. Her career had parallels with that of her great-great-grandmother, Martha Ballard; but Mary Hobart sought out the medical profession by her own ambition as an early entrant. Her service was due in part to caring for the poor in hospitals.
The Pownalborough Courthouse is a historic court house at 23 Courthouse Road in Dresden, Maine, USA. Built in the early 1760s, it was the first county courthouse for Lincoln County, which was established in 1760. It is the only surviving courthouse in the state of Maine that was built during the colonial period, and is now a museum owned and operated by the Lincoln County Historical Society. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.
Elizabeth Porter Phelps (1747–1817) was a member of the eighteenth-century rural gentry in western Massachusetts; she is also recognized as an important diarist from late 18th century and early 19th century in Hadley, Massachusetts (USA).
Mormon studies is the interdisciplinary academic study of the beliefs, practices, history and culture of individuals and denominations belonging to the Latter Day Saint movement, a religious movement associated with the Book of Mormon, though not all churches and members of the Latter Day Saint movement identify with the terms Mormon or Mormonism. Denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement include the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, by far the largest, as well as the Community of Christ (CoC) and other smaller groups, include some categorized under the umbrella term Mormon fundamentalism.
Anne Firor Scott was an American historian, specializing in the history of women and of the South.
The John H. Dunning Prize is a biennial book prize awarded by the American Historical Association for the best book in history related to the United States. The prize was established in 1929, and is regarded as one of the most prestigious national honors in American historical writing. Currently, only the author's first or second book is eligible. Laureates include Oscar Handlin, John Higham, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich and Gordon Wood. The Dunning Prize has been shared five times, most recently in 1993. No award was made in 1937.
The Berkshire Conference of Women Historians Book Prizes are awarded each year by the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians. Nominees must be women normally resident in North America who have published a book in the previous year. One prize recognizes an author's first book that "deals substantially with the history of women, gender, and/or sexuality", and the other prize recognizes "a first book in any field of history that does not focus on the history of women, gender, and/or sexuality."
Dr. Philip C. Mead, an American historian specializing in the period of the American Revolution, is Chief Historian and Curator of the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia.
Sally Fox was an American photographer, art collector and editor. She worked as a photographer, coordinator and picture editor for Houghton Mifflin and was especially known for her curated collections of historical images of women's lives which she published during the 1980s.
Ida Frances Hunt Udall was an American diarist, homesteader, and teacher in territorial Utah and Arizona. A lifelong member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Udall participated in the church's historical practice of plural marriage as the second wife of Latter-day Saint bishop David King Udall and co-wife of former telegraphist Ella Stewart Udall and of Mary Ann Linton Morgan Udall, a widow of John Hamilton Morgan.
A House Full of Females: Plural Marriage and Women's Rights in Early Mormonism, 1835–1870 is a non-fiction book written by American historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. The book was published on January 10, 2017, by Knopf.
↑ Lewis, Jan (March 2003). "The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth". The Journal of American History. 89 (4): 1495–1496. doi:10.2307/3092555. JSTOR3092555. ProQuest224893850.
1 2 Dunn, Mary Maples (2002). "Dialogue: Paradigm Shift Books: A Midwife's Tale by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich". Journal of Women's History. 14 (3): 133–139. doi:10.1353/jowh.2002.0066. S2CID144544922.
↑ Stephens, Randall J. (2009). "Randall J. Stephens – "The Importance of Studying Ordinary Lives: An Interview with Laurel Thatcher Ulrich". Historically Speaking. 10 (2): 10–11. doi:10.1353/hsp.0.0021. S2CID161751483.
↑ Morgan, Katherine R. (2006). "Using Primary Sources to Build a Community of Thinkers". The English Journal. 91 (4): 69–74. doi:10.2307/822460. JSTOR822460.
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