Learning about the History of Women's Work through Diaries

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich proves with this book is that the every day journal entries that may seem mundane and unimportant at first are actually very important to understanding Martha’s life. If one is to truly understand Martha Ballard’s life historians must dive deeper than the larger, more attention grabbing details of her diary, such as the Puritan family incident. It is the daily seemingly “less important” events that can show Martha’s internal struggles and emotions of what she had to go through as being a women during that time period.

In First Generations Women in Colonial America, Carol Berkin demonstrates the social, political, and economic circumstances that shaped and influenced the lives of women during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the colonies. In exploring these women’s lives and circumstances it becomes clear that geography, race, ethnicity, religion, social class, and other factors less fixed such as war each influenced a woman’s experience differently and to varying degrees. In doing this, Berkin first showcases the life of a specific woman and then transposes that life onto the general historical framework and provides a context in which this woman would have lived. The lives of these women exemplified is also explored and demonstrated through the use of comparison to highlight their different experiences. Moreover, this analysis also seeks to identify the varied sources of these women’s power, albeit for many this power was limited. The analysis is broken up primarily by geography, then by race, and lastly by time and war. While these factors provide the overarching context of analysis, more specific factors are also introduced.

This is what makes Mrs. Ballard’s diary so important. Her journal demonstrates how she chose an occupation that gives her complete authority over her own actions and career choices, which was rare in the Early Republic Era. Her being a midwife let her dictate the jobs that she did and did not accept.

She lived there for nearly a year and came to the reality of slavery. She kept a journal while on the farm indicating the living and working conditions of the slaves. After her divorce, she published the journal stating what she learned from slave women who visited her. In her diary, she highlighted how women were overworked and how their working condition was. In one particular time, she wrote how one woman had lost her family due to “ill luck” due to abuse. They came to her in the belief that she would be of great help in airing their grievance as her husband does what she asked though he forbid her from bringing him complaints from the slaves

Jane Addams is recognized as a social and political pioneer for women in America. In her biography, which later revealed her experiences in Hull House, she demonstrates her altruistic personality, which nurtured the poor and pushed for social reforms. Although many of Addams ideas were considered radical for her time, she provided women with a socially acceptable way to participate in both political and social change. She defied the prototypical middle class women by integrating the line that separated private and political life. Within these walls of the settlement house, Addams redefined the idea of ?separate spheres,? and with relentless determination, she

The life of a lady in the 19th century is painted in a romantic light. Pictured in her parlor, the lady sips tea from delicate china while writing letters with a white feathered quill. Her maid stands silently off in the background, waiting for orders to serve her mistress. What is not typically pictured, is the sadness or boredom echoed on the lady’s face. Perhaps the letter is to a dear friend, not seen in ages, pleading with the friend to visit, in hopes that the friend will fill the void in the lady’s life made from years spent in a loveless marriage; or possiblyk20 the lady isn’t writing a letter at all, but a novel or a poem, never to be read by anyone but her. Edith Warton and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, are 19th Century ladies who dare to share their writing with the world. Through their works, the darker side of a woman’s life in the late 1800’s is exposed. Gender politics in the 19th dictates that a lady is dependent on her husband for her financial security and social standing; that is if she is fortunate enough to marry at all. In Edith Warton’s The House of Mirth, Lily Bart is a beautiful woman in her late 20’s, who fails to marry a wealthy man. The narrator in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper slowly goes insane under her physician husbands misguided attempts to cure her of depression. The downfall of Lily Bart and the narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper is

Perusing once more from nineteenth century working class sexual orientation parts, which consigned ladies solidly to the private universe of the home, students of history saw the white frontier lady's cooperation in a preindustrial family unit economy as empowering. A comparative propensity to romanticize the hard existence of Native American ladies differentiated their opportunity and impact with the patriarchal structure within which European ladies lived. Despite the fact that comparisons are perhaps unavoidable, they can cloud the complexities of ladies' lives both the assorted qualities that described them and the purposes of shared belief they shared. Such examinations likewise divert consideration from the historical changes that shaped these ladies' lives: the triumph of Native American, the importation and oppression of Africans, the monstrous relocation of European, and the financial and political developing of the British settlements. This period secured by the following section, the progressive time of 1750-1800, was likewise thick with changes that capably influenced the lives of

Topic and Questions: What is the author 's topic and what questions does she attempt to answer? That is describe, who, what, when, and where. The author should explain her topic and questions in the first few pages of her article (Limit 200 words).

In this short paper, we will speak about the role women had in society in the antebellum south and how it was affected.

"Changing attitudes in Britain Society towards women was the major reason why some women received the vote in 1918". How accurate is this view?

They had the burdens of traveling while pregnant and childbearing as well as the rituals of attending to the sick and dying and the caring of infants and the caring and irritable children. Women also felt themselves in antagonistic relationship with them but more often than not when they maintain their silence. This is expressed in this journal account written by Miriam Davis, “ I have cooked so much out in the hot sun and smoke, I hardly know who I am, and when I look into the little Looking Glass I ask “ can this be me?” Put a blanket over my head and I would pass well for an Osage squaw.” The Westward Expansion was the leading outlet for women to try to break the stereotype of domestic femininity. Proving yet the strength and courage women have always had.

Another eighteenth century revolutionary woman, Jane Austen, declared, “I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.” Like acclaimed novelist Jane Austen, Abigail Adams and Martha Ballard rejected the patriarch’s ideal image and norm for women. They challenged gender differences and stereotypes and advocated additional opportunities and further education for women. In Abigail Adams: A Life, Woody Holton details Adams’ development from a giddy girl into the sophisticated, sassy woman who did not stand in her husband’s shadow. She took her life by the reigns and never stopped learning. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich similarly accounts for Martha Ballard’s journey as a successful midwife and family woman in A Midwife’s Tale, letting Martha’s voice flow from the pages through excerpts of her conserved diary. Ballard maintained a separate life from her husband and controlled her responsibilities. In the two biographies, the authors determined to honor the two women’s crusades for gender equality and through life, their obstacles with religion, family, and sensibility to their surroundings.

In addition, to show what the editor said in the McGuffey’s there is a poem that is from a child’s point of view talking about his mother, “Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair; Over my slumbers your loving watch keep; Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep! (Gorn 108).” It is shown here how the mother is to watch over her children and take care of them. Moreover, in the Women’s Diaries it talks about the hardship mothers had, “Accounts shade and darken in the pages of women whose energies were spent nursing and caring for infants and small children (Schlissel 115).” It says that their diaries turn in essence bleak because they are being overwhelmed with so many duties and then on top of that having to care for the children. Being on the trail made it very difficult for the women to perform these duties as the author points out, “The West to them meant the challenge of rearing a family and maintaining domestic order against the disordered life on the frontier (Schlissel 115).” The women had to face to challenge and they did in a way that shows that the men were not the only ones who had an immense amount of courage in this great undertaking.

Through Women's Eyes: An American History with Documents: 4th ed Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2016.:

No demand was made upon the family purse” (1). Here, Virginia uses logic to show that, compared to to other professions available at the time, writing was one of the cheapest, quietest, out-of-the-way professions a woman can partake in; these can range from playing the piano, modeling, to ballet. According to Virginia, all you needed to begin the writing the process was 10 and six-pence for some paper from the store. This should inspire the committee to pick up writing novels as their professions with no obstacles.