ch, 32)!
             Mrs. Ballard's diary has been around for many years. Historians who know about the diary seldom know what to do with it (Ulrich, 8). Some feel that her diary is boring and filled with too many details of domestic chores and pastimes to be worthy of any great exploration (Baker, 14). "That Martha Ballard kept her diary is one small miracle; that her descendants saved it is another (Ulrich, 346)." This statement speaks volumes. How often have we come across documents our ancestors left behind and just threw them away? How often did we sit and examine those documents or analyze their meaning? Speculating on why Ballard kept the diary and why her family saved it, Ulrich highlights the documents' usefulness for historians (Mullaney, 102). Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, an Associate
             Professor of History (at the time of publication) at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, took the time to evaluate Martha Ballard's diary and connect the missing links in the role women played! uring the early years of colonial America. Her ardent studies led her to believe that the diary was more than just the detailing of domestic duties it was describing a "lost substructure of eighteenth century life" - a decidedly female one (Baker, 14). Martha Ballard was more than a midwife. She was a
             ...