A Midwife's Tale
“Spielberg really should have taken a look before trying to do Amistad.”
“This Tale sheds light on the poorly documented world of women, giving traditional history new dimensions and color.”
“A Midwife’s Tale is a film of almost tactile pleasure and keen intelligence — a rare combination.”
A Midwife's Tale (adapted from the Pulitzer Prize winning book) unfolds like a detective story -- the true tale of two women, two hundred years apart, linked by the diary one of them left behind. In the film, we follow author Laurel Ulrich as she deciphers the massive but cryptic diary of 18th century midwife Martha Ballard. We look though the eyes of Martha (played by actress Kaiulani Lee), at both the daily and the shockingly dramatic events that shook her frontier community in the decades after the American Revolution. We come to know Martha as the primary healer in her community, coping with births and deaths, epidemics, her own unruly son, and the judge who has raped the minister's wife.
A Midwife's Tale reveals the lives of ordinary people, making visible history that has remained invisible for centuries. It takes us to a world in the past that is foreign yet strangely familiar.
Innovative in its form, A Midwife’s Tale begins as a documentary, then slowly evolves into a drama as Laurel Ulrich pieces together the information that’s survived from the 18th century -- and takes us into Martha Ballard’s world.
Winner of the primetime EMMY for Outstanding Non-fiction (as the opening show of the 10th season of PBS’s American Experience) as well as numerous other awards, A Midwife’s Tale was invited to film festivals worldwide and broadcast on PBS nationwide. The film is frequently used around the world in high school and university classes about American history, medical history, women’s history, and midwifery.
LINKS
Order an educational copy of the film
Learn more about the making of the film at DoHistory.org
Watch excerpts of the film
AWARDS
National EMMY for Outstanding Non-fiction | Silver Spire at the San Francisco Film Festival | Top award from the American Association of State and Local History | Kodak Vision Award | New England Historical Association Media Award | Cine Golden Eagle.
FUNDERS
National Endowment for the Humanities | WGBH/American Experience | American Antiquarian Society | Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities | Massachusetts Cultural Council | New Hampshire Humanities Council | Maine Humanities Council, Tom’s of Maine | Kittredge Educational Fund | The Freed Foundation