Iščitavanje ženske povijesti iz dnevnika Marthe Ballard
Interpreting Women's History from the Diary of Martha Ballard

Summary/Abstract: The article discusses whether it is possible to consider a woman's diary to be a reliable document, from which one can reconstruct the everyday life and customs of the particular time when the diary was written, mainly focusing on women's lives. In other words, is it possible to reconstruct the life of one woman, and use this reconstruction to portray the typical way of life of that time? By analyzing the diary of Martha Ballard, a midwife who lived in the 18th century, in Hallowell, New England, this paper shows that a diary, usually considered to be a private and subjective document, reveals a lot of historic facts not necessarily linked only to the life of the woman who had written it. This analysis looks at Martha's diary as a representative example of everyday life in New England at the turn of the century.

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