the fact that Ballard "eight times . . . crossed the [Kennebec River, a site of military action during the war] to deliver Tabitha Sewall. Not until the fourth delivery did Henry notice her presence" (31).
At the same time, Ulrich reminds us that we must not measure Ballard or her and other women's contributions according to our own late 20th century standards:
To understand Martha's world we must approach it on its own terms, neither as a golden age of household productivity nor as a political void from which a later feminist consciousness emerged. . . . The trivia that so annoyed earlier readers provide a consistent, daily record of the operation of a female-managed economy (33).
Women managed the economy, despite the fact that in most families it was the man who brought in the money. However, some women, such as B
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