There are certain basic parts to being a community, parts that every community should have whether it is successful or not. A community starts with providing a safe place to live. Safety usually stems from some sort of organization, law or community rules that allow people to successfully get along and live together. A more successful community would include developing friendships, social relations such as barn raisings and dances and developing groups which people interact with such as churches, clubs or community centers. These other activities may mean that you have a bigger community not necessarily a more successful community.

In the late 18th early 19th century town of Hallowell, a high percentage of the people worked to make a successful community. Almost every person in the town had a part in the community, whether they were the midwife traveling to all of the homes tending to the sick and delivering babies or the women working together to make quilts and textiles. Trying to create a successful community played a larger role in the lives of the citizens of Hallowell, Maine in the late 18th and early 19th centuries than today. Martha Ballard shows many examples of this in her diary.

First, Martha talks many times of the women of the town attending the births of other women to assist the new mother. The women attending did not have to have any relation to the mother to be, they simply wanted to lend their help and knowledge to a community member. Martha noted this several times throughout her diary, " The babe weighted 11 pounds Sally Cleark & Preuda Snow came at evening, there all night." , "Pruda helpt wash Sally assisted. She tarried all night." (1, pg 314) During most childbirth today, the people that assist the mother in the hospital are usually family members and close friends along with the doctor that is delivering the baby. Other community members from where the women lives do not attend the mother during delivery.

A second example Martha discusses is how citizens work together to help each other out. When the Ballard mill had burned, she explains that the men came to help and the women prepared for the dance that would fallow the finishing of the mills. "The working men came to begin the framing.", "We raised the saw mill fraim Mr. Marsh & Thomas were hurt. The business otherways done with safety.", "The young folks had a dance at evening, dispersed at midnight." (1, pg 71) The people of Hallowell came together to help a man in need of a mill and successfully built one. This kind of help was common during Martha's time, she talks of other times when barns had burned or were needed and the Hallowell town came together to help rebuild/build the barn. Martha referred to these as barn raisings. Today when a barn burns the town goes out to watch but no one thinks about helping to rebuild the barn, we hire a contractor. The occurrence of a community coming together to rebuild a home does happen rarely and many times it is for tv publicity.

A third example is seen throughout Martha's diary, she talks about dressing and preparing members of the community that have died. Martha and other midwife's who tend to the sick and dying, wash the bodies and put on the burial clothes when they die. "I went to Doct Colmans at 1 hour pm. His child expird at 4. I put on the grave cloaths and tarried till 7. " (1, pg 72) "Shee departed this life about 1 pm. I asisted to lay her out." (1, pg 39) When a person dies today they are sent to a mortician, who cleans prepares the body and makes the body presentable to family and friends. This job is usually done by one man who preforms this duty by himself for many years, not the community as a whole. Martha's examples show the difference in importance of a community in the lives of people in the late 18th early 19th century and the lives of people today.

Martha's diary gives us a final example revolving around citizens trading trading in the community. People within the Hallowell community frequently traded goods and services to help their neighbors and themselves. "Mrs Savage here. Shee has spun 40 double skeins for me since April 15th and had 2 bushl of ashes & some phisic for James... I let her have skein of lining wrap. The whole is 6/ X", "Called at Daughter Lambards. Brot 6 lbs 3/4 veal from her. Lafaett Ploughd the S end of our field." Martha and Daughter Lambard have traded veal for a plowed field. Today our primary way of obtaining what we need is to use money as payment, their is very little trading of goods for services, goods for goods, etc. in our communities.

Today the size of our communities is much larger then the size of the Hallowell community. With so little people in Hallowell, most folks knew all of the people that live around them and and in the grater community of Hallowell. The people in this community was very dependent on other to get through daily life. Members of the community depended on Martha to help them get better and to deliver their babies while Martha depended on Sally and other housekeepers to keep her house clean. The towns and communities of today are mostly much larger then the small town of Hallowell in the 1700's. We do not depend on the members of our town to take care of us in bad health or to clean our homes, like the members of the Hallowell community. The size of Hallowell directed the members to be a community that worked together to get through daily life. The size of our towns and communities today give us the choice to be part of our community or not.

In Martha's time a higher percentage of people made building and maintaining a community an important part of their lives. Today being a part of building and maintaining a community is more of a choice. You can live and function in a town/community and choose not to be a part of the community activities or you can take action and be a part of the community. This was not true in Hallowell, Maine in the 18th and 19th century. To survive you had to have community connections to get weaving, food, a home built, etc. Today developing and improving our community does not seem to be such a high priority for everyone.



Source
1) Ulrich, Laurel T. A Midwife's Tale. New York: Vintage Books, 1991.