A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812

Arminianism is a Protestant movement that began in the 17th century, led by Dutch Reformed theologian Jacobus Arminius. The core beliefs of Arminianism include the idea that people who hear the Gospel, or the story of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection, have the option to believe and accept God’s offer of grace and salvation or to reject it. Adherents to Arminianism also believe that no one is excluded from God’s grace unless they outright reject it, which directly goes against Calvin’s idea of predestination. The goal of Arminianism was to temper the beliefs of Calvinism, especially as it relates to predestination, but such beliefs were perceived as a form of religious dissent within small, close-knit New England communities, many of which had a single church. This liberalizing of Protestant beliefs arises a few times within the text, as Henry Sewall leveled accusations of Arminianism against Reverend Isaac Foster and the same accusations against Captain Purrington. Arminianism later gave rise to the Baptist and Methodist traditions, which would rise in popularity in the 19th century.

An anachronism is an error in chronology or something that appears outside of its context in history. Ulrich refers to anachronism when discussing the statistics regarding Martha’s maternal-fetal mortality rate.