The transcribed text version of Martha Ballard's diary at this site is the work of a dedicated husband-and-wife team: Robert R. McCausland and Cynthia MacAlman McCausland. For nearly ten years they spent their evenings transcribing verbatim Martha Ballard's 1,400+ handwritten pages, making no attempt to correct Martha's spelling or other "mistakes." Given the difficulty of reading Martha Ballard's handwriting, the McCauslands have made their best educated guesses; transcriptions of which they are unsure appear in brackets [ ]. The McCauslands have generously made their labor of love available to all through this website. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, author of A Midwife's Tale, stated in her introduction to the printed version of the transcription: "I was struck at how many people appeared in Martha's diary who did not appear in deeds and probate, tax lists, census records, town meeting reports, or in the other vital records for the period. The McCausland transcription…will restore those names and lives to the history of the period." The transcription is also available for purchase as a hard-bound book from Picton Press of Camden, Maine.

In July 1982 E. Wheaton of the Maine State Archive photographed Martha Ballard's diary, creating a microfilm copy.* For the first time the diary was widely available for study, and the original was protected and preserved. But two kinds of problem make the microfilm difficult--sometimes impossible--to read. First, the diary's condition of at the time it was photographed--faded and varied ink, tears, stains, and tape--decrease legibility. Second, the microfilming process itself added flaws--shadows, glare, and improper exposure--compounding the problems.

We digitally retouched the black and white images, with the primary intent of enhancing legibility. Secondarily, we wanted to suggest the appearance of the original. The two goals were sometimes at odds: while maximizing legibility we also wanted to avoid any obvious manipulation to the original document, faded, torn and stained as it was. Using image-editing software like PhotoShop and DeBabelizer, specialists adjusted the size, sharpness, contrast, and levels of the images to maximize legibility and approximate the color of the original. With over 1400 images to process, we were simply unable to optimize each page individually. The results, while an improvement over the raw microfilm scans, are still far from a perfect replication of the original diary.

*Both the original and the microfilm are the property of the Maine State Library in Augusta, Maine.

Some examples of digital enhancement in the online diary:
Shadows cast by the photographer's lamp were lightened.
Before	After
Writing concealed by tape and/or glare was enhanced.
Before	After
Faded ink was enhanced.
Before	After