SUPPORTING MEDIA
INVENTING HERSELF will also include the creation of a website, so work that is done for the series will be permanently available on the web for teachers, students, and lay people. I’ve had a great deal of experience creating historical websites. After completing A Midwife’s Tale, I conceived of and produced an ambitious and innovative website, DoHistory.org, that immerses its users in the hands-on process of piecing together the life of an "ordinary" person in the past.

THE CASE STUDY at the website is the life and world of midwife Martha Ballard. Users of the website get to read Martha Ballard’s diary and hundreds of other documents to piece together dramatic stories that took place in Martha’s town: the rape of the minister’s wife by a local judge, and the arrival in town of a inexperienced male doctor who believed he knew how to deliver babies. Website users also learn about the remarkable historical detective work Laurel Ulrich did, and they are taken behind the scenes into the making of the film. The website has won awards for both its design and its content.