Author Jill Lepore reveals the hidden history of the world’s most popular female superhero
By Liberty Hardy
In “The Secret History of Wonder Woman,” Harvard professor and The New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore uncovers the amazing backstory of the world’s most popular female superhero, and her creator, William Moulton Marston. Brought to life on comic book pages in 1941, Wonder Woman’s fictional roots lie on Paradise Island, an island populated by the Amazons, a tribe of women. Wonder Woman is sent from the island to fight for justice (and, because World War II was on, battle Nazis) in “Man’s World,” armed with only a “magic lasso” that forces people to tell the truth and a pair of bracelets that deflect bullets.
The character’s real-life origins stem from Marston’s own life — and the women he surrounded himself with. A lawyer and psychologist, Marston, with the help of his wife, Elizabeth Holloway Marston, invented the systolic blood pressure test, a forerunner to the polygraph test. Marston and his wife also were in a polyamorous relationship with Olive Byrne, and the two women, along with Marston’s own encounters with early suffragists and feminists, including Margaret Sanger’s niece, helped shape the character.
Lepore will discuss the secret origins of Wonder Woman at The Music Hall Loft on Tuesday, Jan. 20. She took a moment from her tour to answer a few questions for The Sound.
Author and historian Jill Lepore (courtesy photo)
What gave you the idea to write the book?
Oh, I stumbled into this topic. I didn’t start out thinking, “I’m going to write a book about Wonder Woman!” I wasn’t actually hunting about for a book project. I was working on a bunch of different, smaller research projects — an article for The New Yorker on the history of Planned Parenthood, a paper for the Yale Law School on the history of evidence, and some lectures on the history of privacy, for the New York Public Library — and they all ended up intersecting! Somehow this fellow William Moulton Marston was a character in each of those stories. So then I started digging.
What were you most surprised to learn while researching the book?
Every single thing in this nutty story surprised me. Honestly. It was nonstop. Every night at dinner I’d say, “You won’t believe what I found today!” It got so everyone just rolled their eyes, like, “Oh good grief, what now?”
Do you think Wonder Woman would have been as successful in the 1940s if she had been created by a woman?
Absolutely. There were lots of great comic strip and comic book characters in the 1930s and 1940s created by women. Little Lulu, created by Marjorie Henderson Buell in 1935; Brenda Starr by Dale Messick in 1940; and Miss Fury by Tarpe Mills in 1941. Also, honestly, it’s not inaccurate to say that Wonder Woman was created by both Marston and a whole bunch of women, including the women he lived with: Elizabeth Holloway Marston, Olive Byrne, and Marjorie Wilkes Huntley; his assistant, who wrote a lot of scripts, Joye Hummel; and an editor, Dorothy Roubicek. There’s a page in “Wonder Woman #1” with a photograph of Marston, editor Sheldon Mayer, artist H.G. Peter, and publisher M.C. Gaines and the caption reads, “The men behind Wonder Woman.” But they could have filled a whole other page and called it, “The women behind Wonder Woman.”
Jill Lepore will discuss “The Secret History of Wonder Woman” on Tuesday, Jan. 20 at 7 p.m. at The Music Hall Loft, 131 Congress St., Portsmouth. Call 603-436-2400 or visit themusichall.org.