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3.74 AVERAGE
3.74 AVERAGE
informative
reflective
medium-paced
informative
reflective
slow-paced
This book is extremely informative and thoroughly researched. The author has nearly 100 pages of footnotes referencing the source material. I was introduced to previously unknown to me historical persons, and some very interesting information about certain historically important figures which I had not heard before. It amply demonstrates the feminist origins which helped shape the entire concept of Wonder Woman. It does this without ignoring the critiques of the author and his risque scenes of chains and other things.
The author treats the unorthodox family dynamics of William Marston's (creator of Wonder Woman) home life with sensitivity and tact, and contacted all living family members and family friends for interviews in the course of her research.
Whether you are interested in comic book history, Wonder Woman's history, the Women's Suffrage Movement, early psychological thought, or the development of the lie detector test, you will find all of it represented in the course of covering the life of William Moulton Marston. Definitely outside the norm, definitely ahead of his time and still in some ways an extremely typical product of it.
The author treats the unorthodox family dynamics of William Marston's (creator of Wonder Woman) home life with sensitivity and tact, and contacted all living family members and family friends for interviews in the course of her research.
Whether you are interested in comic book history, Wonder Woman's history, the Women's Suffrage Movement, early psychological thought, or the development of the lie detector test, you will find all of it represented in the course of covering the life of William Moulton Marston. Definitely outside the norm, definitely ahead of his time and still in some ways an extremely typical product of it.
The title is a bit misleading—this is straight up a biography of the creator of Wonder Woman. There's plenty of information about the women in his life, and how he cribbed their stories to craft an incredible character, but basically I learned that WW, the greatest superhero of all time, was invented by a lying huckster who conned his way into jobs and women's pants. He was a loud and staunch feminist, but also suuuuuuper into bondage. I do not buy his arguments that WW always has to be in chains to symbolize her strength over toxic masculinity so she can choose to submit to loving masculinity. He wasn't great, guys. The women in his life seemed awesome, though I don't understand why they put up with him.
That said, wonderfully written. I flew through it. Lepore is an excellent biographer.
That said, wonderfully written. I flew through it. Lepore is an excellent biographer.
Some interesting tidbits about how the creator of Wonder Woman embraced (aaaand kinda fetishized) feminism, but Wonder Woman's evolution and how she reflects the time sort of gets lost in details about the lives of Marsden and his various paramours and their polyamorous clan.
"He was 1,000 years ahead of his time."
A century, I would be introduced to Dr. William Moultan Marston and The Secret History of Wonder Woman through none other than the elders of the polyamory community. Accounts like that of Marston's, secret family dynamics suppressed the escape the gaze of conformity are familiar and exemplify the sheer fact that all measures of humans exist. They always have, always will, and behind your favorite pop culture figures very well could be lurking the story of a lifetime.
Lepore delves far beyond the creation of Wonder Woman herself, exploring the life and times before Marston, or either of his wives who cumulatively inspired Wonder Woman: Olive Bryne (unofficial) and Elizabeth Marston (legal). Interwoven between the panels of Wonder Woman's trials are Marston's own tribulations, his battles as a man likely blacklisted for his outspoken feminist and suffrage support, who was reliant on the women in his life while subsequently taking any and all credit for their work, and who crafted one of our greatest known heroes based on and for them: Diana Prince, our Wonder Woman.
The history of birth control, suffrage, the polygraph, polyamory, and DC Comics all comes together in a cultural mishmash that sometimes seems larger than life. At times Lepore struggles to tie it all together - it's a tough job. 100 years later some of Dr. Marston, Marston, and Bryne's feminist dream's still haven't come to fruition, yet Lepore ensures their story gets its due in this must-read.
A century, I would be introduced to Dr. William Moultan Marston and The Secret History of Wonder Woman through none other than the elders of the polyamory community. Accounts like that of Marston's, secret family dynamics suppressed the escape the gaze of conformity are familiar and exemplify the sheer fact that all measures of humans exist. They always have, always will, and behind your favorite pop culture figures very well could be lurking the story of a lifetime.
Lepore delves far beyond the creation of Wonder Woman herself, exploring the life and times before Marston, or either of his wives who cumulatively inspired Wonder Woman: Olive Bryne (unofficial) and Elizabeth Marston (legal). Interwoven between the panels of Wonder Woman's trials are Marston's own tribulations, his battles as a man likely blacklisted for his outspoken feminist and suffrage support, who was reliant on the women in his life while subsequently taking any and all credit for their work, and who crafted one of our greatest known heroes based on and for them: Diana Prince, our Wonder Woman.
The history of birth control, suffrage, the polygraph, polyamory, and DC Comics all comes together in a cultural mishmash that sometimes seems larger than life. At times Lepore struggles to tie it all together - it's a tough job. 100 years later some of Dr. Marston, Marston, and Bryne's feminist dream's still haven't come to fruition, yet Lepore ensures their story gets its due in this must-read.
Insightful and conversation-making, this book focuses on the making of Wonder Woman, her creator, and the inspiration behind that lasso of truth. Even if you've read the comics, I promise you don't know the history.
This secret history is really the secret history of the family that created the character: William Moulton Marston, the psychologist who created the lie detector, Sadie Elizabeth Holloway, his wife and an impressive editor and researcher, and Olive Byrne, who lived with Marston and Holloway, raised their children, and had two children herself with Marston.
Now, you can find articles about this polyamorous relationship on the internet dating back to at least 2001. What Lepore adds to the facts (as far as I can tell) is the bombshell that Olive Byrne was the niece of Margaret Sanger, noted battler for women's reproductive rights. And Lepore uses this addition to strongly connect Wonder Woman not just to an idealized version of female empowerment, but to the actual historical events of the fight for suffrage, the battles over contraception and sexual education of females, and the growing dissatisfaction of women with traditional gender roles. As an example, Lepore directly ties the frequent images of Wonder Woman in chains to the similar images in political cartoons of the 1920's and connects the character's origin to feminist utopian novels of the same era.
The result is often fascinating. Lepore's coverage of Sanger and Olive's mother, Ethel Byrne, was enthralling, and I would happily read a whole book about that history. And there is a lot about the collegiate suffrage movements that Byrne, Marston, and Holloway participated in. But I found that this emphasis led to a bifurcation of the book. It's hard to take Marston seriously as a champion for feminism when compared to the women actually doing the work.
Because, in this book, Marston does not come off well. Lepore clearly details his fall from academic grace (partly due to his penchant for sensationalism) as well as a large number of failed business ventures and an annoying amount of self promotion. He is often supported financially by Holloway and emotionally by Byrne (who submits for publication at least one glowing review of a book of his while living with him and writes a whole series of Family Circle stories about consulting with him). Lepore also devotes enough pages to Marston's Wonder Woman writing (with excerpts of how lovingly he described scenes of women in bondage to H. G. Peters, the original artist for the series) that I could more easily see fetishization of the feminist movement on Marston's part than actual support.
So, the result is a strange mishmash of what Marston does (often amounting to strange PR moves) and what activists actually fight for. As a result, I think the book has the same bifurcated approach to Wonder Woman: celebrating the origins, but cautious at times about the execution. (A last chapter about the appearance of Wonder Woman on the cover of the first issue of Ms. magazine turns that possible subtext into text, as the portions of the feminist movement question Gloria Steinem's loyalties while superimposing her head on Wonder Woman's body.)
Some small quibbles: I know that the early Wonder Woman comics are often read as allegory for the events in Marston's life (e.g., "lasso of truth = lie detector"), but Lepore goes further with this than anyone else I've read. The result is that some chapters feel like setups for "what did THIS represent in the comic?", and I was never convinced that Lepore was doing much more than connecting the dots she saw. Thankfully, this tendency diminishes quite a lot by the middle of the book. There's also a visual "connect the dots" where Lepore claims that an alternate costume for Wonder Woman designed by H. G. Peters "seems to have been inspired" by a 1942 Vargas Fourth of July pin up, where I don't see much similarity besides skin and red, white, and blue.
Overall, I think this is a good read for comics historians, especially since Lepore does so much to connect the comics history with the social history of the time.
Now, you can find articles about this polyamorous relationship on the internet dating back to at least 2001. What Lepore adds to the facts (as far as I can tell) is the bombshell that Olive Byrne was the niece of Margaret Sanger, noted battler for women's reproductive rights. And Lepore uses this addition to strongly connect Wonder Woman not just to an idealized version of female empowerment, but to the actual historical events of the fight for suffrage, the battles over contraception and sexual education of females, and the growing dissatisfaction of women with traditional gender roles. As an example, Lepore directly ties the frequent images of Wonder Woman in chains to the similar images in political cartoons of the 1920's and connects the character's origin to feminist utopian novels of the same era.
The result is often fascinating. Lepore's coverage of Sanger and Olive's mother, Ethel Byrne, was enthralling, and I would happily read a whole book about that history. And there is a lot about the collegiate suffrage movements that Byrne, Marston, and Holloway participated in. But I found that this emphasis led to a bifurcation of the book. It's hard to take Marston seriously as a champion for feminism when compared to the women actually doing the work.
Because, in this book, Marston does not come off well. Lepore clearly details his fall from academic grace (partly due to his penchant for sensationalism) as well as a large number of failed business ventures and an annoying amount of self promotion. He is often supported financially by Holloway and emotionally by Byrne (who submits for publication at least one glowing review of a book of his while living with him and writes a whole series of Family Circle stories about consulting with him). Lepore also devotes enough pages to Marston's Wonder Woman writing (with excerpts of how lovingly he described scenes of women in bondage to H. G. Peters, the original artist for the series) that I could more easily see fetishization of the feminist movement on Marston's part than actual support.
So, the result is a strange mishmash of what Marston does (often amounting to strange PR moves) and what activists actually fight for. As a result, I think the book has the same bifurcated approach to Wonder Woman: celebrating the origins, but cautious at times about the execution. (A last chapter about the appearance of Wonder Woman on the cover of the first issue of Ms. magazine turns that possible subtext into text, as the portions of the feminist movement question Gloria Steinem's loyalties while superimposing her head on Wonder Woman's body.)
Some small quibbles: I know that the early Wonder Woman comics are often read as allegory for the events in Marston's life (e.g., "lasso of truth = lie detector"), but Lepore goes further with this than anyone else I've read. The result is that some chapters feel like setups for "what did THIS represent in the comic?", and I was never convinced that Lepore was doing much more than connecting the dots she saw. Thankfully, this tendency diminishes quite a lot by the middle of the book. There's also a visual "connect the dots" where Lepore claims that an alternate costume for Wonder Woman designed by H. G. Peters "seems to have been inspired" by a 1942 Vargas Fourth of July pin up, where I don't see much similarity besides skin and red, white, and blue.
Overall, I think this is a good read for comics historians, especially since Lepore does so much to connect the comics history with the social history of the time.
inspiring
medium-paced
I did not love this as much as I loved the biography of Jane Franklin, but I am a scholar of the 18th century so it would be hard to love anything as much as I loved the biography of Jane Franklin. I loved how she constructed the story from the archives. (I wish I had known how she knew how to look at which archives.) It's a strange tale of suffrage, sex, and unconventional family arrangements that, in the end, seem to work.