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3.74 AVERAGE
3.74 AVERAGE
informative
slow-paced
This was a very well researched effort to make sense of something that perhaps doesn't merit the attention. The book follows Wm Marston and Elizabeth Holloway through an incredibly fraught academic and family life. They are intellectuals in the 1920s, in graduate programs in psychology, hobnobbing with lots of big names in academia. They marry and rather quickly, Marston insists upon life as a menage a trois, with a student of his. He is fired from position after position, rapidly moving down the academic ladder. Ultimately he begins drawing a cartoon. Wonder Woman is born. Lots more controversy ensues and it, too, is carefully documented. I just couldn't make myself care about this one.
Recommended!
I randomly picked up this book on audio from the library's collection, and I learned so much from it. It's so INTERESTING to view the history of Wonder Woman following women's suffrage, after the rise of women in the workplace in WWII, and then as the next wave of feminism rose up. Like, when she was let in to the Justice Society originally, she was the secretary, because of course. I have never read Wonder Woman or seen the new movie (which I need to, now), but after I listened to this book, I found myself flipping through the Wonder Woman graphic novels at my library and comparing them to the visual I had in my mind. The author reads the book, which can sometimes be hit or miss, but she did a great job. The real life of her creators is cra-zazy and worth the time so you can ogle at the weirdness.
I randomly picked up this book on audio from the library's collection, and I learned so much from it. It's so INTERESTING to view the history of Wonder Woman following women's suffrage, after the rise of women in the workplace in WWII, and then as the next wave of feminism rose up. Like, when she was let in to the Justice Society originally, she was the secretary, because of course. I have never read Wonder Woman or seen the new movie (which I need to, now), but after I listened to this book, I found myself flipping through the Wonder Woman graphic novels at my library and comparing them to the visual I had in my mind. The author reads the book, which can sometimes be hit or miss, but she did a great job. The real life of her creators is cra-zazy and worth the time so you can ogle at the weirdness.
I'm not sure what I was expecting from this book, but it was a complete surprise. I had wanted to read it for a while, but I guess assumed it would be dense (it's a fat book, but a 3rd of it is citations). I'm so glad I finally picked it up because it was a really fun read & incredibly engaging, I was surprised to find I often couldn't put it down. Much more of a history of the creator of Wonder Woman and all of the women around him that influenced him. Woven through the entire book is a short history lesson in the suffrage movement, birth control & abortion rights, and how all of that overlapped and influenced Wonder Woman. I think I was expecting a lot more about Wonder Woman, but I definitely was not disappointed with what was in this book, even though I'm a huge fan of Wonder Woman, I don't think you have to be a comic book fan or fan of Wonder Woman to enjoy it. Also, oddly/sadly timely, as I was reading about suffragettes protesting at the white house while the Women's March across the country was happening, some of the signs could have easily been the exact same.
It’s boring. I’ve tried it in print and audiobook.
I wish this had been better. I had high hopes, but The Secret History of Wonder Woman was a bit of a slog. I learned some fascinating tidbits (for example, that the creators Wonder Woman and Planned Parenthood were related and shared founding philosophies and then underwent parallel evolutions.) The best parts of the book were toward the end, where Lapore explored how Wonder Woman and feminism changed together. Overall, I think this is probably only worth reading if you really like Wonder Woman, care about feminism, don't know a lot about comics, and have some extra time on your hands.
I am only familiar with the basic history of the creation of Wonder Woman, that she was created by the inventor of the lie detector test and she was a weapon for women's rights. This book opened a Pandora's box of information to me about the secret life of William Moulton Marston and how he is connected to the women's rights movement in the first half of the 20th century. How he kept mistresses under the same house he shared with his wife, and their tenacity to keep it secret until the ladies were in their old age. There are so many questions about his life that I wanted to explore more, how he and his wife were fine to have a former student of his (college) become his mistress and have kids with her, even though there were letters and accounts of his relationship they were quiet about it, and even lied to the kids. I am intrigued at how WW helped the women's rights movement in the first half of the 21st century, in a time you might be persecuted just because.
Also it mentioned Gertrude Stein when she was a student, how she has a degrees of separation between her and WMM. She was experimented on during the early days of the lie detector test and how the professor mistreated her, it made me want to explore that. Also made me want to know more of the womens rights in the 20th century.
Also it mentioned Gertrude Stein when she was a student, how she has a degrees of separation between her and WMM. She was experimented on during the early days of the lie detector test and how the professor mistreated her, it made me want to explore that. Also made me want to know more of the womens rights in the 20th century.
3.5/5
An interesting history Marston and his family. The writing was solid and straight forward, but did not blow me away. With all of the names going around I tended to forget who was who especially since I was listening on audiobook.
An interesting history Marston and his family. The writing was solid and straight forward, but did not blow me away. With all of the names going around I tended to forget who was who especially since I was listening on audiobook.
Did I enjoy it? For the most part, yes. I went into it with virtually no knowledge of Wonder Woman beyond the most basic information about the character and the comics, which may have contributed to my enjoyment of it.
Would I read it again? Unlikely
Who would I recommend it to? If you're interested in the history of feminism, and the history of psychology this is a pretty good rundown of a specific intersection of the two. It's a good history of the creation of the character of Wonder Woman, but if you're only interested in it for the comic book aspect of it you're going to be disappointed.
Any other thoughts? Who would have thought that in a book claiming to be about Wonder Woman, she wouldn't appear for the first 200 pages? This book could be more accurately described as a biography of William Moulton Marston, a Harvard-trained psychologist and developer of the systolic blood-pressure polygraph. The book also focuses heavily on the women in Marston's life, specifically his wife, Sadie Elizabeth Holloway, and incredibly smart woman who studied psychology and law, and their lover Olive Richard Byrne, a former student of Marston’s, and niece of Margaret Sanger. It is through the women in Marston's life that Lepore is able to smoothly connect the ideals of first wave feminism into the creation of Wonder Woman.
Marston himself was a bit of a blowhard. He was blacklisted from academia, lost his job in Hollywood, failed in a number of business endeavors, and relied on the money earned by Holloway to support himself and their family. Byrne served as the caretaker for the families children, two of them hers and two of them Holloway's, and assisted Marston in his psychological research. It was interesting to see Marston trying to make a name for himself, and the amount of work that the women in his life also put into making him look good. Huge parts of his academic publications were allegedly written by Bryne and Holloway, though neither of them ever felt the need to claim it as their own. A whole chapter in one of Marston's book was written as Bryne's Master's thesis and yet it was published under Marston's name with a note thanking Bryne for her assistance in the research. Bryne and Holloway also go out of their way to make Marston seem smarter than I got the impression he was. Bryne wrote for a magazine in the late 1930s-early 1940s where she pretended to not know Marston and instead sought him out for parenting advice (because of his amazing psychology background).
Lepore clearly did some very extensive historical research in the writing of this book, there's at least 100 pages of end notes at the back of the book detailing sources for all of her information. Funnily enough, I picked up this book to learn more about Wonder Woman and ended up feeling mostly bored once she came in. I was much more engaged with the run down of early feminism and the lives of Marston's family in the early 1900s that I had gotten in the first 200 pages, I was disappointed when the character was finally created and the story of Marston's life seemed to peter out. I did love the original sketches of the Wonder Woman character, and I appreciated how her role in the comic books paralleled the treatment of women within American society over time. Overall this was an engaging and interesting book, but not quite what I was expecting it to be when I picked it up.
Would I read it again? Unlikely
Who would I recommend it to? If you're interested in the history of feminism, and the history of psychology this is a pretty good rundown of a specific intersection of the two. It's a good history of the creation of the character of Wonder Woman, but if you're only interested in it for the comic book aspect of it you're going to be disappointed.
Any other thoughts? Who would have thought that in a book claiming to be about Wonder Woman, she wouldn't appear for the first 200 pages? This book could be more accurately described as a biography of William Moulton Marston, a Harvard-trained psychologist and developer of the systolic blood-pressure polygraph. The book also focuses heavily on the women in Marston's life, specifically his wife, Sadie Elizabeth Holloway, and incredibly smart woman who studied psychology and law, and their lover Olive Richard Byrne, a former student of Marston’s, and niece of Margaret Sanger. It is through the women in Marston's life that Lepore is able to smoothly connect the ideals of first wave feminism into the creation of Wonder Woman.
Marston himself was a bit of a blowhard. He was blacklisted from academia, lost his job in Hollywood, failed in a number of business endeavors, and relied on the money earned by Holloway to support himself and their family. Byrne served as the caretaker for the families children, two of them hers and two of them Holloway's, and assisted Marston in his psychological research. It was interesting to see Marston trying to make a name for himself, and the amount of work that the women in his life also put into making him look good. Huge parts of his academic publications were allegedly written by Bryne and Holloway, though neither of them ever felt the need to claim it as their own. A whole chapter in one of Marston's book was written as Bryne's Master's thesis and yet it was published under Marston's name with a note thanking Bryne for her assistance in the research. Bryne and Holloway also go out of their way to make Marston seem smarter than I got the impression he was. Bryne wrote for a magazine in the late 1930s-early 1940s where she pretended to not know Marston and instead sought him out for parenting advice (because of his amazing psychology background).
Lepore clearly did some very extensive historical research in the writing of this book, there's at least 100 pages of end notes at the back of the book detailing sources for all of her information. Funnily enough, I picked up this book to learn more about Wonder Woman and ended up feeling mostly bored once she came in. I was much more engaged with the run down of early feminism and the lives of Marston's family in the early 1900s that I had gotten in the first 200 pages, I was disappointed when the character was finally created and the story of Marston's life seemed to peter out. I did love the original sketches of the Wonder Woman character, and I appreciated how her role in the comic books paralleled the treatment of women within American society over time. Overall this was an engaging and interesting book, but not quite what I was expecting it to be when I picked it up.
I never took a woman's study course and this was probably one of the deepest introductions I have had to the feminism of the 1910-1920, but it was all through the lens of the people who lead to Wonder Woman. It is written as a biography, which usually is a questionable format for me because I often find myself not trusting the narrator (I'm usually drawn to autobiography in which, even if they lie, it's meaningful). But I trusted this narrator and I wasn't sure about her feelings on what she was reporting. The materials were thorough, every sentence packed with information, but it was still very readable. Also it absolutely made me want to read some old wonder woman comics. And of course, it's always incredible to read about deviance of people of the past. It's ... freeing.
This was interesting. Not quite what I expected, but interesting nonetheless. Especially through #WomensHistoryMonth.