Without fail, Marston sought to make Wonder Woman an icon of a new, triumphant phase of female rule in human history. Peter, had himself once drawn suffrage cartoons. (He had a rather forced argument for why the chains actually represented liberation.) Wonder Woman's first artist, Harry G. 25 years later, Marston's determination to depict Wonder Woman in chains was partly inspired by women's suffrage imagery. He'd been exposed to the women's suffrage movement while in college, and Sadie Holloway, whom he married in 1915, was "something of a revolutionary," Lepore writes. Marston had been a committed feminist for decades by the time he created Wonder Woman in 1941. "Marston's Wonder Woman was a Progressive Era feminist," Lepore notes. This relationship might seem to pale beside Lepore's more primal revelations, but in fact Marston's connection with one of the century's most famous feminists had a profound impact on one of the world's most famous (fictional) women. There's more, too - such as the facts that Marston invented the lie detector and that his longtime lover, Olive Byrne, was the niece of famed birth control crusader Margaret Sanger. It's all in Lepore's book, an astonishingly thorough investigation of the man behind the world's most popular female superhero. In the mid-1920s he, his wife and two of his lovers participated in a "cult of female sexual power" organized by his aunt.
He also led a highly unusual lifestyle, living with and fathering children by two women at once.
Creator William Moulton Marston actually fought to depict her that way. Just kidding! In fact, The Secret History of Wonder Woman relates a tale so improbable, so juicy, it'll have you saying, "Merciful Minerva!" It turns out that decades of rumors were true: The red-white-and-blue heroine, conceived during World War II, had a decidedly bohemian progenitor.įor one thing, it was no accident that Wonder Woman got chained up in every episode. What could such things have to do with Wonder Woman? Fortunately, there's no connection between those titillating concepts and the famous Amazon - certainly not in Jill Lepore's new book. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title The Secret History of Wonder Woman Author Jill Lepore
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