The Secret History of Wonder Woman

by Jill Lepore

  18. VENUS WITH US

  1. OBR noted the date of her wedding in a Tufts tenth class reunion publication in which she provided an important summary of her career: “OLIVE BYRNE (Mrs. William Richard), Rye, New York (P.O. Box 32, Harrison, N.Y.) In 1927 received an M.A. at Columbia and during the next year worked for a Ph.D. With Universal Studios, Hollywood, during 1929 and then back at Columbia until 1931. From then to 1935 in New York and later in Boston, but back to New York in 1935 and began writing. Staff writer, Family Circle Magazine. Married William Richard November 21, 1928, and has two children, Byrne, born January 12, 1931, and Donn, born Septem-ber 20, 1932.” In “Facts and Fancies of the Class of 1926, Compiled for the Tenth Reunion, June 11, 12, 13, 14, 1936,” n.p., Class material, 1922–27, UA039/Classes, 1858–1997, box 7, folder 6, Tufts University Archives. OBR sometimes gave William Richard a middle initial: K. See “OLIVE BYRNE (Mrs. William Richard), 81 Oakland Beach Avenue, Rye, N.Y. Jackson [Tufts’s women’s college], B.S. English. Columbia University M.A. 1927. Married William K. Richard 1928 now deceased. Has two sons, Byrne Holloway, 20, Harvard ′51, and Donn William, 18, Harvard ′54. Assistant to Dr. W. M. Marston until his death in 1947, and writes articles for trade papers, etc. Member of Woman’s Club of Rye and Coveleigh Club of Rye. Hobby: art.” In “Jumbo Looks Back Again at the Great Class of 26, 25th Reunion,” Class material, 1922–27, UA039/Classes, 1858–1997, box 7, folder 6, Tufts University Archives.

  2. BHRM, “Memories of an Unusual Father,” 7.

  3. Diary of OBR, entries for November 21 1936, and November 21, 1937, in the possession of BHRM.

  4. WMM to Helen M. Voorhees, December 6, 1928 (on Columbia University Department of Psychology letterhead), Mount Holyoke College Archives.

  5. WMM, Class Note, Harvard College Class of 1915: Fifteenth Anniversary Report (Cambridge, MA: Printed for the Class, 1930), 143–44.

  6. United States of America, Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930 (Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration, 1930), as made available by Ancestry.com, 1930 United States Federal Census (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com, 2002).

  7. In 1939, she was living in Waltham, Massachusetts, at 475 Trapelo Road, and working as a senior library assistant at the Metropolitan State Hospital in Waltham. U.S. City Directories, 1821–1989 (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com, 2011). In 1941, she was a librarian at the Metropolitan Hospital, New York; that affiliation is given in a newspaper account of a meeting of the American Librarian Association: “Says U.S. History Backs F.D.R.,” New York Times, June 24, 1941.

  8. OBR, Record of Byrne Holloway Richard, notebook, in the possession of BHRM. He was born at the Polyclinic Hospital in Manhattan.

  9. Diary of OBR, in the possession of BHRM. In the diaries, OBR referred to EHM as “SM,” presumably for “Sadie Marston.”

  10. Mary Ross, quoted in Chesler, Woman of Valor, 314; New York Herald Tribune, November 13, 1931, as quoted ibid., 7. MS, My Fight for Birth Control (New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1931); Chesler, Woman of Valor, 329.

  11. “Hot Babies, Those Co-Eds,” New York Graphic, November 17, 1931. The article refers to WMM as a visiting professor at Long Island University.

  12. WMM, Harvard College Class of 1915, Twenty-fifth Reunion Report (Cambridge: Cosmos, 1940), 480–82.

  13. WMM, Venus with Us: A Tale of the Caesar (New York: Sears, 1932), 4, 20–22, 35, 56, 58, 69, 111–14, 124, 175. On the publication date, see “Books Schedule to Appear During the Summer Months,” New York Times, June 19, 1932, and display advertisement, New York Times, July 24, 1932.

  14. The Boston Globe called it a curious demonstration of Julius Caesar’s contention that while men wage wars, women control the world. A critic for the Chicago Tribune praised the book but chastised it for its anachronism: “William M. Marston all but puts his characters in modern dress. They speak in the current slang, they have a sophistication that is indeed familiar to modern ears and eyes and they, for the most part, in action and psychology, bear a definite contemporary stamp.” “Critics Acclaim First Novel by Author of 25,” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 5, 1932. Elisabeth Poe, “The New Books and Their Authors,” Washington Post, July 31, 1932. “Tense and Thrilling Is This Detective Story,” Daily Boston Globe, July 30, 1932.

  19. FICTION HOUSE

  1. James R. McCarthy, “First Full Facts About the Astounding Plague of Organized Kidnappings,” Atlanta Constitution, June 5, 1932; WMM, Lie Detector Test, 81.

  2. BHRM, “Memories of an Unusual Father,” 7, 15; MM, interview with the author, July 25, 2012. EHM explained her own name this way: “One of the children at age two could not pronounce a pet name Bill used to call me. The little boy said ‘Keetsie,’ which old and young picked up but shortened it to Keets. Actually, some of the young do not know I have any other names.” EHM to Caroline Becker (Alumnae Office), February 26, 1987, EHM Alumnae file, Mount Auburn College Archives.

  3. “The Sphinx Speaks of the Class of 1915, Mount Holyoke College: A Biographical History . . . for our Thirty-second Reunion, June 1947” (South Hadley, MA: Mount Holyoke College, 1947), n.p.

  4. WMM, Harvard College Class of 1915, Twenty-fifth Reunion Report, 480–82.

  5. BHRM, “Memories of an Unusual Father,” 8.

  6. Ibid., 23, 14–15, 13–14.

  7. Jack Byrne is listed as editor of Action Stories, 271 Madison Avenue, New York, as early as 1927. See the entry for Action Stories in William B. McCourties, Where and How to Sell Manuscripts: A Director for Writers (5th ed., Springfield, MA: Home Correspondence School, 1927), 8.

  8. BHRM, interview with the author, July 14, 2013; adoption record of Byrne Holloway Richard Marston, February 2, 1935, Essex County Probate Court, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, a copy in the possession of BHRM.

  9. OBR to MS, August 1935, MS Papers, Library of Congress, microfilm edition, L006: 0946. Sanger knew about Olive’s affair with Marston. “It didn’t bother her,” her granddaughter later said. “My Lord, she had so many affairs in her life; Olive’s affairs did not trouble her.” MSML, interview with the author, July 9, 2013. And Olive and the children visited often; see, e.g., MS to OBR, May 11, 1936, Library of Congress, microfilm edition, L006: 0952: “I would love to see you. Why not bring both children for a week-end soon?” Their correspondence relates many such weekend visits.

  10. BHRM, “Memories of an Unusual Father,” 8. The house was at 81 Oakland Beach Avenue.

  11. BHRM, interview with the author, July 14, 2013.

  12. “Every time she came to New York she called up in Rye where I lived.” OBR, Van Voris interview, p. 16.

  13. WMM to BHRM, undated but the summer of 1942, in the possession of BHRM; OBR to MS, August 1935, MS Papers, Library of Congress, microfilm edition, L006: 0946.

  14. The phrase “family circle” has an interesting history. In 1931, Inez Haynes Gillmore, the author of Angel Island, had published a novel with that name. Inez Haynes Gillmore, Family Circle (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1931).

  15. Edwin J. Perkins, Wall Street to Main Street: Charles Merrill and Middle-Class Investors (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 117–18; Kathleen Endres and Therese L. Lueck, eds., Women’s Periodicals in the United States: Consumer Magazines (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995), 87, xiv.

  16. OBR, “Lie Detector,” Family Circle, November 1, 1935.

  17. OBR, “Their Shyness Made Them Famous,” Family Circle, November 19, 1937.

  18. OBR, “How Far Should She Go?” Family Circle, November 1, 1935.

  19. OBR, “Know Your Man,” Family Circle, October 23, 1936.

  20. Jack Byrne to OBR, February 17, 1958, in the possession of BHRM; OBR.

  21.“Live, Love, Laugh, and Be Happy,” Family Circle, November 27, 1936.

  22. OBR, “Ferocious Fiction,” Family Circle, December 20, 1935.

  23. Diary of OBR, entries for January 15, 1936; March 1, 1936; May 28, 1936; November 8, 1936; January 22, 1938; January 31, 1938; and May 27, 1937, in the p
ossession of BHRM.

  20. THE DUKE OF DECEPTION

  1. “May Use Lie Detector,” Washington Post, November 22, 1935.

  2. Alder, Lie Detectors, 148, and chapter 13.

  3. “Lindbergh Baby’s Murderer to Be Placed Under ‘Lie Detector,’ ” Times of India, November 29, 1935. Marston’s later account of what happened differs somewhat. He claimed that he had not approached Fisher but that he had been approached, in the fall of 1935, by a detective working for the defense. WMM, Lie Detector Test, 82–88. Marston also claimed that Hauptmann, in a letter to Hoffman, had requested a lie detector test.

  4. “Gov. Hoffman Urges Lie-Detector Test,” New York Times, January 24, 1936; “Defense Staff of Hauptmann Adds Attorney,” Washington Post, January 24, 1936; “Lie Detector Test Backed by Hoffman,” Boston Globe, January 24, 1936; and “Tells Lie Test He Would Use on Hauptmann,” Chicago Tribune, January 25, 1936. According to a statement WMM made to the press on January 12, 1936—the day Hoffman granted Hauptmann a thirty-day reprieve—Dr. John F. Condon, who had negotiated the payment of the kidnapper’s ransom, had agreed in December to be subjected to a lie detector test, but only after Hauptmann was dead. “Hauptmann Plans to Make New Plea to Highest Court,” New York Times, January 13, 1936.

  5. WMM, Lie Detector Test, 87–88.

  6. Inscribed copy of The Lie Detector Test, in the possession of BHRM.

  7. Helen W. Gandy [Hoover’s secretary] to Richard R. Smith, March 8, 1938; Richard R. Smith to Helen W. Gandy, March 10, 1938; and Helen W. Gandy to Richard R. Smith, March 16, 1938, William Moulton Marston’s FBI File, U.S. Justice Department.

  8. My thanks to Hoover’s biographer Beverly Gage for this information.

  9. WMM, Lie Detector Test. And see Verne W. Lyon, “Practical Application of Deception Tests,” Federal Probation 4 (February 1940): 41–42.

  10. E. P. Coffey to Mr. Nathan, memo, May 11, 1938, WMM, FBI File, Department of Justice.

  11. WMM, Lie Detector Test, 72.

  12. The warden at what was then the D.C. Penal Institution in Lorton, Virginia, submitted a letter in support of Frye, citing his work as a switchboard operator and his exemplary behavior: W. L. Peak, Superintendent, to J. A. Finch, Attorney in Charge of Pardons, July 12, 1934, National Archives, RG 204, stack 230, 40:14:2, box 1583, file 56-386. James A. Frye, Application for Executive Clemency, July 12, 1934, National Archives, RG 204, stack 230, 40:14:2, box 1583, file 56-386; James A. Frye to Daniel M. Lyons, Department of Justice, August 2, 1943, National Archives, RG 204, stack 230, 40:14:2, box 1583, file 56-386; Frye’s 1945 application for executive clemency, National Archives, RG 204, stack 230, 40:14:2, box 1583, file 56-386, pp. 13–14; James A. Frye to D. M. Lyons, Pardon Attorney, September 7, 1945, and James A. Frye to Harry S. Truman, President of the United States, September 28, 1945, National Archives, RG 204, stack 230, 40:14:2, box 1583, file 56-386.

  13. WMM, Lie Detector Test, 115.

  14. BHRM, “Memories of an Unusual Father,” 26.

  15. WMM, Lie Detector Test, 119.

  16. “ ‘Are You in Love?’ Check Your Reply with Lie Detector,” Washington Post, March 9, 1938; Sally McDougall, “Tells Why Women Lie: Dr. W. M. Marston, ‘Detector’ Inventor, Makes Experiment,” New York World Telegram, March 9, 1938; and “Scientist Finds Men Prefer Brunettes,” Washington Post, September 23, 1939.

  17. Interview with MM, July 25, 2012.

  18. WMM had apparently been saying he was forming a “Truth Bureau.” See [redacted] to J. Edgar Hoover, Jacksonville, October 26, 1940: “Having seen in a Jacksonville paper the statement that Dr. William Moulton Marston is to train deception testers preparing them for service in a possible ‘Truth Bureau,’ I should like to get in touch with Dr. Marston to offer myself for training because I attended Dr. Marston’s classes on legal physiology, and the use of the Lie Detector at the American University during 1923.” Hoover writes back (Hoover to [redacted], Washington, November 8, 1940): “I must advise that the individual to whom you refer in your letter is not in any way connected with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” WMM, FBI File.

  19. OBR, “No Thing Matters,” Family Circle, April 16, 1937.

  20. “The Duke of Deception,” Wonder Woman #2, Fall 1942. On Upton Sinclair’s failed campaign, see Jill Lepore, “The Lie Factory: How Politics Became a Business,” New Yorker, September 24, 2012.

  21. Ad titled “Lie Detector ‘Tells All,’ ” Life, November 21, 1938, 65.

  22. John S. Bugas to J. Edgar Hoover, July 13, 1939, WMM, FBI File. And see Alder, Lie Detectors, 189–90.

  21. FEMININE RULE DECLARED FACT

  1. “Women Will Rule 1,000 Years Hence!” Chicago Tribune, November 11, 1937, and “Feminine Rule Declared Fact,” Los Angeles Times, November 13, 1937. In 1937, when WMM predicted a matriarchy, he was riding a wave that had to do in part with the prominence of Eleanor Roosevelt and also with a scandal over Mary Woolley, who that year was forced out of the presidency of Mount Holyoke and replaced with a man. “I am one of the many who were greatly disturbed when a man succeeded Miss Woolley as President,” Holloway wrote, bitterly. “Women will never develop as leaders unless they are given or seize the chance to lead.” EHM to the Mount Holyoke Alumni Office, June 13, 1960, as a handwritten addendum to an alumni questionnaire. Mount Holyoke College Archives.

  2. Dave Fleischer, director, Betty Boop for President (Paramount Pictures, 1932); “Woman for President Boom Launched,” Milwaukee Journal, February 26, 1935; “Woman-for-President League ‘Nominees,’ ” Harvard Crimson, June 3, 1935; “New League’s Aim Is Woman Vice President,” Washington Post, February 20, 1935; and Mary June Burton, “ ‘We Shall Have a Woman President!’ ” Los Angeles Times, August 11, 1935.

  3. Howe’s article is quoted in “Among the Magazines,” Washington Post, May 19, 1935.

  4. “Marston Advises 3 L’s for Success . . . Predicts U.S. Matriarchy,” New York Times, November 11, 1937.

  5. “Neglected Amazons to Rule Men in 1,000 Yrs., Says Psychologist,” Washington Post, November 11, 1937.

  6. Catt quoted in Cott, Grounding of Modern Feminism, 30; also see Cott’s discussion of the Janus-faced nature of feminism, chapter 1.

  7. Batya Weinbaum, Islands of Women and Amazons: Representations and Realities (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999), 16–27; Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History (New York: Knopf, 2007), chapter 2; and Inez Haynes Irwin, Angels and Amazons: A Hundred Years of American Women (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, 1933).

  8. “Dr. Poison,” Sensation Comics #2, February 1942.

  9. MSML, interview by Jacqueline Van Voris, MS Papers, Smith College, 1977, p. 25.

  10. WMM, Try Living.

  11. Diary of OBR, entry for July 10, 1937, in the possession of BHRM.

  12. “Bookends,” Washington Post, October 22, 1937.

  13. “Marston Advises 3 L’s For Success,” New York Times, November 11, 1937.

  14. H. G. Wells, in a 1935 speech in London, in Round the World for Birth Control, Birth Control International Information Centre, 1937, MS Papers, Smith College, microfilm edition, S62: 598; Chesler, Woman of Valor, 361–64, 373–76; and Reed, From Private Vice to Public Virtue, 121.

  15. EHM alumni clipping dated November 1937, Mount Holyoke College Archives.

  16. EHM, Mount Holyoke College One Hundred Year Directory, 1936, Mount Holyoke College Archives.

  17. Diary of OBR, entries for July 8, 1936; July 15, 1936; and July 1, 1937, in the possession of BHRM.

  18. MSML to BHRM and Audrey Marston, February 27, 1963, in the possession of BHRM.

  19. 1940 United States Federal Census; place: Rye, Westchester, New York; roll: T627_2813; page: 13A; enumeration district: 60-334.

  20. MM, interview with the author, July 25, 2012.

  21. Christie Marston, Pete Marston’s daughter, said, “Gran [referring to EHM] said that what they did for years is, with friends, Dotsie was mom to Byrne and Donn but with everyone else Gr
an was mom.” Christie Marston, interview with the author, July 25, 2012.

  22. Olive Ann Marston Lamott, interview with the author, July 15, 2013.

  23. Olive Ann Marston Lamott, interview with Steve Korte, August 25, 1999, DC Comics Archives.

  24. Diary of OBR, entry for November 4, 1937.

  25. Diary of OBR, entry for February 15, 1938. Relating this story in her diary, OBR added three exclamation points of her own.

  26. Diary of OBR, entry for August 3, 1936.

  27. Marston’s copy of Victor H. Lindlahr’s Eat and Reduce (1939; repr., New York: Permabooks, 1948) is in the possession of MM.

  28. BHRM, “Memories of an Unusual Father,” and Olive Ann Marston Lamott, interview with the author, July 15, 2013.

  29. WMM, “What Are Your Prejudices?” Your Life (March 1939).

  30. WMM to BHRM, memo, with reply on the back, undated but c. 1940, in the possession of BHRM.

  31. WMM, “Dad to Doodle,” undated fragment, in the possession of BHRM.

  32. “He ruled with an iron hand,” MSML, interview with the author, July 9, 2013.

  33. Olive Ann Marston Lamott, interview with the author, July 15, 2013.

  34. WMM to BHRM, undated, in the possession of BHRM.

  35. Diary of WMM, entries for December 24 and 25, 1938, in the possession of BHRM.