>> good evening. welcome to any evening dedicated to the working woman. we have some fans in the audience. if you are here for the first time particularly to tell you about the library foundation of los angeles those supporting though laws angeles public library if you would like to find out how the support is all over the city for resources and veterans to adult literacy programs to children's programs there is a great way to support the library. if you do become a member we do have some books we can give you so the format is the conversation and afterwards they will open for questions and we ask that you do ask a question and one per customer. and afterwards she will have to support the library thinking in advance. gloria steinem picked wonder woman to be a the cover girl on the first issue. and recalling smith ruled that she felt pain she first encountered that princess from her sheltered thailand to help america in world war ii. in her new book she argues the heroin was the missing link in american feminism and as she explored she unpacks as a chapter of american history. her book tells the story about wonder woman's creator and the secret life he shared with his wife and the younger woman the abandonment of conventional identities to lead to wonder woman's creation. we will hear about that and much more than not on the overflows with ideas but as reseed and improbable and filled with curious devices as an episode of the comic book itself. jill is one of the most esteemed and essayist harvard professor and a new yorker staff writer who works frequently explores chapters of american history for evidence of the historical record. among the of many books is the life and opinions of james franklin the youngest sister of the founding father of a hard-working woman that contains about the brother and sister that he loved no wonder she loved no one better. the veritable wonder woman herself and essays on origins the history of life and death and from the whites of their eyes in the battle of american history. the new should be the perfect interviewer after she sent us a photo of her daughter in her wonder woman out that. another great quality she is the author of down and dirty to roller derby and you also heard as well on all things considered we welcome back alex and jill. thank-you. [applause] >> fate q. so much for coming out tonight to. i have done a number of these chats and i was never as excited would like to talk to jill about wonder woman? [laughter] but first my first question is for the audience. how many of you out there grew up in some way or shape or form with a comic books grew up with wonder woman and thought she was awesome? >> of course, connect jill was not crazy about wonder woman. i was convinced she would say i would have the al lynda carter staff. what did you think? >> i had a crush on patrick duffy. [laughter] day remember that? that is why. i was distracted by the boy. >> host: eventually distracted by another boy or a man they fell into this wonderful book. william walton marston we just heard a little bit about him but he is an amazing character except he is real. >> he is endlessly fascinating is almost not an effort that he does not have a hand and and he pretty much tries everything. i love watching him over the course of his life moving from one endeavor to the next there was one essay that was the life of experiments. he tried everything and failed at each of these but he went to harvard and celebrated as the great student and devoted to experimental psychology and decided to stay on at harvard then got a law degree and a ph.d. by 1923 was the inventor of the lie-detector or the polygraph. he embarked on the academic career. but then he had a strange family life comes to was into this 1928 and higher by a consulting psychologist by universal studios thinking of the transition. then he ends up in comics. he goes through science, and though law, filmmaking, comic book writing and one of the most celebrated tops psychologist >> when you write about the lie-detector test how he could insert himself. not just a lie detector test but he was administering. >> during the first world war the national research council had-- ecology committee - - to investigate whether they could be used to interrogate spies and other scientists say that does not seem to work. but then they say you need other people to a minister and it is just through those lesser talents. >> he has some very interesting attitudes and ideas that is that the basis of this character. talk about that. >> there are ideas there is a hodgepodge of ideas and we are in conflict with one another so to work as a psychologist when floyd is still a round in the ideas are gaining traction in psychological thinking and marston has a set of ideas fed is his philosophy but the theory of the motions. but this stuff is just crazy. but to pull back is if he had gone nowhere just to pull the case toward -- the case study then you would think who would have believed this stuff? then there is that freewheeling world of psychology and he comes to believe that women and men share and experience of the motions id which all eight motions come down to four kinds submission and captive asian and inducement which is where all the bondage did wonder woman comes from. you would say dominance? and then through the experience through one another emotionally. there is psychological origins about gender and also about sex. that leads to a masterwork of emotions the argument that there is abnormal psychology so therefore it is normal and you should love those parts of yourself. it is an argument for tolerance is an interesting a manifesto is in that regard. i guess historians would talk about that so that is one set of ideas but then his experience of the suffragettes birth control movement so to give you a refreshed your he went to college and wedges invited to speak on campus and she was banned because women were not allowed. but speaking at a nearby dancehall but it was a rousing speech because they had changed the suffrage movement the followers said we're done asking. and outside 10 downing street with the hanukkah strakes to make sure there are photographs incredible traditions and even sometimes violent resistance anjou have rose seats to mount holyoke that is shot dead of separatism and the reason that mark knew of the being academia as a professor of psychology fell in love. . . he has already married. he and his wife believe they should live together as a threesome. they raise their family togeth together. so there are two really different routes in other words for what morrison is thinking about women and men and women and power. when he creates one woman in 1941 her grandmother is margaret sanger and the woman rebel from 1913. >> it's fascinating. it's interesting to see how that feminism manifested itself at home especially with the interesting relationship with two wives and they have a number of kids between them. not so happy at first one all of fern comes along. realizing another woman at home to help raise the kids. it was kind of an interesting form of feminism in itself. >> yeah i think there are many ways to read that. the question would be is it okay for the kids and were they happy we wonder. we might really wonder and i think there is mixed evidence. the kids i'll say it was great. there were tons of adults around to love them. but his wife was not pleased as a family story goes when he said you know i have fallen in love with -- she is 10 years younger than you and she's a student of mine. he apparently said i had met someone special and i would like you to meet her. >> this is not the conversation you ever want to have. she is 10 years younger than you are. but apparently his wife when she went for this long walk for six hours of dotted over. [laughter] a long, long walk but the thing i really worked on in this book because i'm incredibly grateful to the marston family who kept this fair -- the story a secret for decades and decades and what i found that in the archives, the archives of harvard the family never knew because the family was really cloaked in secrecy but they were generous to let me look at diaries and photo albums that no one had ever seen before. you do see a family that is really full of love. there is this wonderful moment later in life explaining to the children who was sleeping with who and she said there was lovemaking for all. [laughter] >> and this was before the 1960s. it's pretty unbelievable to understand. we know the full story of william moulton marston and it's important to understand the context of what was going on in comic books at the time which i believe you have had a site. >> i thought you might want to see some comics. so this is the first drawing by the artist from 1941, but to give you just say her refresher course for those of you who are not comics geeks, comic books don't start until 1933. there were comic strips before that. they were phonies of a newspaper but they were not glued together and sold his books. they were sold at 10 cents before 1933. the first comic book superhero was classically thought to be superman with all of its powers in full glory. 1939 debuts and wonder woman comes shortly after 1941. this is from 1942 but what was important about the relationship among all these superheroes aside from the fact that they were all members of the -- is that wonder woman is actually the antidote to superman back then. superman and may not have been able to continue if wonder woman were published. imagine the creation of entirely new art form. say for instance video games. that only kids are interested in and only kids understand. say for instance texting and their parents don't really get it. there are these cheap books that any kid can pay for with 10 cents to trade on the black market. the story telling is not like a book. it's not like a movie. it's a really interesting art form that is just emerging and in that a lot of people are killing each other and doing horrible things to one another. there is tremendous danger in franklin sands and terror. there emerges by 1940 this incredible wave of anti-comics crusaders who are urging americans to ban comic books into burn comic books. among their critiques is that superman is a fascist. he's a nietzschean storm trooper. he's from a superior race. children are supposed to worship them? this is looking across the ocean to the war in europe and the rise of fascism. meanwhile where started, didn't used to carry a gun. americans were strenuously opposed to the private ownership of firearms. indeed so was the national rifle association which supported the federal firearms act of 19341938. there was a huge amount of anti-gun sentiment in the united states appears this role model that people are supposed to be looking up to his more powerful and ends up shooting people. this is why's original story is created in 1939 a few months after the original issue in which oh yes, bruce wayne saw his parents get shot when he was a kid and he hates guns. the publishers of comics were worried the comics would be basically shut down by censors. so what would you do? you would have course hire the world's most famous psychologist the inventor of the lie detector test is deemed william moulton moulton marston to be in a consulting psychologist to tell you what to do. marston has these great ideas. he says well you have this editorial advisory board. he encouraged them to call themselves d.c. and they had detective comics and uses his own logo. that had begun but marston supported that because he wanted a brand the comics with the imprint of quality that the advisory board had said this is good for kids and that is where the branding comes from but he mainly says look the solution to all your problems, he said grow up. it's so simple. it's always true, isn't it always? [applause] so he just says the problem with these comic books is a bloodcurdling masculinity. if you have a female -- you will be opposed to violence and more. she will stop bullets with her bracelets. >> and give a background on the bracelets. >> the bracelets marston had given to seal the deal. i was giving a talk in washington d.c. last week and one of allah for vernon's granddaughters were there and afterward she said i have the bracelet. [laughter] i said oh my god god i want to see the bracelets. there are pictures in the book of family photos. you see in this one year she is wearing these bracelets all the time. and she has this lasso, golden lasso which is marston's lie detector obviously that she is essentially a pacifist. she comes from this land of women and she believes in women's equality. that is what she has come to the united states to fight for. >> can we go back a side because it took a little bit of selling but william moulton marston the d.c. comics said okay in the next thing was to figure out who was this woman going to be and what was she going to look like. you see some of the early drawings there. can you talk about the evolution of the look because it's fabulous and why we never saw her wearing the same? >> so this is this great sketch and a note on the left is from harry g. peter the artist and the bottom right is marston's reply. they are hurt the grayness handles have to go. they look like a stenographer which is true. so once the publisher gets marston permission for the experiment he will try it for six months. marston among the many things he stipulates because most of the comics that people write our teenagers. this was an old guy harry g. peter and he sees the financial drawings. it's right after captain america has come out. marvel which released the first issue of captain america in 1940. captain america if you were call is basically wearing an american flag. america's just about to enter this war and there's an incredible surge of patriotism so she clearly has to wear an american flag. she looks like a girl steven colbert. i can totally see him wearing this. [laughter] not the shoes. >> i was just noticing it says the shoes look like a stenographer's. >> this is her initial exchange and the bracelets are important to marston. their number of things that happened but i don't have an aside for this but one of the real influence on the woman's aesthetic decides she has to be super patriotic. she has to look all-american and athletic and strong but she has to look a little bit and this is what the publisher says. marston at the time had done a writeup for "esquire" magazine. esquire started in 1933 and was "playboy" before there was esquire before there was "playboy" and esquire in the 1940s had these gorgeous centerfolds drawn by this brazilian artist. they're called the farc are girls if you remember seeing them. i haven't seen it mainly because of bound volumes of "esquire" magazine that pulled them off the shelves to look through the farc are girls and all you see is the razor slice. where the harvard undergrads have taken the varga girls home. but the varga girls, a high-heeled red boots that wonder woman gets instead of the stenographer's delicate shoes come from the fetish kitschy soft form of esquire. so she gets these than you can see the goods here. in the beginning she wears a skirt. there's this fantastic, the first episode of melinda carter the one woman tv show where paradise island makes her dress and outfit for her and she has the skirt which she says i don't think i will be needing this to reveal her star-spangled underwear. so we can look at these for a minute because another thing to say about wonder woman, from marston's life we know so much about how suffered and separatist and birth-control activist influenced him and were indeed members of his family but somehow we keep going forward here. we have jumped the shark here. but you can see in the visual representation of wonder woman that same implants, the influence of suffrage is some and birth-control movement and feminism. here is the panel of wonder woman doing what she is always doing which is trying to escape from the bonds of chains which marston always had wonder woman needed to be chained up because she's an allegory for the emancipated woman. she has emancipated herself in every story. in order to emancipate herself with a tyrant. the publisher is like, there are other reasons that might work. having to do with the boots. but here on the right is another drawing by harry g. peter which makes the allegory quite clear. this was written in a scholarly journal written by phi beta kappa society. here you see harry g. peter doing the same work but making the allegory visible and in the center is a completely typical suffrage from may 1918's. you can see the influence of the iconography in which suffragists will forever be drawing women tied up or chained up and breaking free. this one is called the tearing off the bonds. until women gained the right to vote they were the slaves of men and we needed to represent women in this fashion and alert the world to the condition of being disenfranchised from the condition of slavery. this drawing is done by feminist cartoonist named andy luke pastor rogers who published lou rogers because she was told she would never get anything published if you didn't have a man's name. she was a staff writer for judge. harry g. peter was a staff writer for judge in the 1918 stu and contributed to the pro-suffrage page called the modern woman and featured a center panel on every page. harry g. peter was essentially a former suffrage cartoonist. he had never worked in comics when marston hired him. he brought that job knowing how to draw woman fighting for the right to vote. marston illustrates that at the time that even peters on visual iconography in his life helps us to see just how much one woman, because i would argue is the missing link in the history of feminism. >> while we have this slide in and out of folks can read but we see wonder woman chained up and she says change by aphrodite's to claim my amazon strength is gone. let's talk about wonder woman's origin story and how that in future character all along. >> wonder woman lived on paradise island and she was the daughter of polity who came from ancient grease and brought the women of greece to paradise island in order to live separately from men blessed with a terminal life in a world of peace and this draws on ancient her merrick myth of the amazons. and all was wonderful and of course it was a paradise because there were no men there. and then the u.s. military intelligence officer in a dogfight with a nazi spy plane flying over crashes on the island and princess diana or find him. polity consults the gods and she said you must bring this man back to america, the last hope for women's rights. that is why one woman gets her star-spangled costume which someone makes for her and gets in the invisible plane and flies away. the thing that's important to me about that story, remember watching that episode of wonder woman. it's cloris leachman who plays it. [applause] cloris leachman plays it. it's an incredible role. i remember dad and i remember reading it in comments in the 70s. i reread it in the course of working on this book and i said wait a minute i know that story. in between lynda carter and cloris leachman looking at this one i was much more than a grown up i went to college and i read feminist utopian like gilman's novel her land for the novel angel island. it's completely hackney form of fiction from the 1910s of which feminists write about these mythical lands were only women lived and they are free from war. they live internally but suddenly some man finds his way there, a crew of an american sailors are shipwrecked on angel island. although women are like what are we going to do with these people? they are going to be a problem for us this goes up to get too close for them we are going to have children. there are a lot of these caricatures are about the problem or birth-control. i completely had forgotten about but then of course you see when you put those pieces together marston is borrowing this plot line and importing it from the 19 teens into the 1940s when those eight roads were down at the drugstore have not read her land either. >> always going to say most 8-year-olds are not familiar with the story. how did he go when wonder woman first hit the comic book stands? >> she was a big splash right away. she very quickly was third only to superman and so there are a number of obvious measures of her success. she's the only comic comic book superhero other than and superman to move from comic books to a comic strip. she became a comic strip in 1940. that doesn't last that it has to do with marston getting polio. marston and the publisher made a deal that wonder woman would be a trial for six months and it would be put to the readers. this was a great age of the birth of the public opinion poll. george gallup starts a company in 1935 so 1942 they did a public opinion poll. one of the questions gallup asked in 1937 was that they woman were otherwise qualified to be president of the united states would you vote for her? i love the phrasing of that. he puts out this questionnaire to readers and it says even though a woman be allowed to join the justice society. >> my favorite is that i think this was marston's idea if they put wonder woman's photo in twice the subliminal tact. >> there's another question that says there are six different superheroes and they are all saying, that the speech bubble coming out of their mouths and they are all saying look for me to join the justice society and there's a ballot. which of us should be allowed to join the justice society? won the women's argues and one man's are mr. terrific, little boy blue and the gray ghost these total benchwarmers. and then on the ballot itself which have to cut out of the page of the comic book there is a big headed woman and it says fill in your name here. so wonder woman wins these readers polls and the election so she becomes a member of the justice society. she gets her own comic book in 1942, wonder woman. it's actually quite interesting because gains have still been under a fair amount of criticism and he wants to celebrate this thing. what are the things he does, he launches the first issue of wonder woman a four page centerfold called the wonder woman of history. they're these feminist biographies and profiles of women's achievements. he sent out the first issue of wonder woman all over the country. a cover letter from this women's tennis champ. the reason we are publishing this comic book for girls is to show them they can do anything and achieve whatever they want in athletics, sports and politics in the arts and literature in government and that is what wonder woman is about. there's really i wouldn't say a publicity ploy. it's a different source of wonder women. those are actually pretty cool. there are stock figures of florence nightingale loses that katie stanton and i think amelia ehrhardt gets in there. this is a really new thing in a new thing is a form of popular culture. >> fast-forward a bit as you mention william moulton marston eventually contracts polio. wonder woman lives on but she's not quite the same. talk about that chapter. >> marston dies in 1947 in the same year he dies the publisher dies. charles gaines is killed in a boating accident in lake placid. joy pummels then who helped write a lot of scripts between 44 and 47 when he was so ill, she is still alive and she's amazing. she gets married and her husband as a child and she decides to stay home with the little girl. she quits. she had been the mayor of wonder roman and also quits. he is just sick of being a writer. marston's widow elizabeth halloway marston writes this incredibly powerful one -- letters. she said i have no marston since i was 12 then have been part of all of his work. i helped with the original lie detector test. we went to law school together and graduate school together. i worked with him on all these projects all of his life. you should hire me as your new editor and it should stay in family hands which is interesting when you hear about the family project. he says no one hires bob can occur as writer and editor and can make or sort of strips are of all of her powers which is more last in line with what it was going on in the culture at the time. so many women had gone to work in the 1940s when they work supporting the war and rosie the riveter working in the factory in those years. they pay them pretty well so when men came home from the war if women didn't want to stop working they were forced out. the child centers were closed and there was pressure to go back home. what happens to wonder woman issue retreats and goes back into the home. the way canada writes in the 1950s she is just this dopey lovestruck ballerina. >> it's sad. >> it's a little sad. >> we are going to fast-forward. along comes the 70s and the women's lib movement starts to gather steam once again and so does wonder woman. >> i'm going to look at a couple of shots here. but for wonder woman changes in the comic book one woman is resurrected and wonder woman has children in the 1940s. here on the left in 1969 gloria steinem got her start as a writer for "new york magazine." this is a cartoon, an illustration that appeared in "new york magazine" in 1969. it's a little hard to see but it's wonder woman as a liberated woman. in this issue the liberated lady meets -- and she's holding him over her head. she is finding -- fighting to stop rape and catcalling. this is the comic book that has nothing to do with feminism. nothing whatsoever to do with feminism. but he thought of as a second way for women's equality and women's liberation and have turned to the muslim icon of the movement. this is from the feminist collective of comic artists based in berkeley california called the women's liberation basement press. what they do in the issue is a they promised to resurrect all these stock women from comics from the 30s, olive oil, sheena, queen of the jungle, lulu and wonder woman. they're marching in this protest of stock comic book plots on the historian's side for ronica and betty run away together. [laughter] one of my favorite things is called a story called breaking out. when "ms." magazine publishes -- publishes a 1942 that the wonder woman on the cover. there's this incredible fertile moment in the 60s and 70's when wonder woman becomes the icon for the women's liberation movement. >> if you go button it up for a moment and go back to wonder woman for president. >> i didn't want to overwhelm you with flights but marston put the storyline in a cartoon and comic book storyline in 1943 and the cover lines as wonder woman running for president. inside the comic where veronica runs away with -- lulu is told she can join the boys club and she walks away. i just kind of love lulu just losing it. it's my whole picture of feminism from 1970. and it's just right there. and then i also love this. this is from l.a. so i included this. this is the los angeles women's center the regular newsletter called sister holding a specul speculum. with my speculum i am strong and i can fight. she is whacking this guy and the inside of this is how to give yourself a self-exam. i just think it's awesome. this on the right is from a review of books called planning family perspectives. it makes you miss the 70s. doesn't that make you miss the 70s? is so over-the-top. they are basically saying the same thing which is what lulu is saying. the thing i love about saying there is nobody knew anything about the ties between sanger and wonder woman. it's actually because sanger is an important figure in remains an important figure to second wave feminist. their icon as wonder woman. they put wonder woman and sanger in the same costume. when stein and put wonder woman on the cover of ms. "ms." magazine and they have to get elizabeth marston who was living decades later. elizabeth marston is invited to come to the office. she is so thrilled that this -- these exciting young women want to celebrate wonder woman. this is a fund-raiser the first year. there's a stand-alone volume of ms. 1940s comics. influences whole generation. halloway marston was incredibly excited. she never tells anybody a word about it. it's a complete secret and everything has been kept in secrecy. when a ph.d. student at berkeley in 1974 is writing a dissertation about the history of wonder woman she tracked down halloway marston and she's been trying to figure out where things came from. what about the bracelets and halloway marston writes back and says a student of dr. marston. >> to give that ph.d. students credit one of my favorite parts all as bird wrote these articles about william moulton marston and the way she writes them she talks about going to visit him as if she has never met the guy. she's married to him and has children by him and yet when she presented in these articles she presented totally removed totally third person. this is deeply buried. >> she's writing for family circle in 1935. that would be family triangle magazine. the thing about it is she is my favorite character in the whole story. there's this incredible sadness around these women that fight this fight for birth control a century ago. apple burn has two children in quick succession and margaret byrne has two children in quick succession. they both essentially leave their children to become nurses in the fight for birth control. ethel byrne and her mother leaves her when she's two years old. when she is born her father throws her into a snow bank and she is rescued by margaret sanger. he doesn't want children, he's too young. she has this incredibly childhood growing up in catholic orphanages and is rescued again and again by margaret sanger. when marston and his wife said do you want to join our family and raise the children, she just wants to have a family. she's probably the smartest all of them and she really wants to have this family. she doesn't want her children to grow up with an unconventional family life because that's what she had. she gets a children, her children up for adoption to marston and his wife. they're not even legally her children after a few years. she lives with them at the family tells the world that she is the housekeeper and her son whose name is burnt halloway marston who is a retired obstetrician and it's lovely. it's just as beautiful thing about carrying on the tradition of caring for women. i asked him what he thought and he said it's like she was jane mayer. this was an incredible. halloway is not trying to be sinister in not telling gloria steinem or this ph.d. student from berkeley who all of byrne was. it was important to all of bird. >> i'm going to open it up to questions from the audience in a moment that i'd like to ask you about something you don't really talk much about in the book which is this concept of wonder woman. when you look at all the things the feminists are fighting for the 70s and wanting women to be able to get equal pay and all the rest of it. i would say we haven't gotten the whole way there is so used to say in the virginia sun back of the day we have come a long way baby. the term of wonder woman you hear bandied about. there is this notion of wonder woman today as being the woman who does it all. she has got a couple of kids. she's got a great job. she works really hard. she cooks dinner every night and walk the dog and makes the ledges and she manages to get up at 4:00 in the morning and get to her spinning classes. there's pressure because it's impossible for any of us to be that wonder woman. wonder woman is the one we use to describe the kind of person. how far has she come? where is this image and notion of wonder woman today? >> that's a great question and people in the audience will have their own bandages to share about that in the form of a question. it became a big issue in the 1970s when wonder woman was the icon of liberal feminists for all those reasons. liberalism advocated individual accomplishment. docsis oversimplification but working for structural change in the form of collectives and making policy changes that would change the structure of society for all women and men.wonder woman was a complete catastrophe to complete catastrophe a complete betrayal of everything feminism stood for. there's all this emphasis on the individual but the only way to actually triumph was to have superpowers. what kind of quality as back? i write in the book the problem with the superhero's superiors are better than everyone else. if you have to be better than everyone else to fight for equality always fight for equality. so i think it's incredibly complicated character. if we can look at one more slide. there's this weird weaponization of our contemporary cultural moment where every time you think about how cool it is this allegorical woman fighting for independence and equality with men somehow devolved to this thing. that is really troubling. she was a pacifist who was supposed to be opposed to guns. characters change and comic book characters are updated all the time. there is this entropy problem with feminist icons that they devolve into the pornographic and ultraviolent so as a visual icon they are all kind of issues. that said though like most things these guys can go two different ways. i continually am struck by talking to women our age who it really meant something to them that there was a tv show on where a woman was stronger than the men and she help people out. i told a story recently. i have boys but although they are quite tolerant of woman -- wonder woman and they get it for a present for mom because what else are they going to get her? i have girls in the house brands over all the time and a few weeks before the book came out i had friends over and was hanging out of the kitchen table with his 8-year-old girl who was a foster child, really difficult life. we have taken out, we were looking for stuff in the kitchen. i only have boys stuff and i had this box of postcards in the d.c. comics covers from the 40s and 30s. we filled them out and we were spreading them over the kitchen table. she pulled out all of them and i watch her do this. i was drinking my coffee and she pulls out each of the ones of wonder woman and puts them separately. she's asking me a thousand questions. what about the two-year and why does she have that sierra? she asked a few questions about whatever the/on the lantern was. she looks at me and she says she is so strong and she can rescue people. so i get bummed out about the soft nature of these icons and the radical feminist critique has a lot of credit to it but for an eight year growth -- 8-year-old girl girl to see old and who can that's a great gift. >> and with that, thanks to jill lepore. [applause] if you have a question please raise your hand and one of these two lovely ladies with microphones will head your way. >> how do you think it would be different if he hadn't died in 1945? >> 47. >> how would wonder woman be different today in 2014 if he were still here? >> that's an interesting question. you know i don't think really that different. i don't think he would have done it for that much longer to be honest. it was too much work for him to handle because he it was so popular. she had her own comic book and a newspaper strip. she was an all-star comics and common cavalcade. she was all over the place and he already hired an assistant. he in the 1940s, marston's oldest son was saved student at harvard and one send copies onto him. actually people are still like that. this is a dudley do-right is them that only takes you so far. what happens to the character has to do with changes in women's economic rule and the culture's willingness to tolerate a one being so strong. it was a great deal of excitement about that and a need for that during the war. it's really more about the end of the war ultimately than it is about marston's death and it has a greater impact on what kinds of stories are possible. >> yes, there's another character in the story that you talk about tonight, huntley, the other woman. there is this character that is very interesting and enters their life early on and comes in and out of their lives. she seems to be -- almost. have you got anything else to say about her in the book or is there something you think you couldn't say as a scholar? >> that i will say here? >> we are being filmed for television. >> how does she get into the story. >> if you don't read about it i will tell you anything. the question is about this woman named marjorie wilkes punting. she is kind of an dynamo of a woman but very serious. she and marston made in 1918 when he is stationed, i forget what the name of the military station is but she's a librarian at this military camp and he is serving in the first world war. he's fascinated by her because she has these really interesting ideas about psychic powers. it may seem odd that marston was attracted to someone who believed she was a psychic but if you remember william james who is the real founder of psychology and a great philosopher who is also a physician he believed that the dead could speak across the afterlife and did all kinds of experiments to prove this. this was his field of research. one of the last research he did was the séance and it was a very powerful idea in american psychology and european psychology. marston was fascinated in the same reason that william james was fascinated by these people that claim to be psychics and advances. i don't know what their relationship was. most of the people interviewed in the family don't think they were ever lovers. i myself am skeptical about that claim. she had children with him but she also had a sister to me and i don't know if that was medically required or some kind of choice. theirs is very troubling photograph in the book that i found in the family album where the three women are sitting on a bench which is funny because it's this leafy suburb of new york city. huntley lives with them. she was an addict. although fern who did not like huntley would would say they are back to the belfry. she thought she was. there's a picture in it and it's from 1932. elizabeth halloway marston is holding her second baby all of the info and all of bird is holding her second son, the same age. they are six months apart in marjorie wilkes huntley is holding a little rag doll. it's funny creepy. because she didn't have children and because she died alone in a nursing home as a historian of the worst thing you want to hear about somebody who are interested in is that they didn't have children and they died alone in a nursing home. where are the paper's? were the photographs? who do you talk to? one grandchild in the family said she was certain that hotly burned her papers because they were so radical. i found other evidence that she had done so. there is a lot of belief in the occult and psychic powers in this love sphere and reading minds and wonder woman comics. most of that comes by way of marjorie wilkes huntley. she works as a librarian for most of her life. i found fascinatingly the most interesting document in gloria steinem's papers at smith college. i've poured through them. she writes in 1972 asking for subscription. she's completely excited about the magazine and she signed her letter marjorie wilkes huntley, ms.. >> that's great. >> if you could say anything to the filmmakers working on the wonder woman movie right now what would that be? >> what would you say? [laughter] how many people think there should be more wonder women in the movie? [applause] >> is so limited. >> and i toyed the latest from hollywood. warner bros. is saying it's going to come out in 2017 and i heard today and this is really fascinating that there's a female director who directed another comic book film and someone may know the title. i don't recall it. warner bros. had specifically officially reached out that there have been a lot of rumors forming that she would be the perfect fit and she should do wonder woman. she said hell no grade i don't want anything to do with that movie. she said why? she said it's too much pressure. no matter what i do that will never be able to do her enough justice and that's one more indication that women can't direct in hollywood. my heart just kind of sank when i read that. >> that is the first stand-alone wonder woman that came out in 2017 but this movie called versus superman dawn of justice is supposed to come out in 2016. i thought you were asking about that -- versus superman or were you asking a lot about the stand-alone superwoman? i throw that back to you. when i said should there be more wonder woman and versus superman i think the answer is -- [applause] i find it fascinating how wonder woman has been dropped out of the justice society. i am not comic book purists. i don't follow these things but people will say why is it take in a movies and seven superman movie's? and then there are all these interesting counterfactual supposed or explanations that well she has these kind of mythic back story. that would be difficult. [laughter] like for. oh you know she wouldn't update so well. captain america. they just froze him. none of these objections are sustainable. i wrote an article about, called the last amazon and i really wanted to watch some of the filming of versus superman. the set was close and they wouldn't let me in. they did a poor man's version of a reporting job. i took byrne hall and marston to go see -- my plan was he and i were going to go see the film together and we they were going to bring his sister-in-law whose name is margaret sanger marson because margaret sanger's granddaughter married dawn. the families married together. because oliver worked as the undersecretary so the families became closer. i wanted to read the byrne halloway marston to see it being filmed. they would not let us sandwiches too bad too bad. it would have been fun. i just wanted to call attention to that crossgenerational, these were the long stories carried forward in these people's names. we went to go see captain america to and it got me thinking about it, captain america starts in 1940 in the way the marvel people deal with it is he's just like earnest boy scout and he seems very dated and wears an american flag. he would be harder to update because apparently everybody estimate moody and depressed. you have to be at the press superman. superman has become depressed. all these superheroes have to have, they are all just basically suffering from depression. you can't have a captain america who needs antidepression. he's on prozac from the start. they didn't know what to do but captain america so they had him frozen in 1945 and he wakes up in the movie. for those of you who hasn't seen in these movies he wakes up and the joke is an anachronism. people are ours asking what's good about now versus then and he's like i don't know, no polio is good or there's a scene where scarlett johansson says what did you do saturday night and he says nothing. everyone in my barbershop quartet is dead. but it's fun. it's very playful. the big thing about the second captain america movie is he is very pro-american but in the second captain america movie he discovers the nsa surveillance game and becomes anti-american. he wants to sort of fight the nsa and its a really complicated thing to have is a world war ii, asked if this were frozen world war ii boy scout how would this person in 2011 think about the nsa surveillance program. if you were to do that thing in the article and i say this more economically, if you were to read it in the article because i was sitting there with fern and we were talking about this, and fern marston. what would have happened if they would have frozen wonder woman. she wakes up in his 2014 and she's like the equal rights amendment was introduced in 1923. that is not funny. it's not funny. i'm laughing but not out loud. so that's one thing you couldn't do if you were writing the story. one thing that comic book people tell me is that they have done is that comic books have changed the back story so they got rid of the amazonian back story and wonder woman is now the daughter of zeus which it just makes no sense whatsoever. she is a character whose origins come from feminism in the progressive era and utopian fiction. she's not a percy jackson character. >> as a lawyer and someone who married into the comic book industry apart it the story that i find interesting and haven't been able to find enough information about it is what the marston family god versus what the other families got in terms of creators rights because he was an older man who obviously knew something about intellectual property was a whole lot better than the boys who created superman and what did you learn about this? >> for people who didn't marry into the comic book industry siegel and shuster created superman embarrassment a series of lawsuits pretty much as the b. jarvis of american history. they're a series of lawsuits going into that for a decade at this point because they paid very scantily and their heirs have sued the entity that later became d.c. entertainment. i don't think those suits have been finally resolved. marston what is on contract in 1949. i have not seen the contract. it lies outside the scope of my interest and is a private legal document. d.c. comic books in the marston family have good relationships and that has been a good point for both of them over the years. i think elizabeth halloway marston was a bit of a challenge to them. members of her family's talk about, one of her granddaughter said that every time the marston's widow showed up in new york the guys at d.c. comics would hide under their desks. she took very good care of that estate. the son don who married margaret sanger's granddaughter was a lawyer and handled the estate. it was handled by his widow who died at the age of 100. before she died her adopted son took over the estate. i don't know anything about the family relations and business but certainly it is not then and acrimonious situation so far as i know but i don't really know. >> this may be a stupid question but what is the justice society? [laughter] >> it's not a stupid question. the justice society is a league of superheroes that was formed by all-american comics which was the comic book company that enzi gains owned formed in 1940 and it had its own comic book called all-star comics traders awaited takes superheroes that existed in other comic books and maybe the other on comic books or they made guest appearances and to try them out in their own comic book and see if they had any staying power or to reward superheroes that had a big following by bringing them in. it was just a gimmick but they are a little bit like a the league of nations. they are modeled on these international cooperative bodies. superman and are honorary members. wonder woman is elected as a member in 1942. the stories involving the justice league are not written by the guys who write the books that the characters appear in. they are written by fox. unfortunately gardner fox was not as as interested in wonder woman's talent and he decided to roll up the only female member of the justice society issued should be a secretary. the question was what should wonder woman do in versus superman dawn of justice, let us hope that she is not the secretary. thanks very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

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