Him all throughout. I love his humor. And i mentioned commonsense. Hes delightful. He always makes me laugh, even now, and ive been writing about them for about 25 years. What should occur to journalist take from his career . Well, i think they should have the courage to say what they want to say, not always be waiting to see how it is being received. Also, he gets a lot of shoe leather. I think in this age of the internet, people are rushed to. They dont have the time to do their research. Pages to the interview on to look it up quickly. He was always, as i say, putting the issue to the pavement. Always researching, al always gg out there and doing the interview. What do you think his impression would be of our current state of news in american . I think he would be very depressed. Very depressed. And i think he would be very saddened to see that print journalism is being subjugated by television and by the internet. [inaudible] why . Because as i mentioned earlier, i dont think people are really giving much time to think big and also he was a big believer in not only doing the research but not writing with cliches. He was a mastermind with language. Is a cabaret number about 25,000 words, and he was just me was just very refreshing in the way he wrote. Im wondering if you wouldnt appreciate the fact that a story would get covered for many different angle by many different people. You wouldnt think, you know, more perspective would be better. What do you think . Yes, definitely. He would be very much into the different perspectives on an issue. Very much so. N. Thank you very much for your time. Thanks. Now on booktv, jill lepore examined the feminist underpinnings of the superhero wonder woman at the other reports on the unconventional life of wonder womans creator, William Moulton marston, a psychologist and inventor of a lie detector. This is about one hour 10 minutes. Good evening and welcome to an evening dedicated to wonder woman. [applause] there are some fans in the audience. Into jill lepores marvelous book. Welcome, if youre here for the first time, particularly want to take but a little bit about allowed which is present by the Library Foundation of los angeles those you already our th members, supporting the losud angeles public library, our thanks to you but if you like to find out more about how the thes Library Foundation supports work of Los Angeles Public library all over the city from resources for veterans, for honoring veterans this month to adult dril literacy programs into a childrens programs. Is a great way to support the library and get this boardme, we allowed to get to become a member for the first time we dou have a couple of jos books that we can get you going to choose a our bookshelf. Our forms to our format tonight is a conversation between jill lepore and alex cohen. And after the conversation they will open to younv for questions raise your hand and bring the tt mic around really do ask a question and that you just ask one per customer. We would appreciate it. And afterwards, jill will be signing her books in the lobby courtesy of our library store. And when you do buy your book on site tonight, that also helps support the lie area, so thank you library, so thank you in advance. In 1972 gloria stein m and the founders of ms. Magazine picked wonder woman to be on their issue, and Gloria Steinem recalled how she felt as a child when she encountered that princess who helped america in world war ii. In her new book, the secret history of wonder woman, jill lepore argues that all along the super heroine has a missing link in feminism, and she unpacks a rave la story revelatory chapter of American History. Her new book tells about wonder womans eccentric and inventive creator and the secret life he shared with his wife, Sadie Elizabeth holloway marson and a younger woman, olive ben, and how their behindment of conventional identity abandonment of conventional identity led to wonder womans creation. Jills book is, as a graphic novelist called it, quote as racy, as probable and as filled with curious devices as an episode of the comic book itself. Jill lepore is one of americas mosts seemed essayists esteemed essayists. Her work frequently explores unmined chapters of American History or what she calls asymmetries of evidence in the historical record. Among her many books, one that im loving reading right now, book of ages, the youngest sister of one of our founding fathers, a hard working woman who im sure you have never heard of, i hadnt either, and it contains one of my favorite sentences ever, he loved no one longer, she loved no one better. Jill is such a wonderful writer. Among other books, jill is a veritable wonder woman herself, the story of america, the whites of their eyes the tea partys revolution and the battle over American History. We knew alex cohen was going to be the perfect interviewer for tonight after she sent us a photo of her daughter in her wonder woman outfit. [laughter] and another great quality of alex is shells the author of she is the author of the insiders divide to rollerrer the guide to roller derby, and youve also heard from her on all thinged considered. Please join me in welcoming alex and jill lepore. Thank you. [applause] thank you so much, everyone, for coming out tonight. I have to say ive done a number of these chats at aloud, and i was never as excited as i was when i heard would you like to talk with jill lepore about wonder woman . [laughter] yeah. Were going to do that in just a moment, but my first question, jill, please forgive, is not for you, its for our audience. How many of you grew up in some way, shape or form be it the comic book, the tv show, the animated tv shows, grew up with wonder woman and thought she was awesome . Well, of course. Thank you. [laughter] now, heres Something Interesting i found out today. Jill lepore was kind of eh on wonder woman growing up. I was convinced it was going to be, yeah, i had the lyda carter i had no cred. I had a crush on Patrick Duffy on the man from atlantis. [laughter] 2k50ur78 do you remember that . He had the little yellow trunks, speedos . [laughter] so thats why. Yeah. I was distracted by the boy. [laughter] well, and eventually wound up distracted by another boy, another man, which is how you kind of wound up falling into this wonderful book, the secret history of wonder woman, a guy named william marson. We just heard a little bit about him but, man, this guy is almost as an amazing a character as wonder woman, but hes real. Tell us more about this guy. Yeah. Marsons really endlessly fascinating. Theres some kind of almost not an effort in American Culture that he doesnt have a hand in in the first half of the 20th century. He pretty much tries everything, and i love watching him over the course of his life move from one endeavor to the next. He once wrote this little essay about his life, the education of henry adams, his was a life of experiments. So he tried everything and failed dazzlingly at each of these things. But he had this very bright start as a young man. He went to harvard and right out of the gate was celebrated as a very great student and became devoted to the new field of experimental psychology, brand new field at the time and decided to stay on at harvard, got a law degree, then got a ph. D. In psychology. By 1923 when he was a very young man, he was widely credited as the inventor of the polygraph. He embarks as a teacher of legal psychology, but then he that falls apart for reasons having to do with his strange family life. He then comes to l. A. In 1928. Hes hired as a Consulting Psychologist for Universal Studios trying to help think about the transition from sound film, from silent films to sound films. Hes in hollywood for a few years, and then he ends up in comics. So he goes through science, the law, film making, comic book writing, and in between hes one of americas most celebrated pop psychologists. Hes a fascinating guy. What i liked especially when you write about the Lie Detector Test was how he really had to insert himself in everything, you know . It wasnt just the Lie Detector Test, it didnt work unless he was administering it. [laughter] so during the First World War he, the National Research council which is formed in the First World War has a psychology committee, and mar son convinces the Committee Chair to investigate whether his important research, done at harvard, could be used to interrogate spies and prisoners of war. But other scientists say, well, it doesnt always seem to work. So he devises a series of tests to demonstrate that it works, and the Community Keeps saying, well, you need other people to administer the tests, and if it works it only ever works when hes administering the tests and he contributed this to the lesser talents of the other psychologists. [laughter] he has some very interesting attitudes and ideas about women which, of course, are at the basis of this character, wonder woman. Talk a bit about those. Yeah. Theres two sources for those ideas about women, and they come into conflict with one another. Thats why the hodgepodge of ideas about women in wonder woman, and they really are in conflict. One source is marstons work as a psychologist. Hes training in the 19 teens when jung and freud are still around, and marston has a set of ideas, he writes this important book that is his philosophy. [laughter] that is not meant ironically, i assure you. [laughter] but its his theory of emotions. And when you read it, youre like this stuff is just crazy. Who would have believed that . The reason its important to pull back from that, if freud had gone nowhere or jung had gone nowhere and you just were to pull the case study on dora off a shelf now and youd never heard of it before, youd be like who would have believed this stuff ever . This is nuts. Marston has that same quality, but theres a kind of freewheeling world of psychiatry and psychology in the 19 teens and 20s that hes really caught up in, and he comes to believe that women and men share an experience of emotions in which all emotions come down to four kinds of emotions; dominance, submission, captivation and inducement. Which is where all the bondage in wonder woman comes from. [laughter] youll have heard the words can your ears sort of perked up and said, dominance . He actually weaves believes that they are essential to our experience of one another emotionally, and in particular the experiences between women and men. So theres this sort of psychological origins of this idea about gender, but also especially about sex. And that leads him in his one big sort of master work on emotions of normal people, its an argument against the idea that there is abnormal psychology. Anything you feel is knew roan is, therefore, normal, and you should learn to love the love parts of yourself, he says. Its an argument for tolerance, and its an interesting manifesto in that regard. He believed in sexual nonconformity. I guess historians would talk about that as an era of sex radicalism i. So thats one set of ideas that he has, and it comes from his work as a scientist. But then the other is his work and experience on witnessing of the suffrage and early feminists and Birth Control movements. So just to give you some refreshers about that movement, so marsto to n was born in 1893, he went to college in the fall of 1911 and for all the british suffragists invited to speak on campus, the Harvard Corporation banned her from speaking on campus because women were not allowed to speak at harvard. But she spoke at a nearby dance hall, and everybody went, and it was this incredibly stirring, rousing speech because she had changed the Suffrage Movement which had been going on for decades and decades and decades. Her followers said were done just asking, now were going to really fight. And they were doing things like chaining themselves to the railings outside 10 downing street and getting arrested and going on Hunger Strikes and being submitted to force feeding, but making sure they were photographed when these things were happening. Incredible, incredible tradition of nonviolent and even sometimes violent resistance that she brought to the United States, and marston had front row seats for as did his wife who went to mount holyoke. And the reason marston ended up leaving academia in the 1920s was that in 1925 when he was a professor of psychology at tuft, he fell in love with a senior, olive byrne, and her woman, ethel, was the first woman in the United States to be forcibly fed in prison. Her sister was a nurse, and ethel byrne and Margaret Sanger opened the first Birth Control clinic in 1916, and they were immediately arrested and sentenced to prison, and ethel byrne went on a Hunger Strike and nearly died. And she was the first hero of the Birth Control movement. An incredibly interesting feminist newspaper, the word feminism is used for the very first time. By 1913, everybodys talking about feminism, so at the very time when marston was coming of age as a young person interested in psychology thinking about women and men, he was watching this incredible flowering of political activism on the part of women fighting for the right the to vote, feminists who were fighting for a much bigger set of ideas about equality and Birth Control activists. And then olive byrne moves into his household in 1925 even though he already has a wife. Hes already married. He and his wife and olive byrne come to believe that they should live together as a threesome. They raise their family together. It is a form of sex radicalism. So there are two really different routes for what marston is thinking about women and power. When he creates wonder woman in 1941, her grandmother really is Margaret Sanger and the women rebels from 1914. Yeah, its fascinating. Its interesting to see how feminism manifests itself at home especially with this interesting relationship with two wives. Its kind of like an ed code of episode of big love. [laughter] you realize it allowed her having another woman at home to help raise the kids meant that his first wife could go out and work. It was kind of an interesting form of feminism itself, i felt like, within his own home. Yeah. I think there are many different ways to read that. The test would be was it okay for the kids, were people actually happy . We might really wonder. And i think theres mixed evidence. The kids all say it actually was kind of great. There were tons of adults around to love them. But marstons wife was not pleased, as the family story goes, when he said, you know, ive fallen in love with this girl, shes ten years younger than you and a student of mind. [laughter] he apparently said to her ive met someone special, and id like you to meet her. [laughter] this is, like, not the conversation you really want to have. [laughter] shes ten years younger than you are. [laughter] and, but apparently his wife, you know, when she went for this long walk for six hours and thought it over and came [laughter] a long walk. But the thing that was really, i mean, the thing i really worked on in this book because im incredibly grateful to the marston family who kept the story a secret for decades and decades and decades. Most of what i found out in the archives archives of harvard or dc comics the family really knew because the family was really cloaked in secrecy. But they were incredibly generous to let me look at diaries and family letters and photo albums that no one had ever really seen before. And you do see a family that is really full of love. Theres this wonderful moment later in life when Elizabeth Holloway is finally pressed to explain to the children how who was sleeping with who, and she says there was lovemaking for all. [laughter] and this is all before 1960. Its pretty incredible to imagine. Now that we know a little more about William Marston, but to truly understand the full story, its important to understand the context of what was going on in comic books at the time for which, i believe, youve got a slide. Yeah. I just thought you guys might want to see some comics. [laughter] so this is the first drawing of wonder woman by the artist harry g. Peter. This is from 1943. But to give 1941. But to give you just a refresher course for those of you who are not comics geeks, comic books dont start until about 1933. There are comic strips before that, funnies that are in the newspaper, but theyre not grouped together and sold as books that cost about ten cents until 1933. The first comic book super hero is classically thought to be superman who debuts in 1938, in 1939 batman debuts, and wonder woman comes just shortly after in 1941. This is a cover from 1942. But what was important about the relationship among all these superheroes, aside from the fact that theyre all members of the [inaudible] [laughter] is that wonder woman is actually the antidote to superman and batman. Superman and batman might not have been able to continue if wonder woman hadnt been published. Because what happened, imagine the creation of an entirely new art form that only kids are interested in and only kids really understand. Say, for instance, texting. [laughter] and their parenteds dont really get it parents dont really get it. Theres these cheap books that any kid can, and they trade, this whole black market. And the storytelling its not like a book, its not like a picture book, its not like a movie, its a really interesting art form thats just emerging. And in it a lot of people are killing each other and doing horrible things to one another, and theres tremendous danger and frightful events and terror, and a lot of them are much grislier than superman and batman. But there emerges this incredible wave of anticomics crusaders who are urging america