Who Was the REAL LIFE Wonder Woman?
Wonder Woman is one of the most recognized and long-lasting characters in popular culture, a role model to women for nearly a century. Her cultural influence has been significant enough to draw public attention from both sides of the womens’ rights movement, and even for the UN to appoint her an Honorary Ambassador in 2016 - a lot of real-world impact for a fictional heroine.
We may imagine her status as a feminist icon to be modern revisionism or corporate virtue signalling, but in fact the origins of the character were deeply political and idealistic even in the 1930s! Though her creation is credited to a man - psychologist William Moulton Marston - Diana of Themyscira stood out from her contemporaries as a woman with ideals, desires and personality too lively and detailed to have come solely from his imagination. Readers immediately wrote DC Comics to inquire: who was the real, flesh-and-blood muse for Marston’s Wonder Woman?
William Moulton Marston - inventor, psychologist, comic book writer
As you might expect for the creator of the world’s foremost super-heroine, Marston was a radical feminist for his time. Even before entering the world of comics, his life was filled by strong and idealistic women, including pioneers of the US womens’ rights movement. Many of these women could be said to have directly or indirectly inspired the character of Wonder Woman!
They certainly influenced Marston’s academic theories on the importance of emotional awareness, selflessness and female leadership in society. It was these beliefs which drove the famed psychologist to begin writing superhero comics in 1940, as he was convinced that providing a powerful yet compassionate role model to children was the path to a better society, one where such remarkable women could flourish more freely than the early 20th century allowed.
Marston’s view of bondage and submission as tools for emotional growth is hammered home in early Wonder Woman panels like this one!
It makes sense that the first candidate to consider in the search for the real Wonder Woman is Marston’s own beloved wife!
Elizabeth Holloway was as fiercely intellectual and progressive in her study of psychology as William. The two met at grammar school and Elizabeth immediately found him to be an excellent collaborator. Her experience provided Marston with a close reference for the inherent unfairness women faced in society; while he continued his academic pursuits in the Harvard doctoral program, Elizabeth was unable to follow, as the prestigious school did not yet enroll female students.
Ironically it was Elizabeth’s prolific career as an administrator - including key roles in the staff of Congress and Encyclopædia Britannica - which would financially support Marston’s more idealistic projects... such as Wonder Woman!
Elizabeth also continued her academic interest in Psychology, both as a university lecturer and co-author of her husband’s work. Where she was not credited directly, Marston’s papers and accounts from the time show that Elizabeth was still a vital contributor to his work. She is photographed experimenting with his early prototype for a blood-pressure lie detector - Marston’s second-most-famous invention - and by some accounts was the one who first suggested blood pressure as a possible symptom of stress based on her own experiences and theories.
Elizabeth was a reliable volunteer in her husband’s experiments & demonstrations for his new lie detector.
On top of this, Elizabeth was an eager adventurer and confident swimmer - her daughter described her as “a small package of dynamite”. It’s easy to see how her energy, wits and love would offer her husband the inspiration for his ideal superwoman, but many accounts insist it was Elizabeth’s idea all along. Marston wanted to create a comic book hero to champion his ideals of “love leadership”, and his wife insisted “Then let it be a woman!”. The exact truth of this seems largely irrelevant; what is certain is that Marston would likely not have found the impetus to create an Amazon superhero without the inspiration of his super-capable wife.
But Elizabeth, wonderful though she may have been, was not the only inspirational woman in Marston’s personal life - or even in their bed!
Olive Byrne was a senior studying medicine at Tufts University in 1925, where William Marston was serving as professor of psychology. Described as vivacious, with an androgynous look and short “Eton Crop” haircut, she was well-known throughout the school’s sororities for her connection to feminist groups. Joining Marston’s lectures, she quickly impressed him with her interest in and understanding of gender theory.
Olive soon became Marston’s research assistant in his continued research on emotional response, and was instrumental in orchestrating his best social experiments through her sorority connections. Like Elizabeth, Olive’s collaboration with Marston often went uncredited due to the politics of the day, but she continued to play a significant role while also publishing her own academic papers.
Olive taking notes at a polygraph test. The gold bracelets were her signature - and later, Wonder Woman’s!
Also like Elizabeth, Olive Byrne moved from being Marston’s partner in science to his partner in love, even bearing him two sons a few years later. But not in any shameful affair! No, Olive’s courtship included both Marstons, whom she met together for dinner soon after first encountering William. Enamoured of her, the couple invited Olive to move in with them after completing her undergraduate studies and she did, taking the pseudonym Olive Richard.
William, Olive and Elizabeth kept their exact relationship intensely private to avoid scandal, but there is every sign that Olive Byrne was an adoring partner to both the married Marstons. She and Elizabeth each named their first child after the other, and after William died they remained inseparable for decades until Olive also passed away at 89.
William Marston gathers his unusual family for a photo - Olive (left), Elizabeth (back right) - and a THIRD possible paramour, Marjorie Wilkes Huntley (right).
Many contemporaries suggest that while Elizabeth had helped refine many of Marston’s psychological and social theories, it was the bold, beautiful and staunchly feminist Byrne who best embodied them. Marston supposedly referred to her as his “wonder woman” from early in his infatuation, and she certainly inspired some of Diana’s signature costume choices!
Diana of Themyscira and Olive had another trait in common: a secret identity! She and the Marstons sensibly kept the exact nature of their relationship private to avoid a scandal, even while raising their children. To Marston’s mother, they pretended Olive was their housekeeper, while to census-takers and other contacts she was introduced as Elizabeth’s widowed sister. Even Olive’s own children were not told of their true parentage until 1965! But this necessary secrecy concealed another woman who had tremendous influence on the creation and character of Wonder Woman - Olive’s aunt, Margaret Sanger.
Sanger is actually the most famous name to be circulated when debating the true inspiration for Wonder Woman - her relentless activism to normalize birth control led her to found Planned Parenthood, and initiated an historic court battle which set the precedent to legalize contraception in the US. Along with Olive’s mother, suffragette Ethel Byrne, Margaret was a leading voice in progressive politics through the pre-war and inter-war decades. Olive spent her childhood in the care of grandparents, but eventually began living with her mother as a teenager and quickly adopted Ethel and Margaret’s groundbreaking feminist beliefs.
Elizabeth and William Marston were also hugely influenced by Sanger’s theory, bonding over her famous treatise Woman and the New Race long before they would share an interest in her niece. Marston was particularly taken by the book, proclaiming that Sanger was “the second most influential person in the world” at a 1937 press conference.
First edition of Sanger’s famous book which so impressed the Marstons; first published in 1920.
Olive’s connection to Margaret Sanger and the evolving suffrage/feminist movement was well known around the Tufts University campus where she and the Marstons began their relationship. And of course, Olive Byrne was actively involved in the conception of Wonder Woman as she was with all Marston’s projects of the time. There is little doubt that when Marston wrote "Frankly, Wonder Woman is psychological propaganda for the new type of woman who, I believe, should rule the world", he specifically meant Diana to embody Margaret Sanger’s “new woman”.
In fact, so core was Sanger’s work to the character that the Marstons gifted a copy of the book to our final real-life Wonder Woman - ensuring that fierce feminist spirit would be carried on by the one whose influence on the character would turn out to be the most direct and long-lasting!
Joye Hummel was, like Olive, a gifted student in one of Marston’s college courses - albeit much later, at New York’s Katharine Gibbs school, where he taught while writing Wonder Woman. And like Olive, she displayed a grasp of emotional theory and human interaction quite similar to Marston’s own.
Marston’s fellow professors made this comparison several times, and in marking her final paper an impressed Marston awarded Joye the highest grade he had ever given. Marston had been looking for an assistant to help him write Wonder Woman - a female assistant of course, but one who understood his intent for the character. Seeing that Joye would be an able steward, Marston sought permission from the school to interview her for the position.
Joye met with William and Elizabeth Marston at the Harvard Club in New York shortly before her graduation from Gibbs. It was March 1994; she was 19 years old. The Marstons hired her immediately.
Despite being new to the comics industry and the character, Joye was immediately Marston’s co-writer on the Wonder Woman scripts. Since comic books of the time tended to compile several short adventures in each issue, they would each come up with their own stories independently, then cross-check the drafts. Joye had complete creative freedom; she remembers it as a time where she, Marston, artist Harry G. Peters and company worked without egos and, other than industry limitations on depicting violence, without creative restrictions
Marston would discuss the ideas behind the Wonder Woman comic with Joye over lunch, and invited her to his lectures, but otherwise trusted her instinct with the comic. As a young woman with an education in feminist and psychological theory, she was the ideal person to present the amalgamation of ideas which made up Marston’s heroine to young girls - and boys - who would be reading it.
A modern reprinting of early Wonder Woman stories, many now credited to Joye Murchison, nee Hummel.
Marston probably expected Joye to take over the comic from him at some point; or perhaps if not her, then a succession of other young women who could keep the character in touch with the spirit of youth over time. Unfortunately, after just a few months working with Marston in New York, fate intervened to interrupt their partnership. Marston suffered a shocking and debilitating bout of polio, which confined the proud outdoorsman to his bed. Joye continued to work with him on Wonder Woman, moving between his home in Rye, New York and their downtown offices. Then just months later, Marston was diagnosed with aggressive late-stage cancer.
The once-imposing Marston was stricken even worse than before, but lingered for nine months under constant pain treatment, during which time Joye Hummel took responsibility for Wonder Woman in his stead. The stories she penned were as imaginative and sensitive to Marston’s ideals for the character as he could have hoped: one bold tale speculating on the power of atomic reactions, years before the atomic bomb was revealed as America’s superweapon, earnt Joye’s office a visit from federal intelligence!
And yet, soon after William Marston’s death, control of Wonder Woman defaulted to DC Comics leadership, and any dreams he may have had for young Joye to continue writing the heroine faded away.
Joye Hummel was hailed by Wonder Woman fans as she finally appeared at Comic-Con in 2018.
Hummel herself saw the writing on the wall and left the comics industry as quickly as she had arrived - although she did finally make a triumphant return to San Diego Comic-Con in 2018 to receive the industry’s Bill Finger award, which honours undervalued creators.
In that case, perhaps the award should have been made out to all of these pioneering ladies - each of whom, through their love, strength and politics, could easily make a case for having lent some real feminist credentials to the world’s most recognized super-heroine.
All-Star Comics #8 features the first appearance of Wonder Woman, which Marston penned under the name Charles Moulton.