Elizabeth Holloway Marston

Elizabeth Holloway Marston
Born Elizabeth Holloway
(1893-02-20)February 20, 1893
Isle of Man
Died March 27, 1993(1993-03-27) (aged 100)
Bethel, Connecticut
Nationality British/American
Other names

Sadie Holloway, Betty,

Beth
Education Mount Holyoke College (B.A. in Psychology 1915)
Boston University School of Law (L.L.B., 1918)
Radcliffe College (M.A. in Psychology 1921)
Occupation Editor, author, lecturer
Known for Involvement in the creation of Wonder Woman and the systolic blood-pressure test
Spouse(s) William Moulton Marston
Children Pete and Olive Ann
(Olive's children):
Byrne, Donn and Fredericka

Elizabeth "Sadie" Holloway Marston (February 20, 1893 – March 27, 1993) was an American attorney and psychologist. She is credited both for partially inspiring the comic book character Wonder Woman created by her husband, William Moulton Marston (pen name Charles Moulton)[1][2][3] and their domestic partner, Olive Byrne.[4][5] She also worked with Marston on the development of the systolic blood-pressure test used to detect deception.[2][6]

Early life

Marston was born Elizabeth Holloway in the Isle of Man and raised in Boston, Massachusetts.[3] She received her BA in psychology from Mount Holyoke College in 1915 and[2] her LLB from the Boston University School of Law in 1918,[7][8][3] where she was "one of three women to graduate from the School of Law that year."[2]

Systolic blood-pressure test

Both William and Elizabeth joined the psychology department at Harvard, with William in the doctoral program and Elizabeth the master's program at Harvard's college for women, Radcliffe College. Elizabeth worked with William on his thesis, which concerned the correlation between blood pressure levels and deception.[2] He later developed this into the systolic blood-pressure test used to detect deception that was the predecessor to the polygraph test.[2]

In 1921, William received his Ph.D. from Harvard and Elizabeth her MA from Radcliffe. Although Elizabeth is not listed as William’s collaborator in his early work, a number of writers refer directly and indirectly to Elizabeth’s work on her husband’s deception research. She also appears in a picture taken in his polygraph laboratory in the 1920s, reproduced in a 1938 publication by William.[2][9][10]

Career and family

Marston's career included indexing "the documents of the first fourteen Congresses, lectured on law, ethics, and psychology at American and New York Universities, [and] served as an editor for Encyclopædia Britannica and McCall's magazine."[2] In 1933, she became the assistant to the chief executive at Metropolitan Life Insurance.[2]

In 1920, Byrne gave birth to a stillborn child, Fredericka. Then, Elizabeth had a son, Pete, and a daughter, Olive Ann, after Olive Byrne, who lived with the couple in an extended relationship. Marston also supported the two children of Olive Byrne as she legally adopted them.[2] While Olive stayed home to raise the children, Elizabeth supported the family when William was out of work, as well as after his death in 1947.[2]

Wonder Woman

In 1992, The New York Times discussed Elizabeth's involvement in the creation of Wonder Woman:

Our Towns reveals the true identity of Wonder Woman's real Mom. She is Elizabeth Holloway Marston. She's not 1,000; she's 99 come Thursday [...] One dark night as the clouds of war hovered over Europe again, Mr. Marston consulted his wife and collaborator, also a psychologist. He was inventing somebody like that new Superman fellow, only his character would promote a global psychic revolution by forsaking Biff! Bam! and Ka-Runch! for The Power of Love. Well, said Mrs. Marston, who was born liberated, this super-hero had better be a woman [...] Wonder Woman was created and written in the Marstons' suburban study as a crusading Boston career woman disguised as Diana Prince [...] Meanwhile, in a small Connecticut town, Wonder Woman's Mom has disguised herself as a retired editor who lives in postwar housing.[3]

Her 1993 obituary also stated that she contributed to the development of Wonder Woman,[11][2] while Lillian S. Robinson argued that both Olive Byrne and Elizabeth were models for the character.[12][13]

Marston lived to be 100 years old, dying March 27, 1993, just after her hundredth birthday.

In film

Professor Marston & the Wonder Women is an upcoming biographical drama about Elizabeth Holloway Marston, her husband William Moulton Marston, Olive Byrne, and the creation of Wonder Woman.[14]

Works

Footnotes

  1. ↑ "Alumni Spotlight: Elizabeth Holloway Marston (LAW '18)"
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Lamb, Marguerite. "Who Was Wonder Woman? Long-Ago LAW Alumna Elizabeth Marston Was the Muse Who Gave Us a Superheroine." Boston University Alumni Magazine, Fall 2001.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Malcolm, Andrew H. "OUR TOWNS; She's Behind the Match For That Man of Steel". The New York Times, Feb. 18, 1992.
  4. ↑ Moon, Michael (2012-03-12). Darger’s Resources. Duke University Press. ISBN 0822351560.
  5. ↑ Daniels, Les (2000). Wonder Woman: The complete History. Chronicle Books. ISBN 0-8118-2913-8.
  6. ↑ Comm. to Review the Scientific Evidence on the Polygraph, Nat’l Research Council. The Polygraph and Lie Detection. 2003.
  7. ↑ "THE LAST AMAZON Wonder Woman returns," New Yorker, September 22, 2014
  8. ↑ Green, Hope. "Panel Recognizes Astral Advances of Women in Law". B.U. Bridge, vol. 5, no. 31, April 19, 2002.
  9. ↑ Marston, William Moulton. The Lie Detector Test. 1938.
  10. ↑ The Polygraph and Lie Detection (2003): Chapter: Appendix E: Historical Notes on the Modern Polygraph
  11. ↑ "Elizabeth H. Marston, Inspiration for Wonder Woman, 100". The New York Times, April 3, 1993.
  12. ↑ Glenn, Joshua. "Wonder-working power". Boston.com, April 14, 2004.
  13. ↑ Pollitt, Katha. "Wonder Woman's Kinky Feminist Roots". Atlantic Monthly, Oct. 14, 2014.
  14. ↑ Wonder Woman creator biopic gets mysterious first teaser
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