Overview
Correspondence; autobiographical writings; photographs; published and unpublished articles; genealogical notes; poetry and songs; clippings; diary entries; etc.; of William Moulton Marston, psychologist and author, and his lover Olive Byrne.
Dates
- Creation: 1899-2002
Creator
- Marston, William Moulton, 1893-1947 (Person)
Language of Materials
Materials in English.
Access Restrictions:
Access. Collection is open for research.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright. Copyright in the papers created by William Moulton Marston is held by the President and Fellows of Harvard College for the Schlesinger Library. Copyright in other papers in the collection may be held by their authors, or the authors' heirs or assigns.
Copying. Papers may be copied in accordance with the library's usual procedures.
Extent
.83 linear feet ((2 file boxes) plus 1 folio+ box, 2 folio+ folders, 3 folio+ photograph folders)The collection consists of correspondence; autobiographical writings; photographs; published and unpublished articles; genealogical notes; poetry and songs; clippings; diary entries; etc. The bulk of the material was created by either Olive Byrne or William Moulton Marston. Material belonging to Olive Byrne includes autobiographical writings; a biography of her mother Ethel Higgins Byrne who opened a birth control clinic with her sister Margaret Sanger; school transcripts and diplomas; published articles regarding William Moulton Marston and psychology; resumes; poems and songs; a yearbook and reunion booklets from Saint Joseph's Academy and Tufts University; an intelligence test; correspondence; etc. Several letters refer to the activities of Margaret Sanger and Ethel Byrne, as well as Olive Byrne. Genealogical notes refer to the Byrne, Marston, and Higgins families. Also included are Byrne's notes regarding all four of the Marston children and a detailed notebook on her son Byrne's growth, physical development, and feeding schedule. Also included are an interview transcript and reminiscences of Margaret Sanger.
Material created by William Moulton Marston include a series of letters to his son Byrne, written to Byrne while he was away from home. They include descriptions of the activities of the Marston/Byrne family, the care of pets, and several mentions of the most recent Wonder Woman comic (other than these references, there is no material documenting Marston's work on the Wonder Woman comic). Other material by Marston consists of published articles on the systolic blood pressure test, the psychology of women, and the lie detector, and several journal entries by Marston with occasional references to pain he was suffering from (likely as a result of cancer). Photographs in the collection documents Marston's time in high school and at Harvard University; his life with Elizabeth (Holloway) Marston, Olive Byrne, and their four children; and his work with the lie detector and systolic blood pressure test, particularly when employed by Universal Studios. Also included are several photographs of Ethel Higgins Byrne and one photograph of Margaret Sanger.
Most of the photographs in this collection are or will be digitized and available online. Other than photographs and published articles, there is no other material documenting his work on the systolic blood pressure test or the lie detector. Folder titles were created by the archivist. The collection is arranged alphabetically by individual followed by photographs.
BIOGRAPHY
William Moulton Marston was born in 1893 to Annie (Moulton) Marston and Frederick William Marston in Saugus, Massachusetts. He graduated from Malden High School in ca.1911. While at Malden High School he was president of the Literary Society and a member of the football team. Following graduation he attended Harvard University receiving a BA in 1915 (Phi Beta Kappa) and his LL.B. (Bachelor in Law) in 1918. Both he and his future wife entered graduate school in psychology ca.1918, Marston at Harvard University and Elizabeth (Holloway) Marston at Radcliffe College. Elizabeth (Holloway) Marston had received a BA in psychology from Mount Holyoke College in 1915 and her LL.B. from Boston University Law School in 1918. Marston received his PhD and Elizabeth (Holloway) Marston received her MA in 1921. The couple married in 1915.
After completion of his PhD, Marston taught psychology at American University in Washington, DC, and at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. At Tufts (ca.1925), Marston met student Olive Byrne (daughter of feminist Ethel Byrne who was Margaret Sanger's sister), with whom he began a sexual relationship and who ultimately came to live with the Marston couple. Elizabeth Marston had two children: Moulton ("Pete") (born 1928) and Olive Ann (born 1933), named after Olive Byrne. Olive Byrne also had two children by Marston, Byrne (born 1931), and Donn (born 1933). Olive took care of the home and the children, while Elizabeth worked to support the family indexing the documents of the first fourteen Congresses; lecturing on law, ethics, and psychology at American and New York universities; serving as an editor for Encyclopædia Britannica and McCall's; and serving as assistant to the chief executive at Metropolitan Life Insurance, when Marston was unemployed and after his death in 1947.
While completing his PhD at Harvard University, Marston developed the systolic blood pressure test, wrote about its use in detecting deception in a number of professional psychology journals, and it was the subject of his dissertation entitled, "Systolic Blood Pressure Symptoms of Deception and Constituent Mental States." His systolic blood pressure test is one component of current polygraph examinations. Marston also employed his test in his position at Universal Studios as Director of Public Services (1929). It appears that he tested emotional reactions to films and offered suggestions regarding rewriting certain portions of those films based on the emotional reaction they elicited in viewers. In addition to his writing regarding his systolic blood pressure test, Marston frequently wrote on the psychology of women throughout the 1930s. He also wrote a number of popular psychology books, including Emotions of Normal People (1928), Try Living (1937), and March On! Facing Life with Courage (1941). In the 1940s he began to develop the comic-book character of Wonder Woman, originally called "Suprema," combining the "strength of Superman" with the "allure of a good and beautiful woman." Inspired by early feminists, he was an advocate of fostering women's talents and abilities and worked closely with his wife, Elizabeth (Holloway) Marston, and Olive Byrne on the evolution of Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman, an Amazon princess who fought crime during World War II in the United States debuted in 1941, and was modeled on Elizabeth (Holloway) Marston and Olive Byrne. Marston continued to write the Wonder Woman comic until his death from cancer in 1947. Elizabeth and Olive continued to live together until Olive's death in 1985. Elizabeth (Holloway) Marston died in 1993. Marston was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2006.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Accession number: 2017-M44
These papers of William Moulton Marston were given to the Schlesinger Library by Byrne Marston in March 2017.
Processing Information
Processed: October 2017
By: Mark Vassar, with assistance from Margaret Dalton.
Creator
- Marston, William Moulton, 1893-1947 (Person)
- Title
- Marston, William Moulton, 1893-1947. Papers of William Moulton Marston, 1899-2002: A Finding Aid
- Author
- Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America
- Language of description
- eng
- EAD ID
- sch01611
Repository Details
Part of the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute Repository
The preeminent research library on the history of women in the United States, the Schlesinger Library documents women's lives from the past and present for the future. In addition to its traditional strengths in the history of feminisms, women’s health, and women’s activism, the Schlesinger collections document the intersectional workings of race and ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class in American history.