Lepore Talks 'Wonder Woman' on Jan. 20

The Music Hall’s Innovation and Leadership andWriters in the Loft welcomes Jill Lepore, award-winning author, New Yorker staff writer, and renowned historian and professor at Harvard University, to Portsmouth on Tuesday, January 20, 2015. Ms. Lepore will discuss THE SECRET HISTORY OF WONDER WOMAN, her highly acclaimed new work about the origins of one of the world’s most iconic superheroes. The book reads like a detective novel—full of larger than life personalities, surprises, secrets, and revelations that Ms. Lepore gleaned from archives of private and unpublished papers. In this critically acclaimed work she reveals a missing piece of the history of feminism, skillfully lifting the obscure out of silence.

The 7pm event includes an author presentation and moderated Q+A, plus book signing and meet-and-greet. It will be held at the Music Hall Loft at 131 Congress Street, in downtown Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The evening moderator will be Mary Jo Brown, Board Chair of the New Hampshire Women’s Foundation and President of Brown & Company Design.

Says Ms. Brown, “As someone who grew up watching Wonder Woman, I’m greatly looking forward to hearing Jill Lepore discuss the character, context, and background of the most popular female superhero ever. She sheds light on the fascinating juxtaposition of Wonder Woman’s status as a girl power icon as well as her less feminist qualities — contradictions that still exist today as we struggle to find what gender equality means in a changing world.”

ABOUT THE BOOK

Wonder Woman, created in 1941, is the most popular female superhero of all time. Aside from Superman and Batman, no superhero has lasted as long or commanded so vast and wildly passionate a following. As does every other superhero, Wonder Woman has a secret identity. Unlike every other superhero, she has also has a secret history.

Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore has uncovered an astonishing trove of documents, including the never-before-seen private papers of William Moulton Marston, Wonder Woman’s creator. Beginning in his undergraduate years at Harvard, Marston was influenced by early suffragists and feminists, starting with Emmeline Pankhurst, who was banned from speaking on campus in 1911, when Marston was a freshman. In the 1920s, Marston and his wife, Sadie Elizabeth Holloway, brought into their home Olive Byrne, the niece of Margaret Sanger, one of the most influential feminists of the twentieth century. The Marston family story is a tale of drama, intrigue, and irony. In the 1930s, Marston and Byrne wrote a regular column for Family Circle celebrating conventional family life, even as they themselves pursued lives of extraordinary nonconformity. Marston, internationally known as an expert on truth—he invented the lie detector test—lived a life of secrets, only to spill them on the pages of Wonder Woman.

Lepore’s surprising conclusion points to Wonder Woman as the missing link in the history of the struggle for women’s rights—a chain of events that began with the women’s suffrage campaigns of the early 1900s and ended with the challenging place of feminism a century later.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jill Lepore is the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History at Harvard University and a staff writer at The New Yorker. Her previous work Book of Ages was a finalist for the National Book Award. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

ABOUT THE GUEST MODERATOR

Mary Jo Brown is Founder and President of Brown & Company Design. An activist and volunteer for advancing gender equality in the state of New Hampshire, Brown was named to New Hampshire Magazine’s “Remarkable Women” list in 2009. She has also been included in Business New Hampshiremagazine’s “Influencer Index” (2014) and as one of the magazine’s “Top 30 Leaders for the Future” (2014). She is the Board Chair of the New Hampshire Women’s Foundation.

TICKETS/BOOKS

The ticket package for Writers in the Loft: Jill Lepore on Tuesday, January 20, at 7pm is $44. In addition to a reserved seat, the package includes a copy of THE SECRET HISTORY OF WONDER WOMAN(hardcover, $29.95), a bar beverage, and book signing meet-and-greet. Packages can be purchased through The Music Hall Box Office, located at 28 Chestnut Street, Portsmouth, over the phone at603.436.2400, or online at www.themusichall.org

MUSIC HALL SEASON SPONSORS: River House Restaurant; Carey & Giampa, Realtors; The Residences at Portwalk Place

SERIES SPONSOR: Citizens Bank

COMMUNITY PARTNER FOR THIS EVENT: New Hampshire Women’s Foundation

About Innovation and Leadership

In this Age of Participation, The Music Hall has expanded its programming to focus on issues critical to our time. The Innovation and Leadership series was first launched three+ years ago to serve our local business community, bringing together the best and the brightest in technology. The series has since broadened to showcase opinion leaders, authors and all variety of educators, and to serve audiences from a tri-state region and beyond – all who are interested in bettering the worlds they live in, at work and at home, locally and around the world. These lively and informative conversations feature experts in their field sharing experiences and providing participants practical tools for making meaningful advances in their lives. From demonstrations in the art of all things digital to special forums featuring regional and global leaders in sustainability, from book discussion-demonstrations on the positive effect of meditation to awareness-raising events led by today’s champions in philanthropy, feminism and family matters, eachInnovation and Leadership event is memorable and impactful. The Music Hall is committed to community building and personal flourishing. Our Innovation + Leadership series delivers on that commitment.

About Writers in the Loft

Akin to The Music Hall’s anchor author series, Writers on a New England Stage, Writers in the Loft features well-known authors but in a smaller, more intimate space. The series brings audiences today’s top authors, the best of fiction and nonfiction. The evening package includes a reserved seat and bar beverage, author presentation and Q+A, a copy of the book, and a meet-and-greet book signing with the featured writer.

About The Music Hall

The Music Hall is a performing arts center featuring curated entertainment from around the world in two theaters in its downtown Portsmouth, New Hampshire campus - one, a landmark 1878 Victorian theater, designated an American Treasure for the Arts by the National Park Service’s Save America’s Treasures Program, the other the intimate Music Hall Loft around the corner, recently named “best performing arts venue” by Yankee Magazine and the recipient of the NH AIA award for design excellence.

With acclaimed signature series including Writers on a New England Stage – a partnership between The Music Hall and New Hampshire Public Radio – and the Intimately Yours music series, we bring top authors and artists to both stages. Also, HD broadcasts from The Metropolitan Opera and the National Theatre of London as well as extraordinary cinema fill both screens almost every night of the year.

This dynamic arts center urges patrons to Explore + Learn via master classes, post film panel discussions, and matinees for children. An anchor cultural organization in this historic working seaport, The Music Hall is one of downtown Portsmouth’s biggest employers and largest contributors to the regional economy: The Music Hall and its patrons contribute $7.1 million annually to the local economy through show and visitor related spending.

Innovative in its outlook, the organization is community oriented and committed to making the Seacoast flourish. The Music Hall is a 501(c)3 nonprofit managed by a professional staff with the assistance of a volunteer board. Though global in the scope of its artists and programs, The Music Hall operates independently with the support of 3,000 members, 300 corporate partners and 58 community partner organizations. Welcoming more than 100,000 patrons (including 20,000 children) each year from the tri-state area and beyond, The Music Hall is the region’s center for the performing arts, literature and education…easy to get to, impossible to forget.

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