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Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!
Dr. Lauretta Bender: Comics’ Anti-Wertham - Part 4 Introduction by Michael T. Gilbert
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ast issue we featured the first selection from Dr. Bender’s testimony before the 1954 Senate Subcommittee Hearings into Juvenile Delinquency. As her testimony continues this issue, we’ll see rare glimpses of the inner workings of DC Comics during the Golden Age. But first, a little background on Dr. Bender. Though we’ve focused on her comic book credentials, her comics work was a tiny asterisk in a very successful career.
Lauretta was born in Butte, Montana, on August 9, 1897, to attorney John Bender and his wife Catherine. She had two younger brothers, Jack and Carl. Lauretta spent her childhood in Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and California. She earned a B.S. degree from the University of Chicago in 1922, and was awarded her M.A. in pathology a year later. Dr. Bender was best known for developing (in 1923) the BenderGestalt Visual Motor Test, a neuropsychological exam that has become a worldwide standard. She spent many years researching the cause of childhood schizophrenia and was responsible for studies on child suicides and violence. In 1926, she earned her M.D. degree from the University of Iowa Medical School. This was followed by overseas study, an internship at the University of Chicago, a residency at Boston Psychopathic Hospital, and a research appointment at the Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic of Johns Hopkins Hospital. While there, she fell in love with a colleague, Dr. Paul Schilder, who was married and eleven years her senior. According to son Peter, “When Lauretta Bender and Paul Schilder first met she instantly fell in love. They worked together at JHH. In the early 1930s they moved together to NYU-Bellevue. They married and had three children.” She became a staff member at the hospital, and later was senior psychiatrist in charge of the Children’s Services, a post she held for 21 years. Ironically, the man who directed Bellevue’s Mental Health Clinic was Dr. Fredric Wertham, whose 1954 best-seller Seduction of the Innocent would fuel the anticomics movement and inspire the Senate hearings.
Lauretta and 2nd husband Henry B. Parkes (nicknamed Michael) at their family home in Long Beach, Long Island, August 1971. [©2010 Peter Schilder.]
Lauretta married Paul Schilder in 1936 and they had three children, Michael (in
1937), Peter (in 1938), and Jane (in 1940). While she was in the hospital following the birth of her daughter, a car struck Paul, killing him. This left Lauretta Bender to raise the children alone. “This she did very successfully while continuing to make major contributions to the concepts of biological child psychiatry.” says Peter Schilder. “She remained at NYU-Bellevue as Chief of Child Psychiatry. Many of her co-workers and trainees served as surrogate family to the Schilder children. Through most of this period the family lived in a ‘beach’ house that Paul Schilder had bought as a present for Lauretta. It was in Long Beach, NY; Lauretta commuted on the Long Island Railroad six days a week to get to work.”
Lauretta and Paul Schilder on a California trip in the ’30s. [©2010 Peter Schilder.]
Peter remembers his mother fondly. “She was always upbeat and energetic. She did household projects such as finishing furniture. She decided it would be nice to have a fireplace, so she had one built in spite of warnings that it might damage the structure of the house. We had a red wagon and would collect driftwood from the beach, often large enough that it would stick out into the living room. “She was very flexible and adaptive; willing to listen to any suggestions. She came home from work one day to discover that I had an automobile engine hanging from the porch railing. Her comment was ‘If the porch falls down you will have to put it back up.’ “Her involvement on the Advisory Board of DC Comics was a natural extension of her pioneer work in Child Psychiatry. The basic approach was a positive non-judgmental belief that children either mentally disturbed or healthy benefited from honestly presented material.” In 1955, Dr. Bender was appointed principal research scientist in child psychiatry, a new post in the State Mental Hygiene Department. She continued working with the state until 1973, when she moved to Annapolis, Maryland. Dr. Bender taught at the University of Maryland and was a consultant to the Children’s Guild, Inc. (a group that worked with the emotionally disturbed) and similar organizations. She won numerous awards, including New York State’s Medical Woman of the Year in 1958. Fittingly, she also received New York University School of Medicine’s Paul Schilder Memorial Award in 1977. She remained single until 1967, when 70-year-old Lauretta wed Henry B. Parkes, a marriage that lasted until his death in 1972. Lauretta Bender passed away on January 4, 1987, at age 88, leaving behind a rich scientific legacy and a lifetime of service to children. And now, let’s find out what she had to say about comic books in part two of her 1954 Senate testimony….