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Cryptologist, National
Security Specialist. Elizebeth Friedman received recognition in the
first half of the twentieth century as "America's first female
cryptanalyst" in the pioneering science of cryptanalysis. Without
knowing the key to a code, she became proficient in deciphering coded
messages. Born the youngest of nine surviving children in a Quaker
household, she was the daughter of John Marion Smith, a farmer and
banker, and his wife Sopha Strock. She was born 26 Apr 1892 in Huntington, Indiana, and died 31 Oct 1980 in Plainfield, New Jersey
After local schools, she attended the
University of Wooster in Ohio from 1911 to 1913 and Hillsdale College
in Michigan from 1913 to 1915, graduating with a degree in English
Literature. Wanting her to marry instead of going to college, her father
provided her with an educational loan at 6% interest. After being a
substitute school principal for a year, she relocated to Chicago to
become a librarian at the Newberry Library.
Being a Shakespearean
enthusiast, she was approached in 1916 by George Fabyan, the owner of
Riverbank Laboratories, located in Geneva, Illinois, to decipher the
enciphered messages that were supposed to have been contained within the
Shakespearean plays and poems. This led to her accepting a position at
Riverbank Laboratories, thus her career as a crytanalyst began. On her
first day at the facility, she met William Friedman. She and Friedman
did pioneering work for decoding by compiling information on ancient
secret writings.
On April 6, 1917, the United States entered World War
I, and in May of 1917, the couple married in a Jewish ceremony. During
World War I, Riverbank Laboratories became the only facility in the
United States available for enciphering messages. She was quickly
promoted from clerk to cryptanalyst. The codebreaking was done by a
30-member team, and she was part of the team while her husband was
serving in the Army in Europe.
After World War I, in May of 1919, the
United States Army Cipher Bureau was created, where Elizebeth taught decoding
classes. Although Riverbank Laboratories did everything to keep their
decoders, the couple relocated to Washington, DC, on January 3, 1921,
for positions with the United States War Department. She held positions
with the United States Navy in 1923, the Treasury Department Bureau of
Prohibition in 1925, and last, the Bureau of Customs.
After becoming a
mother, she started successfully working from home until 1927, when she
had to travel with a team. In 1931, she was made Cryptanalyst-in-Charge
for the United States Coast Guard. Thousands of telegrams were decoded
by her to gain evidence against smugglers of millions of dollars worth
of alcohol, drugs, and stolen contraband on boats in the Gulf of Mexico
and along the Pacific Ocean coastline. She was a witness for the
prosecution against the smugglers in federal court trials in 1933. In
1934, she represented the United States in the International Arbitration
with Great Britain and France when the United States Coast Guard sank
an American-owned boat flying a Canadian flag, "I'm Alone," off the
coast of Louisiana while smuggling illegal alcohol between Canada and
the United States. A French deckhand drowned in the incident. When she
was giving evidence in trials against dozens of organized crime figures,
she had to have bodyguards after her photograph was pasted in newspaper
headlines. Often using a blackboard and chalk with a pointer stick,
she, at barely 5 feet tall, looked more like a teacher than the star
prosecution witness in a federal trial.
Decoding millions of messages
during World War II while working in complete secrecy, she played a
critical role in safeguarding United States military information from
Nazi and Japanese spies. By codebreaking, she provided evidence in the
1944 conviction of espionage of Velvalee Dickinson, known as the "Doll
Lady," who smuggled information to Japanese agents. She helped to
prosecute Chinese opium smugglers in Canada and decrypted Nazi messages
to break a South American spy ring.
At the end of the war, the decoding
department was merged into "J. Edgar Hoover's
FBI, where females were not allowed to be agents or have any lead
positions. After retirement in 1946, she became a consultant and created
communications security systems for the International Monetary Fund.
With her husband's retirement, she co-authored with him the 1957 book,
"The Shakespearean Ciphers Examined," which received many awards from
the Folger Shakespearean Library and the American Shakespeare Theater
and Academy. The book is still in print.
With her husband's 1969 death,
she consolidated 22 boxes of papers on decoding for the world's most
extensive private collection, which was archived at the George C.
Marshall Research Library in Lexington, Virginia. Their earliest
research at Riverbank Laboratories eventually became the foundation of
the National Security Agency, yet this documentation was burnt upon
Fabyan's death in 1935. Her most covert investigations were declassified
shortly before her death, giving insight into the role she played in
national security and proving that she did not work in her husband's
shadow.
Among her many achievements, she was the mother to a son and a
daughter. She was awarded an honorary doctor of law degree by Hillsdale
College in Michigan in 1938. After being cremated, her ashes were buried
in her husband's grave. Her latest biography, "The Woman Who Smashed
Codes," was published in 2017 by Jason Fagon.
Bio by: Linda Davis
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