Posted on Aug 26, 2023
Remembering Elizebeth S. Friedman, Cryptanalyst
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Elizebeth S. Friedman graduated from Hillsdale College in 1915 with a B.A. in English, an annotated volume of Tennyson that she kept until her death, and an interest in Shakespeare that unexpectedly resulted in a long career in cryptography.
Elizebeth was born on August 26, 1892 in Huntington, Ind. to John Marion Smith and Sopha Strock Smith. As the youngest of nine children, she was only one of two to attend college. In 1911, she left for Wooster College in Ohio, but transferred to Hillsdale two years later.
After graduation, she traveled to Chicago in hopes of finding work seeing the Newberry Library’s 1623 Shakespeare First Folio. A librarian mentioned her to the wealthy and eccentric Col. George Fabyan, who ran a personal research facility in Geneva, Ill. He drove to Chicago that day, hired Elizebeth, and brought her back to Riverbank Laboratories. She became a research assistant to Elizabeth Wells Gallup, who hoped to prove that Sir Francis Bacon not only authored Shakespeare’s plays, but also hid a bilateral cipher inside.
One of the geneticists on staff, a Russian-born Jew from Pittsburgh named William Friedman, was brought in to photograph manuscripts. Elizebeth quickly peaked his interest in ciphers, and a short while later, they fell in love and were married by a Rabbi in Chicago.
“If you know anything about modern intelligence or cryptography, he’s the big name,” said Col. Rose Mary Sheldon, author of the guide to the Friedman collection at the George C. Marshall Foundation. “He’s the man who invented the word cryptanalysis. That’s how back in the beginning it was.”
Elizebeth was born on August 26, 1892 in Huntington, Ind. to John Marion Smith and Sopha Strock Smith. As the youngest of nine children, she was only one of two to attend college. In 1911, she left for Wooster College in Ohio, but transferred to Hillsdale two years later.
After graduation, she traveled to Chicago in hopes of finding work seeing the Newberry Library’s 1623 Shakespeare First Folio. A librarian mentioned her to the wealthy and eccentric Col. George Fabyan, who ran a personal research facility in Geneva, Ill. He drove to Chicago that day, hired Elizebeth, and brought her back to Riverbank Laboratories. She became a research assistant to Elizabeth Wells Gallup, who hoped to prove that Sir Francis Bacon not only authored Shakespeare’s plays, but also hid a bilateral cipher inside.
One of the geneticists on staff, a Russian-born Jew from Pittsburgh named William Friedman, was brought in to photograph manuscripts. Elizebeth quickly peaked his interest in ciphers, and a short while later, they fell in love and were married by a Rabbi in Chicago.
“If you know anything about modern intelligence or cryptography, he’s the big name,” said Col. Rose Mary Sheldon, author of the guide to the Friedman collection at the George C. Marshall Foundation. “He’s the man who invented the word cryptanalysis. That’s how back in the beginning it was.”
Remembering Elizebeth S. Friedman, Cryptanalyst
Posted from stationhypo.com
Cryptology
Military History
Huntington
Hillsdale College
Chicago
Posted 8 mo ago
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."The United States entered World War I one month before the Friedmans married. The pair quickly dropped their other projects to train officers in cryptography and to analyze codes sent to Riverbank by the government.
“America didn’t have a cryptologic organization prior to World War I,” explained National Security Agency (NSA) historian Betsy Rohaly Smoot. “There was a handful of officers in army who could break and make codes as needed, but Riverbank really the only institution doing any form of cryptology.”
Eventually, William was sent to Gen. Pershing’s headquarters in France, where he began his formal career as a cryptographer for the Army Signals Intelligence Service (SIS), Sheldon said. But prior to that, the pair exposed the “Hindu-German Conspiracy,” in which Germany planned to support an Indian revolution in hopes of destabilizing England, and trained military officers in code breaking.
It was one of the last times the Friedmans would work together professionally. Though they continued to work together on personal projects – which included encrypted Christmas cards and coded love poems that they sent to each other while apart – the pair seldom discussed their work at home and never assisted each other in their government work.
“Both of them were very good at what they did – and both of them kept the secrets very well,” Sheldon said.
After the war, the pair briefly remained at Riverbank before fleeing Fabyan’s obsessive control in favor of Washington and government work. William continued to work for the War Department and SIS while Elizebeth found employment with the Navy, the Treasury Department, and the Coast Guard.
During the interwar period and the Prohibition era, Elizebeth cracked rum runners’ codes and served as a government witness across the country, making her the most famous cryptographer in the United States.
The United States Coast Guard credits her with deciphering over 12,000 encoded radio missions and calls her “one of the most remarkable women to ever work for the U.S. Government.”
“Her testimony won these cases for the government,” said Barbara Osteika, a historian at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. “Once she talks through the codes, they’re like confessions.”
While reading through case files, Osteika often found comments from prosecutors that read something like, “If it was not for her testimony, this case would be lost,” she said."...
..."The United States entered World War I one month before the Friedmans married. The pair quickly dropped their other projects to train officers in cryptography and to analyze codes sent to Riverbank by the government.
“America didn’t have a cryptologic organization prior to World War I,” explained National Security Agency (NSA) historian Betsy Rohaly Smoot. “There was a handful of officers in army who could break and make codes as needed, but Riverbank really the only institution doing any form of cryptology.”
Eventually, William was sent to Gen. Pershing’s headquarters in France, where he began his formal career as a cryptographer for the Army Signals Intelligence Service (SIS), Sheldon said. But prior to that, the pair exposed the “Hindu-German Conspiracy,” in which Germany planned to support an Indian revolution in hopes of destabilizing England, and trained military officers in code breaking.
It was one of the last times the Friedmans would work together professionally. Though they continued to work together on personal projects – which included encrypted Christmas cards and coded love poems that they sent to each other while apart – the pair seldom discussed their work at home and never assisted each other in their government work.
“Both of them were very good at what they did – and both of them kept the secrets very well,” Sheldon said.
After the war, the pair briefly remained at Riverbank before fleeing Fabyan’s obsessive control in favor of Washington and government work. William continued to work for the War Department and SIS while Elizebeth found employment with the Navy, the Treasury Department, and the Coast Guard.
During the interwar period and the Prohibition era, Elizebeth cracked rum runners’ codes and served as a government witness across the country, making her the most famous cryptographer in the United States.
The United States Coast Guard credits her with deciphering over 12,000 encoded radio missions and calls her “one of the most remarkable women to ever work for the U.S. Government.”
“Her testimony won these cases for the government,” said Barbara Osteika, a historian at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. “Once she talks through the codes, they’re like confessions.”
While reading through case files, Osteika often found comments from prosecutors that read something like, “If it was not for her testimony, this case would be lost,” she said."...
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