Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Elizebeth Friedman
- Born 1892
- America’s first female cryptanalyst
- Married William Friedman, a colleague at Riverbank
- Used cryptology against international smuggling and drug running
- Youth & Studies
- BA in English literature from Hillsdale college
- Had also studied latin, greek, and German
- Teach & Researcher
- Was a high school principle
- Employed with the Newberry Research Library in Chicago
- 1916 joined George Fabyan’s private “think tank” at Riverbank
- To prove that Sir Francis Bacon had authored
Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets using a cipher
that was contained within
- Riverbank was the only facility capable of exploiting and
solving enciphered messages until the creation of the
Army’s cipher bureau
- 1921 moved to Washington DC to work for the war department
- 1923 employed as a cryptanalyst for the navy
- Post-WWII she created communications security systems for the
international monetary fund
- Later Years
- Collaborated on a book entitled “The Shakespearean Ciphers Examined”
- She devoted much of her retirement to compiling a library and
bibliography of William’s work
- 1980 died in Plainfield, NJ
- Won awards from the Folger Shakespeare library and
the American Shakespeare theatre and academy
- Contributions
- led the cryptanalytic effort against international smuggling and
drug-running radio encoded messages
- Convinced congress of the need to create a headquartered,
seven-man cryptanalytic section
- Deciphered messages and testified against Velvalee Dickinson known as
the doll woman, a notorious spy for Japan
- Helped decipher messages that led to many arrests
and convictions during the prohibition era