Elizebeth Smith Friedman Marker

Pioneering cryptanalyst Elizebeth Friedman was born in Huntington. She developed her skill in codebreaking while searching for supposed hidden messages in Shakespeare’s plays at Riverbank Laboratories in the 1910s. There, she and her husband William invented new techniques for modern cryptology and taught U. S. military officers how to break codes in WWI. During the 1920s-1930s, Friedman destroyed crime rings by breaking the codes of Prohibition rum runners and international drug smugglers. She led and trained the U. S. Coast Guard’s cryptanalytic unit, vital to the U.S. Navy and FBI. In WWII, she decrypted Nazi radio messages sent to their spies in South America, helping capture the agents and weaken the Axis alliance.

The youngest of nine children, Elizebeth (unique spelling was on purpose as her mother did not want her name to be shortened to Eliza) Smith grew up in Huntington, IN. Though her father did not believe in the necessity of college for females, he did loan her the money (at 6% interest) to attend Wooster College in Ohio and then Hillside College in Michigan when her mother became ill. After school she became employed by Col George Fabyan at his Riverbank estate to analyze the works of Shakespeare and from a cryptology angle attempt to prove they were actually written by Francis Bacon. On a short break, she worked in the Huntington library.

While no clear line could be drawn between Bacon and Shakespeare, she met William Friedman and introduced him to the world of cryptology. As their skills developed, they laid the scientific foundation for modern code-breaking. During the First World War, she taught the first generation of Army Signal Corps code-breakers at Riverbank. Elizebeth also worked with the US Navy and State department to assist them in stopping bootleggers in the age of Prohibition. In 1930, she testified in court cases that led to the imprisonment of bootleggers and smugglers. As Cryptanalyst-in-Charge, Elizebeth intercepted and broke a Nazi code that helped prevent Germany from taking over South American governments. J. Edgar Hoover for many years took credit for this as she and her team had signed an oath of secrecy.

She finished her career as a consultant for the International Monetary Fund in the area of secure communications. When William died in 1969, she complied the annotated bibliography of William’s collection of papers and books on cryptology to be donated to the General George G. Marshall Research Foundation and Library. Elizabeth died in 1980 but prior to that had designed their tombstone that resides in Arlington National Cemetery, complete with hidden meaning based on the Bacon cipher. 

1. “Breaking Codes was this couple’s lifetime career,” Smithsonian Magazine, June 1987.
2. Wrixon, Fred B., Codes, Ciphers & Other Cryptic & Clandestine Communication: Making and Breaking Secret Messages from Hieroglyphs to the Internet, Black Dong & Leventhal Publishers, New York, NY, 1998.
3. Steinman, Hilary Klotz. (Producer), Gazil, Chaua (Director/ Producer). (2021). The Codebreaker [Motion picture]. United States: GBH Boston.
4. Leason, Amy, “An Eye-opener: ‘The Woman Who Smashed Codes’, The News-Banner [Bluffton, IN], 3 Feb 2021.
5. Letter from Mrs. William F. Friedman, 28 Jan 1970. Material located at the Huntington City-Township Public Library. hctpl.info.
6. “Cipher on William and Elizebeth Friedman Tombstone” accessed July 20, 2021. https://elonka.com/friedman/
7. Fagon, Jason, The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America's Enemies, Dey Steet Books, 2017.