Laurie Wallmark: Hi, I'm Laurie Wallmark. I wrote the book Code Breaker, Spy Hunter: How Elizebeth Friedman Changed the Course of Two World Wars, illustrated by Brooke Smart. Elizebeth Friedman is different than most of the other women in STEM I've written about. Unlike them, she didn't tinker with inventions as a child. She didn't even especially like math and science. She was more interested in studying English and foreign languages. I thought kids would like to know that your interests as a child can change as you grow up. I always start my research with books. I read any book, any article I can find about the person, but you need to dig deeper than that to really find out about the person's life. In this case, I was lucky that Elizebeth's papers and photos are all archived at the Marshall Foundation, and I could go to their website, look at things she actually wrote, look at pictures of her and her family. It really gave me a deeper understanding of her work and her life.

When people read about Elizebeth or any of the other women in STEM I've written about, I hope it shows them that anyone, it doesn't matter what sex, what race, where you're from, what language you speak, nothing matters other than your interest in the subject to make you able to pursue a career in it. I'm going to read the first two pages of the book for you now:

Could it be? Had enemy spies sneaked into the United States? The country had not yet entered World War II, but had the war now come to American soil? The Federal Bureau of Investigation had intercepted hundreds of coded messages from a secret base in New York, but couldn't read them. Someone had to crack the code, but who? The FBI turned to one special woman to decipher the secret messages. Elizebeth Smith Friedman, a cryptanalyst with a stellar reputation, agreed to work with the FBI on their top secret project.

And once she'd broken the codes, she discovered the senders were indeed spies. Nazis. At the trial, the content of those deciphered messages provided the hard evidence needed to send thirty-three German spies to prison. According to the FBI, Elizebeth's work resulted in the greatest spy roundup in American history. And to think, if not for a chance encounter with a librarian more than twenty-five years earlier, Elizebeth might never have become a codebreaker at all.