Six Hillsdale students will present their documentary on Hillsdale alumna and renowned codebreaker Elizebeth Smith Friedman at 7 p.m. on Nov. 9 in Plaster Auditorium. 

Friedman, who graduated from Hillsdale in 1915, worked as a codebreaker during both world wars. The movie is this semester’s group project for the documentary filmmaking course, taught by instructor Buddy Moorehouse as part of the Dow Journalism Program.

“It has been a beautiful opportunity to work on the Elizebeth Friedman documentary,” said junior Lauren Scott, who is one of the students in the filmmaking class.

The showing is free and open to the public.

A donor provided financial support that allowed the students to travel for research and interviews. 

“That was an incredible bonus,” Moorehouse said, “because the film would have been a lot harder to do if we didn’t have that funding.”

Four students traveled to Washington, D.C., and Virginia to visit Friedman’s grave at Arlington National Cemetery, where she is buried beside her husband William Friedman, a fellow codebreaker. 

The students then traveled to Lexington, Virginia, to visit the George C. Marshall Foundation, where an archive of Friedman’s family correspondence, codebreaking papers, and pictures are kept.

“There were 22 boxes, filled to the brim with any document you could think of tangentially related to Friedman,” said senior Christian Peck-Dimit, who visited D.C.

Two students also visited Tucson, Arizona, to interview Friedman’s grandson, Chris Atchison. Atchison said he plans to attend the documentary’s premiere.

Moorehouse said this is the fourth semester the class is presenting a documentary about Hillsdale’s history. 

“Each semester, we pick one big group project that we do as a full-length documentary,” Moorehouse said. “I’ve had this one on the radar for a while, ever since I heard about Elizebeth Smith Friedman’s story.”

Moorehouse said he thought this semester was finally the one to feature Friedman, especially since the Hillsdale in D.C. campus will soon be erecting either a statue or a bust of her. Hillsdale alumnus and sculptor Isaac Dell ’18 will begin work on it this month. 

“We thought the timing would be perfect to do the documentary now to introduce the campus community to who she was and just how remarkable she really was,” Moorehouse said.

Scott said she is excited to be a part of telling Friedman’s story.

“Nobody knew that she helped end two world wars. As a student at her alma mater, there is no greater honor than to be a part of the beginning of her story becoming well-known around the nation,” Scott said. “Her story has been hidden for too long, and more people need to know about this Hillsdale student and American hero.”

Moorehouse agreed with Scott, saying this documentary is important because it tells the story of such an important alumna.

“The thing I’m by far the most excited about is that people at Hillsdale College are going to finally learn Elizebeth’s story,” he said.

The journalism program will offer the documentary filmmaking course again in the spring semester.