Elizebeth Smith Friedman married William Friedman in May 1917. 
Courtesy | Science History Images

One year after Elizebeth Smith Friedman graduated from Hillsdale College, she got in the back of a limousine in Chicago with a strange man she had met just minutes before.

 George Fabyan whisked her away to his private estate, where he and dozens of eccentric intellectuals conducted scientific experiments and research projects that were often bizarre and sometimes futile. But it was here that Elizebeth, who had studied English literature at Hillsdale, learned codebreaking through a project attempting to find and decipher codes supposedly hidden within the works of Shakespeare.

She would soon become one of the greatest codebreakers the United States has ever seen — and would also prove there were no such codes in Shakespeare.

Friedman was like any other Hillsdale student in many ways — she wrote for The Collegian, performed in productions of Shakespeare, and went to parties. And then she went on to do what anyone with a liberal education is capable of: she became great. She became an innovator and a hero for her country.

Elizebeth’s story should be an example to liberal arts students of how such an education can launch a person to achieve great things. Friedman, born Aug. 26, 1892, turns 131 years old Saturday — her birthday provides an occasion to reflect on her life and how students can learn from the woman who is perhaps Hillsdale’s greatest graduate.

Elizebeth was a codebreaker, but she did not get a degree in cryptography — the field didn’t even have that name until her husband coined it — nor did she get a degree in mathematics. She got a degree in English literature from a liberal arts college. 

That means the end goal of her degree was not to get a job with the words on her diploma in the job description. The goal was to sharpen her mind and teach her how to think and to solve problems so she could do anything she wanted. 

“We don’t make anybody into anything here. We help them grow. And she grew into a woman who could do anything with her mind,” college President Larry Arnn said in “Hillsdale Student, American Hero,” a documentary students made about Friedman last year.

She became a brilliant codebreaker because she sharpened her mind through studying the liberal arts. She didn’t need to study codebreaking to be great at it. She had already studied things that gave her the ability to do what codebreaking requires: recognizing patterns, understanding the mechanics of language, and applying logic to them. 

John J. Miller, director of the Dow Journalism Program, discussed this in “Hillsdale Student, American Hero.”

“Every time you look at a work of literature, whether it’s a poem by Robert Frost, or a novel by Jane Austen, or a play by William Shakespeare, you’re trying to break the code. You’re trying to understand, ‘What is this thing about? What are the symbols and the metaphors and the hidden meanings?’” Miller said. “Elizebeth Smith learned how to do this on the campus of Hillsdale by studying these works of literature, Shakespeare especially.”

The strange story of Elizebeth’s introduction to code-breaking reveals something else about her that helped her become great: her courage and ambition. Fabyan took Elizebeth to his estate, named Riverbank Laboratories, which housed the intellectuals and scientists he had collected to work for him into which she gladly stepped.

At Riverbank, they did everything from studying insect genetics to creating weapons for the United States military. All of it was to satiate the unending curiosity of Fabyan, whom Melissa Davis, an expert on Elizebeth Smith Friedman, said had more money than sense.

It was a strange place for a young woman a year out of college to find herself in — a college she attended despite her father’s disapproval. Strange people surrounded her and they did strange things. 

But none of this got in the way of Elizebeth’s desire to do something unusual, something remarkable, with her life. Not only that, she wanted to do something that required constant use of her mind. She was willing to do things that were frightening to achieve this.

All Hillsdale students have the capacity to be great like Elizebeth Smith Friedman, but only if they work hard and apply what they learn.

Study the liberal arts. Let them change you. Then go change the world like Elizebeth Smith Friedman did.

Maddy Welsh is a senior studying History and Journalism.