Cryptography is perhaps one of the most mysterious sciences. For more than two thousand years, it was available only to a select few: military leaders, statesmen, inventors. Only half a century ago, cryptography became part of our everyday life. Thanks to it, we shop online, send photos in messengers. History has preserved many ciphers named after their creators or those who first wrote about them: the Caesar cipher, the Vigenere cipher, the Richelieu cipher, the Peter I cipher, the Vernam cipher. At first glance, it seems that female cryptographers simply did not exist in this science. But this is not so.
Isabella d’Este (1474–1539)
Isabella d’Este, wife of the Margrave of Mantua, ruled the duchy as regent for her children. D’Este became known above all as a patron of artists and poets. Her portraits were painted by Titian and Giorgione, and commissions were carried out by Bellini, da Vinci and Raphael. Isabella’s library contained the richest collection of books, she corresponded with famous writers Ariosto and Bembo, and her living rooms and workshops were decorated by Michelangelo himself.
Isabella d’Este was nicknamed the “prima donna of the Renaissance” and until recently was not associated with the art of encryption. However, the findings of historians in the Mantua archives have revealed a completely different side of the personality of the first lady of the Renaissance. They have found cipher letters written in d’Este’s handwriting. This has led to the suggestion that she was the first documented woman to develop her own cipher for public and private correspondence. More importantly, it was not cracked by Isabella’s contemporaries.
With the help of encrypted letters, d’Este negotiated the release of her husband from Venetian captivity, where he ended up during the war. The cipher, as historians assume, was invented by the Duchess herself. It is based on replacing letters or letter combinations of the alphabet with certain symbols. The cipher contained a deceptive “dummy” – a symbol that did not correspond to any letter. As well as code designations – words that corresponded to names or positions: Solis (King of France), Bifores (Emperor), Materiam (King of Aragon), Argenti (Pope), Cignentia (Francesco Gonzaga) and Medias (Duke of Ferrara).
Edith Rickert (1871–1938)
Edith Rickert is perhaps the most mysterious woman on the list. She is best known as the editor of the complete works of Geoffrey Chaucer and the curator of the eight-volume edition of The Text of the Canterbury Tales. However, Rickert hid her “cryptographic past.”
In 1899, Edith Rickert received her Ph.D. and a summa cum laude degree in English literature and philology from the University of Chicago. A year later, she moved to England and began to earn a living by writing fiction and newspaper articles. But after a few years, she had to return to the United States. Rickert worked as an editor in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, and in 1914, she began teaching at the University of Chicago.
Edith’s interest in cryptography was sparked by the popular belief at the time that Francis Bacon was the real author of William Shakespeare’s plays. Tycoon George Fabyan created an entire laboratory, Riverbank Laboratories, to find evidence for this hypothesis. It later became a forge of cryptographic personnel.
In 1918, University of Chicago professor John Matthews Manley invited Rickert to join the code-breaking work at the War Department in Washington. Edith’s knowledge of several foreign languages, including German, and her aptitude for cryptanalysis helped her become a leading expert in breaking German codes.
Very little is known about Rickert’s work in the War Office, which suggests that her position was unofficial. However, there is evidence that Edith developed special codes for the Allies, working with the famous cryptologists Herbert Yardley and Charles Mendelsohn. Rickert herself did not deny the authorship of the codes, but did not advertise it either.
Rickert retained her interest in cryptography after leaving the War Office in 1919. Soon, from researching Francis Bacon’s “two-letter cipher” and Shakespeare’s texts, Edith Rickert moved on to the mysterious Voynich Manuscript, which no one had been able to decipher. She and her colleagues wrote several articles about the manuscript, debunking theories about its origin. Rickert worked on deciphering literary texts for the rest of her life, becoming a renowned philologist in the United States.
Genevieve Hitt (1885-1963)
Genevieve Hitt is called the pioneer of US military cryptology. For a long time, she was known only as the wife and assistant of Colonel Parker Hitt, a famous army cryptographer. However, new documentary evidence has shown that Genevieve was no less a talented cryptographer. Her work, perhaps, even surpassed the discoveries of her husband.
Genevieve Hitt was born in Texas. She did not attend college, and her courses did not even include mathematics. Genevieve’s characterization included her “womanly behavior and Christian character,” easygoing nature, and love of parties, dancing, and card games. All of this was to be expected from Genevieve’s contemporaries, who came from the privileged class of the time.
In 1911, Genevieve married Parker Hitt, and it was at this time that she began her studies in cryptography. She helped her husband decipher intercepted Mexican messages, but called it “an amateur occupation.” In 1916, Parker Hitt published the first and fundamental textbook for American cryptology, “A Manual for Solving Military Codes.” Genevieve also participated in its compilation. She decoded and deciphered army intelligence correspondence, supervised army code books and the breaking of intercepted messages.
Genevieve became a cryptographer by accident. You could say that boredom brought her to the profession! During World War I, Captain Hitt was sent to serve in Washington as an assistant to the assistant to the senior communications officer. Genevieve quickly got bored of sitting around doing nothing and missing her husband. She decided to unwind and practice cryptology. To do this, she went to Riverbank Laboratories, the leading cryptology center in the United States.
Back home in Texas, Genevieve began receiving handwritten, encrypted notes addressed to “Mrs. Hitt.” Within a short time, she had become the county’s leading codebreaker. For over a year, Genevieve worked without pay, as a self-taught enthusiast. It was only after 14 months of work at Riverbank Laboratories that the Army deemed her work worthy of a salary.
In a letter to her mother-in-law on May 28, 1918, Genevieve wrote: “I find it all so funny that sometimes I want to laugh. It’s all so foreign to my training, to my family’s old-fashioned ideas about a woman’s place in this world, etc. <…> I suppose it’s the war. I’m afraid I’ll never be content to sit around doing nothing again, even if this war is over and we’re all home again… It’s a man’s job, but I seem to be getting on with it, and I intend to do it to the end. It doesn’t seem to affect my health, anyway, everyone says I’ve never looked so good….”
Genevieve Hitt’s career in cryptology has been called accidental. But her decryption skills were appreciated and her name was added to the list of great cryptographers.