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1-Page Summary of Code Girls
Overview
Code-breaking operations gave women the opportunity to have careers that were previously denied to them. These women worked hard and contributed a lot during World War II, but their contributions were not acknowledged until years later. They helped save thousands of lives and played a crucial role in winning the war. In those days, it was difficult for women to find careers; they mostly became teachers or stayed at home as wives and mothers.
The United States military started to hire women during World War II. They were given the opportunity to work in Washington, DC. Many of these women didn’t know what would happen when they took the job. However, they found out that many of them worked as code breakers and helped win the war for America. Due to secrecy and sexism, no one knew about their contributions until now.
In this passage, you’ll learn about the history of codes and code breakers. You’ll also find out how people used to send secret messages and what happened when those secret messages were intercepted by an enemy force.
Big Idea #1: Cryptography bureaus often hired women because the work was grueling.
Cryptography is as old as human communication. It started when someone wanted to keep a secret message from everyone else.
It’s not surprising that codes are useful in wartime. For example, during the Civil War, the Confederates had a complex code that even confused them. In the early 1920s, however, American code breaking was behind other countries’. The US secretary of state even shut down military intelligence’s modest cipher bureau because it was bad manners to read others’ mail.
In World War II, many people were against code breaking because they thought it was immoral. However, some people believed that women could be good at this type of work and would make better code breakers than men. They thought that women had the patience to do this job well but lacked intelligence.
To understand how code breaking works, we’ll take a look at two types of covert message systems: Codes and Ciphers. A Code is a word or phrase that represents another word or phrase. For example, the word “OMG” stands for “Oh My God.” However, it can also be used to hide information from someone else by substituting letters with numbers or symbols. Using this system, you could send a hidden message saying “Attack tomorrow morning at 10am” by using the number 1234 to represent each letter in your message (A=1; B=2; C=3).
Ciphers are different from codes. Ciphers involve rearranging letters into new words, while codes replace one word with another. During the Renaissance, people created ciphers using a table of alphabets for increased security. But due to advancements in technology and communication came the need for more secure means of encryption. Governments developed machines as well as complicated mathematical equations to encrypt their messages and communications.
Code-breaking involved many tactics. In some cases, codebooks were stolen from the enemy. However, in most cases cryptanalysts cracked codes by studying frequency and placement of specific words, using mathematical equations and deducing meaning through educated guesses.
Big Idea #2: Pioneering women helped the United States to become a pre-World War II force in cryptanalysis.
In 1916, a woman named Elizebeth Smith went to Riverbank Laboratories in Illinois.
Riverbank was run by an eccentric millionaire who had a theory that Sir Francis Bacon was the true author of William Shakespeare’s works. He hired researchers to prove this, and Elizebeth quickly questioned his methods.
