On this day, Feb. 11, in 1944, during World War II, New York City doll business owner Velvalee Dickinson was indicted in a plot to deliver messages to the Japanese through her dolls. Known as “The Doll Woman,” Dickinson used her doll shop in New York to smuggle information about U.S. naval forces such as “Doll in hula skirt is in the hospital and doctors are working around the clock,” which translated to “USS Honolulu is badly damaged and in Seattle undergoing repairs.”
Dickinson was caught when her contact in Argentina moved and her letters were returned to U.S. wartime censors. She was convicted of espionage and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Dickinson died in 1980 at the age of 86.
Scott McCabe
