Ridiculous History: Knitting as Espionage, Part Two: Legendary Spies -- and One Traitor
iHeartPodcasts | Recorded: March 19, 2026
Hosts: Ben Bowlin & Noel Brown
Episode Overview
In this engaging and quirky episode, Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown continue their exploration into the surprising and "ridiculous" historical intersections between knitting and espionage. Picking up from Part One, the hosts dive into the stories of three prominent women who used knitting—or knitting supplies—as tools for covert communication across different periods: two as legendary spies, and one as a traitor who turned double agent. The episode highlights the ingenious methods these women employed, the social contexts that enabled their activities, and broader musings on the interplay of domestic crafts, gender expectations, and international intrigue.
Key Discussion Points & Insights
1. Molly "Old Mom" Rinker: The Revolutionary Eavesdropper
[06:32–09:10]
- Setting: Philadelphia, American Revolutionary War.
- Role: As an innkeeper, Molly Rinker leveraged her position to overhear British officers’ conversations—her gender and social role made her “invisible” to British guests.
- Tactic: She relayed sensitive military intelligence to George Washington and the Continental Army by hiding messages in yarn balls she tossed to Patriots passing by.
- Ben: "She would toss out small balls of yarn just casually like, 'Oh, here you go.'"
- Noel: "Her efforts were and are considered... mission critical during the 1777–1778 Philadelphia Campaign."
- Espionage Method: More smuggling than code, but her use of knitting supplies to conceal messages was creative and effective.
2. Phyllis “Pippa” Latour Doyle: The SOE’s Knitting Agent in WWII
[09:28–13:22]
- Setting: Nazi-occupied Normandy, France, May 1944.
- Who: South African-born British agent, parachuted behind enemy lines as part of Churchill’s Special Operations Executive.
- Disguise & Method:
- Posed as a local Frenchwoman, code name “Genevieve.”
- Carried a knitting kit as everyday camouflage.
- Coded messages (on silk) were wrapped around her knitting needles and hidden in her hair tie.
- Quote:
- Latour (from a later interview): "I always carried knitting because my codes were on a piece of silk. I wrapped the piece of silk around a knitting needle and put it in a flat shoelace that I used to tie up my hair." [10:50]
- Quote:
- Success: Transmitted 135 coded messages to the Allies. The thin wire radio transmissions took 30 minutes to send, giving her enough time before Germans could triangulate her position.
- Noel: "It was literally a needle in a hair tie kind of situation."
- Legacy: Survived until 2023 at age 102; family only discovered her secret life late in her life.
- Ben: “You’re a real one, Pippa.”
3. Elizabeth Bentley: The "Red Spy Queen" Who Changed Sides
[17:48–28:30]
- Background: Born in Connecticut, elite education (Vassar & Columbia), became an American Communist.
- Espionage Role: For seven years, she was a "contact woman," gathering secret information in Washington, D.C. and passing it to Soviet handlers.
- Noel: “She was known as the Red Spy Queen.”
- Twist: In 1945, fearing exposure or worse from her Soviet counterparts, Bentley turned herself in to the FBI—and became a double agent for the U.S.
- Ben: “She goes to Uncle Sam and she outs herself to the FBI... Double cross. Yeah, the double cross.”
- Impact:
- Her testimony contributed to the Red Scare, influencing major anti-communist investigations and leading to real party leaders’ convictions.
- Downside: Her revelations also helped fan American paranoia, resulting in many being unfairly blacklisted (e.g., Hollywood writers).
- Noel: “A lot of her testimony resulted in some people being very unfairly targeted and railroaded themselves as a direct result of her testimony.” [25:48]
- Knitting Connection: Bentley used her knitting bag to conceal microfilm, secret documents, and information such as plans for Allied bombers—capitalizing on no one suspecting “a woman’s knitting bag.”
- Fun Fact: The U.S. Office of Censorship even banned international mailing of knitting patterns in 1942 to prevent code smuggling.
4. Spycraft, Coding, and Cultural Tangents
[33:13–43:34]
- Knitting vs. Crochet vs. Croquet vs. Croquette: Extended riff to clarify and poke fun at linguistic confusion.
- Noel: “They are not the same...knitting uses two needles, while crochet uses a hook.”
- Modern Coded Communication: Parallels drawn to how the CIA has used seemingly innocent Star Wars fan sites to pass hidden messages (a nod to ongoing tradecraft innovation).
- Ben: “Purposefully dumb looking Star Wars fan sites...were used for communicating with assets in the field.”
- Ancient Precedents: Discussion of Incan Khipu—knot-based fabric systems to record data and potentially narrative, still not fully decoded by modern scholars.
- Ben: “The Incan Empire had a coding system...entirely based upon knots.”
- Knitting and Computing: The Jacquard loom, an industrial knitting machine, is described as a precursor to computer punch cards and programming.
- Noel: “The Jacquard loom...is actually considered a predecessor to modern computing.”
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
-
On gender & spycraft:
- Ben [07:24]: “Because people were often ignoring women at this time, Molly Rinker was able to be around people that didn’t really treat her as a person. And she used that to her advantage.”
- Noel [12:45]: “She [Pippa] continually avoided detection because...they did not take women seriously.”
-
On the effectiveness of mundane objects:
- Noel [12:45]: “It was literally a needle in a hair tie kind of situation.”
- Ben [27:31]: “No one ever thought to dig through [Bentley’s] knitting bag for information about what the B29 bomber was going to be doing. But they really should have, because that was definitely in there.”
-
Tangential riff, on knit-coded secrets:
- Noel [13:22]: “Sending coded messages took her [Pippa] around 30 minutes from her wireless radio and it took the Germans 90 minutes to get a bead on where she actually was... So the odds are certainly in her favor.”
-
On historical cycles:
- Ben [38:17]: “History repeats itself quite often. So just because knitting is no longer a gold standard way of secretly communicating intelligence, that doesn’t mean other things like that don’t exist—purposefully crappy websites are...a version of this same tactic.”
Timestamps for Key Segments
- [06:32–09:10]: Molly Rinker—Revolutionary War knitting spy
- [09:28–13:22]: Pippa Doyle—WWII SOE agent using knitting tools
- [17:48–28:30]: Elizabeth Bentley—The “Red Spy Queen” and Cold War double agent
- [33:13–36:34]: Tangent: Knitting vs. Crocheting, and the importance of terminology
- [36:34–38:17]: Modern and ancient parallels (Star Wars fan sites, Incan Khipu)
- [41:34–43:34]: The Jacquard loom and the roots of computer coding
Tone and Final Thoughts
Ben and Noel maintain their signature mix of irreverence and curiosity, peppering the episode with wit (“needle in a hair tie”), pop culture references, and playful banter. The episode deftly combines historical rigor with tangental fun, showing how everyday objects and underestimated people can play outsized roles in the world of espionage. The hosts also underline the evolving landscape of covert communication and the enduring ingenuity of “hiding in plain sight.”
Recommended for:
Fans of underdog history, surprising spy stories, fans of codebreaking tales, and anyone who appreciates the overlap of the domestic and the diabolical.
Additional Resources Mentioned
- Red Spy Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth Bentley by Catherine S. Olmstead
- The story of the Jacquard Loom (ScienceIndustryMuseum.org.uk)
- Deeper dives into Khipu on the podcast Stuff to Blow Your Mind
Bonus: Fun Fact
- In 1942, knitting patterns were prohibited from international mail as they were recognized as potential instruments of espionage—a real-world echo of how the mundane can become the menacing.
- The Incan Khipu—an as-yet undeciphered system of knot-coding—remains a modern mystery for linguists and mathematicians alike.