Marguerite Harrison (1879-1967) was the first American woman to serve as a foreign intelligence officer.
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Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan and this is Encyclopedia Womannica.
Today’s super sleuth transformed how U.S. spymasters viewed a woman’s role in the foreign intelligence field. She proved that women were more than capable of going undercover and extracting vital information from enemy territories. With a facility for languages and an aptitude for deceit, she infiltrated many opposing forces and delivered reports that were of much use to U.S military commanders during a contentious period of U.S-European history. Meet Marguerite Harrison!
Marguerite was born in Baltimore, Maryland in October 1879 to Bernard Baker and Elizabeth Elton Livezey. The Bakers were a wealthy, prominent Baltimore family. They owned the profitable passenger and cargo shipping company, Atlantic Transport Lines. Marguerite and her younger sister, Elizabeth, grew up in a life of privilege. Still, Marguerite had strained relationships with her mother and sister and only truly felt a connection to her father.
Marguerite’s high school academic success, especially in her language classes, landed her a spot at Radcliffe College. During her first semester, Marguerite struck up a whirlwind romance with her landlady’s son. Due to the class difference, Marguerite’s mother disapproved and immediately pulled Marguerite out of school and sent her to Italy. When Marguerite returned, she began dating Thomas Bullitt Harrison. Despite her mother’s objection, the young couple married in a summer wedding in 1901. And in March 1902, Marguerite and Thomas welcomed their son, Tommy, into the world.
Their marriage was cut short when Thomas unexpectedly died in 1915. Now a single parent with $70,000 of debt, Marguerite was responsible for supporting herself and her son. She was able to find an entry-level job as an assistant society editor at the Baltimore Sun. Soon thereafter, Marguerite was promoted to a music and drama critic, with a weekly column. The $30 a week that she brought in was enough to support her family.
In 1917, Marguerite began covering the role of women in World War I. She took a particular interest in the conditions in Germany and decided to apply for a job at the Military Intelligence Division. Marlborough Churchill, head of the MID, was impressed with her fluency in French, German, and Italian and offered her a job in his department for $250 a month. Marguerite was the first American woman to serve as a foreign intelligence officer.
In December 1918, Marguerite traveled to Berlin to report on European economic, political, and social matters that pertained to U.S peace negotiations. For eight months, she strategically used her Baltimore Sun credentials to speak to political and military leaders. Marguerite combined what she learned from the European leaders with her personal observations and sent regular reports back to U.S. officials. Her lack of formal training in espionage did not hinder her ability to get the job done.
Marguerite returned to Baltimore in June 1919 after the signing of the Versailles peace treaty. But life was not the same after experiencing the war. Reviewing movies and music now bored her. Fortunately for Marguerite, America’s spy network in Russia was in dire need of support. General Churchill tasked her with reporting on Vladimir Lenin’s regime and the conditions in Moscow. Marguerite sailed to England where she used her Baltimore Sun credentials to receive her assignment as a Moscow correspondent for the London bureau of the Associated Press.
After an arduous and dangerous trek to Moscow, she was granted two weeks to gather information by embedding herself in the culture, conducting interviews, and attending meetings. Marguerite took quickly to Russian life and when her stay was extended a month, she spent her time further studying the social and intellectual aspects of life there.
But in April 1920, a mole at the U.S. State Department exposed Marguerite as an American spy. Upon this discovery, the Bolsheviks presented her with an ultimatum - she could either be thrown into Lubianka, the infamous Russian prison, or report on left-leaning foreigners in Moscow that threatened the regime. Marguerite agreed to spy for the Russians. But she did not totally abandon her beliefs. Marguerite worked as a double agent and continued to sneak information on the Bolshekviks’ economic strengths and weaknesses to the MID when she could.
Marguerite was able to maintain the ruse for six months before being caught and sent to Lubianka on October 24, 1920. She was the first American woman ever held in the notorious prison. During her first four months, Marguerite was kept in solitary confinement. In order to survive, she learned to disassociate from her current reality and create an alternative world not bound by four concrete walls. After isolation, Marguerite lived in a cramped, unsanitary room with a sizable group of other women. While living in these deplorable conditions, Marguerite contracted tuberculosis and was relocated to the prison hospital.
Marguerite survived the illness and was released from prison in August 1921. The American Relief Administration facilitated a deal in which they offered food and other aid to Russia in exchange for American captives. When Marguerite returned to the U.S. she severed ties with the MID and focused on writing two memoirs - “Marooned in Moscow: the Story of an American Woman Imprisoned in Russia” and “Unfinished Tales from A Russian Prison”. Her work was a firsthand account of early Russian Communism and helped shape the American opinion of the country that would become its greatest adversary.
After some downtime, Marguerite took an interest in East Asia. She was traveling to China through Siberia when the Bolsheviks re-arrested her in November 1922. Although she was not technically on an assignment, she had been transmitting messages about regional political and economic conditions to the U.S. Army and State Department. This time when her freedom was leveraged with acting as an informant, Marguerite refused and spent another ten weeks in Lubianka waiting on her trial for espionage. Once again, her freedom came at the hands of the American Relief Administration.
Marguerite settled back into civilian life in New York City in March 1923. During this time, she wrote, “Red Bear or Yellow Dragon”, which described her opinions of Russia and China as world superpowers. A couple of years later, she founded the Society of Women Geographers with Blair Niles, Gertrude Mathews Selby, and Gertrude Emerson Sen. Marguerite and her fellow trailblazers created the organization to support women in their research of geography and history and to promote exploration.
At the age of 47, Marguerite married British actor Arthur Middleton Blake but did not settle down. The two traveled around the world together. This time Marguerite was a tourist with no ulterior motives.
Marguerite returned to Baltimore in 1949 after Arthur’s death. She lived with her son and his wife but continued to indulge her wanderlust well into her 80s.
On July 16, 1967, at the age of 88, Marguerite died of a stroke. For a woman who thrived travelling the world, her ashes were appropriately scattered in the Atlantic.
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