About this episode

The episode explores the unusual espionage case of Velvalee Dickinson, who used her doll shop to transmit military intelligence during World War II.

Velvalee Dickinson ran a doll shop on Madison Avenue that catered to wealthy collectors. But in one of the strangest espionage cases of World War II, Dickinson's clients had no idea she was using correspondence about doll orders to transmit coded U.S. military intelligence to the Japanese. * We're hard at work on our next season of new VSEs. If you've already heard this one, email us — veryspecialepisodes@gmail.com — and we'll recommend something else you can listen to this week! Hosted by Dana Schwartz, Zaron Burnett, and Jason English Written by Joe Pompeo Produced by Josh Fisher Editing and Sound Design by Jonathan Washington and Josh Fisher Mixing and Mastering by Baheed Frazier Research and Fact-Checking by Joe Pompeo and Austin Thompson Original Music by Elise McCoy Show Logo by Lucy Quintanilla Executive Producer is Jason English See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

People in this episode

Hosts: Dana Schwartz, Zaron Burnett, Jason English

Topics covered

• espionage
• World War II
• doll shop
• military intelligence
• coded messages

Keywords

• Velvalee Dickinson
• espionage
• doll shop
• Madison Avenue
• military intelligence
• coded correspondence

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: iHeartPodcasts

Places: Madison Avenue

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