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Hidden Figures

I got so excited about the kickass women movie Hidden Figures that I ran out and got the book of the same title, written by Margot Lee Shetterly. It tells the true stories of the African American women who worked as “human computers” (mathematicians) for Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory. These women worked during WWII and the post-War days of aircraft development and then for NASA during the early days of the American space program.

By focusing on the careers of four women (Dorothy Vaughan, Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Christine Darden), the book is able to cover a long period of time without becoming dry. It’s one thing to talk about segregation in academic terms (and the book does do that) but another thing to describe Mary Jackson’s feeling of humiliation when she couldn’t find a bathroom to use. The book shows how change in US culture influenced Langley and NASA, but also shows how the specific working environment gave women, including women of color, a kind of mobility and respect that was difficult to find elsewhere.

This is a gripping read that keeps its focus on the intelligence and perseverance of the women who helped win the war and who made space flight possible. Its only flaw is that it’s so admiring of the women in question that it never presents them as having any imperfections. Otherwise, this is an entertaining and fascinating look at American history and the overlooked women of color who were a crucial part of it.

– Carrie S

Soon to be a major motion picture starring Golden Globe–winner Taraji P. Henson and Academy Award–winners Octavia Spencer and Kevin Costner

Set against the backdrop of the Jim Crow South and the civil rights movement, the never-before-told true story of NASA’s African-American female mathematicians who played a crucial role in America’s space program—and whose contributions have been unheralded, until now.

Before John Glenn orbited the Earth or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of professionals worked as “Human Computers,” calculating the flight paths that would enable these historic achievements. Among these were a coterie of bright, talented African-American women. Segregated from their white counterparts by Jim Crow laws, these “colored computers,” as they were known, used slide rules, adding machines, and pencil and paper to support America’s fledgling aeronautics industry, and helped write the equations that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space.

Drawing on the oral histories of scores of these “computers,” personal recollections, interviews with NASA executives and engineers, archival documents, correspondence, and reporting from the era, Hidden Figures recalls America’s greatest adventure and NASA’s groundbreaking successes through the experiences of five spunky, courageous, intelligent, determined, and patriotic women: Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, Christine Darden, and Gloria Champine.

Moving from World War II through NASA’s golden age, touching on the civil rights era, the Space Race, the Cold War, and the women’s rights movement, Hidden Figures interweaves a rich history of scientific achievement and technological innovation with the intimate stories of five women whose work forever changed the world—and whose lives show how out of one of America’s most painful histories came one of its proudest moments.