posted 07-11-2015 09:24 AM               

You've heard the names John Glenn, Alan Shepard and Neil Armstrong. What about Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, Dorothy Vaughan, Kathryn Peddrew, Sue Wilder, Eunice Smith or Barbara Holley?

Most Americans have no idea that from the 1940s through the 1960s, a cadre of African-American women formed part of the country's space work force, or that this group — mathematical ground troops in the Cold War — helped provide NASA with the raw computing power it needed to dominate the heavens. My current work in progress, a narrative non-fiction book entitled "Hidden Figures" recovers the history of these pioneering women and situates it in the intersection of the defining movements of the American century: the Cold War, the Space Race, the Civil Rights movement and the quest for gender equality.

posted 02-12-2016 09:17 AM               

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.

• Hardcover: 384 pages
  
• William Morrow (September 6, 2016)
  
• ISBN-10: 006236359X
  
• ISBN-13: 978-0062363596

posted 09-11-2016 12:05 AM               

Author Q&A: Margot Lee Shetterly reveals NASA's 'Hidden Figures'

More than a half century after the first NASA astronauts launched into space, one might think that there are no sweeping narratives left untold about the early years of the U.S. space program.

But there was at least one history remaining to be written: that of the women, and in particular the African-American women, who worked as the "human computers" at NASA's original research laboratory, who provided the calculations necessary for sending American spacecraft and astronauts into space and to the moon.

posted 09-15-2016 05:41 PM               

Congratulations to Margot Lee Shetterly, her book Hidden Figures debuted at number 7 on the The New York Times bestsellers' list.

posted 09-16-2016 02:33 AM               

Now in a special new edition perfect for young readers, this is the amazing true story of four African-American female mathematicians at NASA who helped achieve some of the greatest moments in our space program.

posted 01-16-2018 11:37 AM               

So excited that beginning today, the youngest readers can now be inspired by the women of Hidden Figures!

• Age Range: 4-8 years
  
• Hardcover: 40 pages
  
• HarperCollins (January 16, 2018)
  
• ISBN-10: 0062742469
  
• ISBN-13: 978-0062742469

posted 09-06-2023 09:03 PM            

To my knowledge, the document posted here is the only attempt by experienced aerospace engineers to unravel fact from fiction in "Hidden Figures." The heart of the document consists of commentaries written by Harold (Hal) Beck and Kenneth Young, members of the Mission Planning and Analysis Division of the Manned Spacecraft Center from Mercury through Apollo (and beyond). Their expertise specifically involves spacecraft trajectories and rendezvous, issues that are central to the claims made in "Hidden Figures." Also, before joining the manned spaceflight program, Hal Beck worked at a desk next to Katherine Johnson's for nearly two years.

"The Portrayal of Early Manned Spaceflight in Hidden Figures: A Critique" consists of seventy-one pages of mostly arcane material. It is not an easy read. Our purpose in disseminating it is to make evidence available to future historians and journalists who will need to decide what to make of the story told in "Hidden Figures." We cannot count on that happening unless the document is so widely available that future writers cannot help running across it during their research. We encourage everyone with a special interest in manned spaceflight to download it. The document is not copyrighted. You are welcome to distribute it and quote it at whatever length you wish as long as the quotations are accurate and in context.

We have invited Margot Shetterly, the author of "Hidden Figures," to respond and will post verbatim anything she writes on this website. If others have relevant empirical material in the form of either personal experience or documentation, we will post that as well.

posted 09-08-2023 09:19 PM               

As for Beck's, Young's and Murray's position, I think it is largely agreed among the history community that Katherine Johnson's role was inflated eevn before Shetterly wrote her book. That said, I think some of the inflation served some good by engaging the public to think about where the minorities and women were during the early years of the U.S. space program.

Prior to "Hidden Figures," the contributions of "human computers," let alone the few Black engineers at Langley, were largely overlooked, if not outright ignored, by the general populace. If the book (and to a much lesser extent, the movie) had one lasting effect, it was to ensure a more inclusive perspective was part of the media projects that followed.