hidden figures book margot lee shetterly

Katherine Johnson applied to the lab in 1953, doing math that analyzed the effects of turbulence on airplanes. But she refused to give up, and eventually became the first African-American female engineer at Langley. The obstacles were great: she was not only a woman, she was a black woman. Mary was also a computer but wanted to be an engineer. In 1951, Mary Jackson got a job as a computer at Langley, helping test model airplanes in wind tunnels. She was indeed offered a job at NACA’s Langley Laboratory in Hampton, Virginia, in 1943, although she had to work in a separate building with other black “computers.” She stayed on after the war, as the Americans were trying to build faster and safer planes. Thus, in Virginia, blacks and whites could not eat in the same restaurants, drink from the same water fountains, use the same restrooms, attend the same schools, sit by each other in theaters, and so on.īut Dorothy had confidence that she was so good at math, the NACA would overlook her color.

But the government agency was in the state of Virginia, where “Jim Crow” laws were in effect. This was in the 1940’s, when “computers” were actually persons who did math by hand.

Dorothy Vaughan got interested during WWII, out of a desire to serve the country by working for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the government agency that designed airplanes.

Now the author and an illustrator have teamed up to bring the story to children.ĭorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden were “ really good” at math, and they loved it enough to want to make a career out of it. Thanks to the book by the same name for adults, as well as the successful movie based on that book, many people know the story of the four African-American women who helped NASA send men into space.

Hidden figures book margot lee shetterly