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Hidden Figures Light up Screen Black Women Who Helped America Win the Space Race Jenna P Hidden Figures Light Up Screen Black Women Who Helped America Win the Space Race Jenna P. Carpenter uring World War II, the National her to write a book about a Advisory Committee for Aeronautics story that was so complex in (NACA) used computers to make ad- both its content (mathemat- vancements in aeronautics. Later, during ics, aeronautics, and space the Cold War, NACA’s successor, NASA, flight) and setting (the time turned these computers to the task of tackling the chal- leading up to and during Dlenges of putting Americans in space. At first this may the civil rights movement). not sound surprising, but in this era the word computers She pointed out that referred to people, not electronic or digital machines. she grew up in Hampton, Moreover, it was nearly lost to history that these com- Virginia, home to Langley, puters were largely women, some of whom were African where she had visited her American. father, an internationally In Hidden Figures: The Untold Story of the Black Aran Shetterly recognized climate scientist, Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Margot Lee Shetterly. many times. And she knew Race (William Morrow, 2016), Margot Lee Shetterly some of the women she tells the surprising story of the West Computers divi- would later write about as residents of her hometown. sion—a segregated team of black female mathemati- In the foreword, Shetterly writes, “Growing up in cians who worked on largely by-hand computations at Hampton, the face of science was brown like mine. Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory during the I knew so many African-Americans working in science, mid-20th century. math, and engineering that I thought that’s just what Shortly after the book appeared, Fox 2000 released a black folks did. I thought these stories were normal. Hidden Figures movie version of with an all-star cast. It was my husband’s reaction to hearing this story for Last summer I chatted with Shetterly and Fox 2000 the first time that helped me see it with fresh eyes and president Elizabeth Gabler about their roles in bringing realize that it is unusual and interesting. [It] spurred this intriguing story to light. me to explore the story and learn more.” Shetterly’s and Gabler’s comments have been edited Shetterly began by talking to her former Sunday for clarity. school teacher, Katherine G. Johnson, the NASA An Unlikely Author mathematician who worked on problems associated with Given that Shetterly had never written a book before getting NASA’s astronauts into space. She told me that and was not a STEM (science, technology, engineering, from there, “it got more and more interesting. I found and mathematics) professional, I wondered what led out that there were so many women involved. Everyone 18 February 2017 : : Math Horizons : : www.maa.org/mathhorizons her personal life, Vaughan touched and interacted with all the other women in the book in some way. Unfortunately, Shetterly was unable to interview Vaughan, who had died in 2008. I asked if there were other people she wasn’t able to interview. She said, “A lot of the people have passed away or are passing away. I did not get to interview the two engineers Katherine Johnson worked closely with, since they passed away early in the interview process.” As for the women of West Computers, “There were a lot of computers left, but they were in their 80s and 90s.” Shetterly benefitted from the records kept at NACA and NASA. Also invaluable were the interviews con- ducted as part of an oral history program at the Johnson Space Center and maintained at NASA NASA Langely by the historian Mary Gainor. Human computers (left to right) Dorothy Vaughan, Leslie Hunter, and Vivian Adair. “Mary Gainor has been a superhero,” Shetterly said. “She interviewed people and built a website. As resourc- I told the story to was surprised that they had never es have dwindled, she has done everything she can to heard of it.” She began to realize that the black women help preserve the history, artifacts, and interviews.” mathematicians at Langley were truly hidden figures. Making the Tech Accessible Given these reactions, she thought it was important to In this book about mathematicians in the aeronautics bring their story to a larger audience. industry, Shetterly does an outstanding job of explain- Shaping the Story ing the technical concepts in an authentic, yet acces- The full story has multiple layers. There are many sible fashion—an impressive feat for someone who is characters, the historical context is essential to under- not trained in a STEM field. standing the women and their accomplishments, and She admitted that the science drew her in. “All of the the technical aspects are multitudinous—the math, the World War II history, the wind tunnels—I saw those aeronautics, the problems of space flight, and more. many times as a child—I wondered, how does it work? One of the hurdles for Shetterly was “figuring out how I wanted to learn more about the aeronautics industry.” to pull together the book with so many different pieces But she acknowledged, “It took a lot of work to read and parts into a narrative. My challenge was to decide these [NACA and NASA] reports. That’s why it took how much context to provide versus how many per- so long for the research. My goal was to understand sonal stories of the women to tell.” enough of what they did and the concepts behind it so But the research for the book “happened organically. that I could explain it clearly.” I started by talking with Katherine Johnson, who was Shetterly said that “early drafts had a lot more techni- closest to the astronauts. People have been writing cal information. It was hard to have enough technical information with suffiin dti fr ceiiiy” ye about Katherine since the 1960s.” Although Johnson’s not so much as to lose the average reader. Eventually, story is an impressive one, Shetterly realized that “this she decided she would make extensive use of footnotes is not a story about one woman.” with links to the actual reports, together with shorter, In their conversations, Johnson told Shetterly about less jargon-filled synopses. Ultimately, she “tried to Dorothy Vaughan, a woman who started out, like many strike a balance and present it through the eyes of the of the others, as a high school mathematics teacher be- women.” fore landing the position at Langley. She eventually rose to the position of supervisor of the West Computers. The Social Context Shetterly recognized that Vaughan was the real focal The book is not all rockets and math; it has a heavy fo- point for the story. “From Dorothy, everyone else cus on the era’s social context. The story takes place be- branched off.” Through her long tenure at Langley and fore and during the civil rights movement, and Shetterly www.maa.org/mathhorizons : : Math Horizons : : February 2017 19 A Hollywood Treatment spoke with Fox 2000 president Elizabeth Gabler, producer of films such as The NASA Devil Wears Prada, Katherine Johnson. Walk the Line, and Alvin Iand the Chipmunks, about says we can learn from this history. the making of the movie “Even during the days of segregation, these women were version of Hidden Figures. persevering and doing critically important mathematical research.” Shetterly felt she had to “pull the curtain back The Movie’s Story on history and show these women doing this work . a The book spans more than lot of which happened as a government scientific program. 30 years, including World This story provides insight on how to get more women War II, the abrupt transi- tion to the post-WWII era, and minorities in STEM” and “the role of the workforce in and the early successes of economic development,” which she observed was powered NASA in the space age. It by aeronautics in the mid-20th century. is also a complex story with many intertwining threads However, “when electronic computers came on board,” involving the women’s personal lives amid the turbu- and the cost of computing machines skyrocketed, “they lent civil rights landscape. With so many angles from moved the women out the door with the desktop cal- which to tell this story, I asked Gabler what they chose culating machines.” When computers became viewed as to focus on. more than offie mcie, cmuig bcm men’ Gabler said they decided to show the lives of work. Vaughan (played by Octavia Spencer), Johnson (Taraji She attributes some of our gender and racial biases to P. Henson), and NASA engineer Mary Jackson (Janelle cultural blind spots. “We assume this person couldn’t Monáe) and their contributions to the space race be good at math, when we may be overlooking supreme against the Soviets. Gabler added that you see “all talent. I hope people are open to understanding that three women and their personal lives separately and people who look different aren’t really.” Moreover, she together at NASA and the different roles they each said, “you can’t say women weren’t interested in com- had at [NASA] Langley.” She acknowledged that the puting. History shows us that this is not true. civil rights story is featured less prominently than in “A lot of this story is hard and dispiriting, but the book. fascinating even when it’s really hard. The American hopefulness and spirit and wanting to be better and to Where’s the Math? live up to these ideals is something that can help right I asked Gabler what attracted her to the story.
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