Mary was a math teacher who took a job at the USO during the war. Dorothy became the head of West Computing after Blanche Sponsler became ill and died.Ĭhapter Ten focuses on Mary Jackson. Several of the women working at Langley began achieving great things, including becoming authors in some of the research reports. Researchers worked toward breaking the sound barrier and women were on the ground at the testing site to analyze the data. Although the workforce at Langley was temporarily reduced, there was a defense industry boom that led to more people being hired. She moved her children to live with her while her husband continued his itinerant hotel job. In Chapter Nine Dorothy Vaughan continued to build her life in Newport News. Katherine married Jimmy Goble and dropped out of the graduate program when she became pregnant. While at college she was chosen to be one of three black students to integrate a white college. She was extremely bright and charismatic. Katherine graduated from high school at an early age and attended college on a scholarship. When the war ended, many workers were laid off and some employers went back to hiring only whites.Ĭhapter Eight focused on Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson. In Chapter Seven, Dorothy signed a lease on an apartment in Newport News, which was difficult because there was a shortage of black housing. Women were responsible for the calculations using raw data from the testing being done, but they were not given credit for their work by the male engineers. Discoveries occurred rapidly and a course was created for female computers to help them reach the level of junior engineer. In Chapter Six, NACA worked toward improving planes for the military.
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Not only was their work area segregated, they were also expected to eat at a table marked “colored computers.” Miriam Mann hid the table sign until management gave up and stopped labeling the table. West Computing was the black women computers division. In Chapter Five, Dorothy starts her job in West Computing at Langley. Black Americans were expected to support the war effort and fight for the rights of Jews when they were not receiving equal rights in America. Black soldiers were sometimes the targets of violence from other Americans who believed they had overstepped their boundaries. The segregated transit systems made travel difficult for everyone and sometimes led to conflicts between the races. In Chapter Four, Dorothy arrived in Newport News, which was growing increasingly crowded due to people moving there for work. Katherine would later take a job at Langley as well. Dorothy and her husband were friends with the Colemans who had a daughter named Katherine. In Chapter Three, Dorothy was hired to work at Langley at twice the pay of her teaching job. In Chapter Two, Dorothy Vaughan, a highly intelligent black high school teacher, applied for a job at Langley. Because men were involved in the military effort and white women were already working the jobs vacated by men, Melvin Butler turned to hiring black women to do the computing jobs at Langley. In Chapter One, the Langley Research Center was growing rapidly due to demands for increased air power in an effort to defeat the Axis powers during World War II.
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She believed that the contributions made by black women deserved to be recognized not as a story about black women, or even just women, but as a story that is integral to American history. The Prologue of the book explained Shetterly’s discovery of the work done by black women at Langley and her reasons for writing the book.
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It reveals little-known history about the crucial work performed by black women amidst segregation and discrimination that led to America putting a man into space. Hidden Figures, by Margot Lee Shetterly, is the story of the contributions made to space flight by the black women who worked at the Langley Research Center in the early days of aeronautical research.
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The study guide uses references to African Americans as "blacks" and Caucasians as "whites" to reflect the language used by the author of Hidden Figures this language also reflects usage during the particular moment in history that the book is tracking. The following version of this book was used to create this guide: Shetterly, Margot Lee.