The book “Hidden Figures” by Margot Lee Shetterly and the movie by the same name is built on the life story of three black women who were such good mathematicians that they contributed greatly to the success of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). One of them Katherine Johnson, known as a human computer worked with the Space Orbital Mechanical Branch. She calculated the trajectory for Alan Shepard, the first American in space. Her calculations were so accurate that astronaut John Glenn had requested that she double check what the computer had done. She was awarded the Presidential Medal for Freedom from President Obama in 2015.
Shetterly says, “These women were black and teaching in segregated schools...so when the opportunity at NASA came it was something that they had not even dreamt of. And it came not even a decade after white women had started working there. This idea of a professional path in math was very new at that time. Katherine Johnson is perhaps the best known of these women. In the 50’s when she started with NASA she was working in a group that was very closely associated with the space race. That then became her job, calculating trajectories for the project Mercury Missions and Project Apollo...Men resisted the idea of having women doing math...but the women were good at it. So when something works, you go with it and then...they were paid less and that works for the bottom line. The expectations were low...these women never wanted to become engineers etc...Only over time as expectations changed, both of women and society that things changed at NASA.”
It may be interesting to know that white and black women mathematicians did more or less the same work in NASA but lived highly segregated lives at that time.
Shetterly makes another telling comment, “Katherine Johnson and the other women never had the question, ‘Will anyone tell my story?’ Their response has been, ‘I was doing my job and did my job really well...These women remain modest even though they are grateful for finding recognition now...The response to the story from the very beginning has been very good and strong. Every story has its time...the time for this story is now and so I feel very fortunate.”
Carries conviction
Shetterly says her book carried greater conviction because Johnson still lives and in one of the interviews talks in a very matter of fact manner about the work she was doing. Her daughters are effusive. They say, “She sewed very well and so we always had special clothes. She cooked and made wonderful dishes...she could do anything. She always taught us to do our best. We knew that our mother was working in NASA but when you are working on a secret you do not bring your work home...most of our knowledge about her came from what we read about her and we would came back home and say, ‘Mom this book says you have done this…’.”
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Web links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHLBiTnp-uw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PylSoSRHGoI
