Brooke is excited about this book because...
Whether you’ve seen the movie or not, there’s no better time to learn more about the fascinating story of the African-American female mathematicians and the essential role they played in getting American men to the moon. Long ignored by history, this story brings life the world in which they lived, the prejudice against which they struggled and the incredible feats they helped the American space program achieve.
About the book
Hidden Figures
by Margot Lee Shetterly
Before John Glenn orbited the earth, or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as “human computers” used pencils, slide rules and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space.
Among these problem-solvers were a group of exceptionally talented African American women, some of the brightest minds of their generation. Originally relegated to teaching math in the South’s segregated public schools, they were called into service during the labor shortages of World War II, when America’s aeronautics industry was in dire need of anyone who had the right stuff. Suddenly, these overlooked math whizzes had a shot at jobs worthy of their skills, and they answered Uncle Sam’s call, moving to Hampton, Virginia and the fascinating, high-energy world of the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory.
Even as Virginia’s Jim Crow laws required them to be segregated from their white counterparts, the women of Langley’s all-black “West Computing” group helped America achieve one of the things it desired most: a decisive victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and complete domination of the heavens.
Starting in World War II and moving through to the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement and the Space Race, Hidden Figures follows the interwoven accounts of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Christine Darden, four African American women who participated in some of NASA’s greatest successes. It chronicles their careers over nearly three decades they faced challenges, forged alliances and used their intellect to change their own lives, and their country’s future.
Applicable categories for the Urban Read Harder Challenge:
Diverse History
Make Beyonce Proud
True Stories Well Told
For fans of
- Non-fiction
- Science
- History
- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
About the reader
Brooke Roberts, History
Brooke has recommended the following books in the past:
- The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan
- Chinese Lessons by John Pomfret