The #1 New York Times bestseller
The phenomenal true story of the black female mathematicians at NASA whose calculations helped fuel some of America’s greatest achievements in space. Soon to be a major motion picture starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monae, Kirsten Dunst, and Kevin Costner.
Before John Glenn orbited the earth, or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of … 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.
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I am about half way through this book. It is an absolutely fascinating history of NACA that became NASA. It is about black women scientists and their struggles to gain equality as engineers. While it addresses the brave women who insisted on moving forward and using their talents, it is so much more. It recounts the period of time when the USA was great; when excellence and scientific inquiry produced an exciting period of discovery and advancement. One of the best books I have read in a while!
Highly, highly, highly recommend this story of the unsung heroines of NASA.
Shetterly has done an immense service to humankind to record this phenomenal story of the black women mathematicians who were key in saving the space race. Their triumph cannot be overstated. I enjoyed the movie as well, especially the amazing trip of the main actresses, but it is nonetheless guilty of whitewashing the real story with a white salvation subplot (Kevin Costner ripping off the sign to the colored bathroom). That never happened. Indeed, Shetterley’s book shows how the black women mathematicians of NASA needed no white saviors. They blazed their own paths with their astounding achievements.
The story behind the movie. Hidden Figures is the true story of the black women who worked in the West Computing area of NACA / NASA’s Langley Research Center starting in the 1940s. These women persevered during an age when women in the workforce were only essential due to the war effort and black women in mathematics and engineering roles were unheard of. This book is not just about these women human computers who help John Glenn reach the moon, but about Civil Rights in the Jim Crow south in the 40s-60s.
Well written and well researched, Shetterly captures the spirit of these women and the bond they developed charting unknown territory. It is a short book that I think could have been expanded, but is a nice overview of these inspirational women.
Excellent piece of history, my bookclub read and we are going to see the movie, very good for a book club discussion. Very informative, I learned a lot, an excellent easy to read book.
Through the lives of female black mathematicians, Dorothy Vaughan, Katherine Goble Johnson and Mary Jackson who worked for NASA (originally NACA) I got a real sense, sadly, of what it must be like to live with segregation and discrimination.
I know there are many outstanding people of the past whose achievements have not been celebrated but it astounded me that the story of these remarkable women stayed hidden for so long given their contribution to a hugely significant event in the space program. What they accomplished is, without question, inspiring but their determination and sense of purpose is even more so.
Margo Lee Shetterly has given us a well written, well researched book and a gripping story.
I wanted to read the book before I saw the movie. While the story is one that NEEDS to be told, the writing is a bit clumsy. It seemed at times that I was rereading the same passages in different places, lots of repetition. And even with that I would forget who was who. I think it suffered from the fact hat I had great expectations. Perhaps if I had not heard people rave about the movie I would have enjoyed the book more. I really cannot believe I have been alive this long and did NOT know about these women and their accomplishments and contributions
If you saw the movie you only got about 25% of what the book has to offer. The insights into the NASA, women and blacks is an amazing story from WWII to post lunar landings. An exciting, important time in this country. This true story is truly entertaining and insightful. I highly recommend it.
There is a lot to like about this book. These are great stories about the mostly unsung black women who served as applied mathematicians and engineers for NACA and NASA. For me what made the book stand out was how the women overcame personal, societal and engineering challenges because they were so damn smart and determined. My only complaint is that somehow the way author told the stories, they seemed to lose a bit of their narrative force. Might be closer to 3.5 stars than 4 stars.
Amazing how women of color have had their place in history overlooked. Glad to see someone is researching this and bringing this information to the fore.
This book is sooo much more than the movie. The movie is inaccurate in quite a few details, quite whitewashed. I did like seeing the movie because I could envision many of the characters and places although I had to re-envision a few of them in accordance with the true depictions in the book. It is a fascinating true tale of the evolution of NASA, of aeronautical research and of women/black women’s rights in the industry, and much more. It includes a good amount of scientific detail, but the prose was interesting and easy to follow.
Good book. I learned a lot. Told as a narrative, very little dialogue. And, this is not the same story as in the movie, although the movie was based on this.
For readers who have only seen the movie, there is plenty to recommend the book. There are more characters, more anecdotes, better detail, and a longer time line. I thoroughly enjoyed both the book and the movie. The book provided a longer enjoyable visit with these intelligent, gracious, principled, patriotic Americans who made the space program possible.
The book is full of details regarding the NASA engineering program (a few too many details for me) and details of educated, talented, black female mathematicians and engineers who aspire to reach the highest career pinnacles they can. They must navigate the rules of society designed prevent them from becoming highly educated and keep them in their place, i.e. lowly. As an immigrant to this country, I was saddened and shocked at the treatment of black people revealed in the book. I have a black grandson-in-law. After I read this book, we had many in depth conversations about being black in America in this day and age. There is still a lot for a black person to overcome. For entertainment, I found the movie more engaging as the personal stories of the black women was clearer for me, but I was glad I had read the detail in the book as background to the movie. I was also impressed that NASA took action to make their campus as prejudice free as possible. The focus was on the work and winning the race to the moon and not on separate facilities for black and white.
I don’t believe I’ve ever previously uttered the words, “Gee, I think that book would actually be better as a movie.” In the case of Margot Lee Shetterly’s Hidden Figures, though, that really is my sentiment. It’s not – and I want to say this unequivocally – that this is in any way a bad book. Far from it. It is true, though, that Shetterly devotes nearly as much time to the differential equations, physics, and aerodynamics research as she does to her main characters. That’s a shame only in that Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, and Katherine Johnson, in particular, are fascinating individuals about whom I hungered to learn even more.
Let me back up for a minute. Hidden Figures is the story of the female mathematicians, and especially and more specifically the black female mathematicians, whose contributions and calculations were pivotal in the early days of NASA (and its predecessor, NACA), but were largely unrecorded. In this way, it is not unlike The Girls of Atomic City, which records the history of the “girls” whose work on the a-bomb was so crucial, and yet generally unknown. What makes Hidden Figures is more fascinating, and its protagonists that much more amazing, is that these were black women working on some of the country’s most pressing issues – and doing it from an office in the Jim Crow South.
To a woman, they are outrageously smart, strong willed, gender-busting, race-busting, pioneers and – dare I say – heroines. They certainly would not use those descriptors themselves, but reading of what they overcame, endured, and accomplished, the adjectives seem apt. Shetterly brings these women to life. Although her writing can alternate between mighty dry (here’s looking at you, differential equations) and wonderfully vivid (“sounding shockingly calm for a man who just minutes before was preparing himself to die in a flying funeral pyre”), this is a highly readable and utterly fascinating story. Going back to my initial comment that I’m sure this story is even better as a movie is an assumption (I haven’t seen the movie) that on screen the focus is more on the “girls” and less on formulas.
(This review was originally published at http://www.thisyearinbooks.com/2017/07/hidden-figures-american-dream-and.html.)
waiting to read
While this is an important and informative book, I did not find it particularly easy to read. I have heard the film is better.
The movie was better.
The women who helped launch out space program. I hope everyone reads this to know that women can do the math and not just women, but women of color. I was a kid when the space program was going with Gemini and then Apollo when they landed on the moon in 1969. Without these women, it would have never happened.
This nonfiction account of black female mathematicians’ invaluable contributions to the space program should be a must-read for all Americans. Although completely factual, the writing is accessible and reads almost like a novel.