A movie called "Hidden Figures" was produced and released in 2016 that chronicled three women's journey towards NASA. It highlights the adversity they faced not just based off of their race but also their gender, demonstrating how they were able to break down barriers to achieve the impossible in science and in social aspects of America.
Dorothy Vaughan was NASA's first African American supervisor who unfortunately passed away in 2008. In 1949, she was promoted to lead a group at NASA becoming NASA's first black supervisor and one of the only female supervisors. She was credited as charismatic, commanding and assertive which made her ideal to lead people or the "human computers", the women who help calculate and run through the math behind NASA's missions. Vaughan's intelligence was demonstrated in numerous ways. She received a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics from Wilberforce University and engineer's even admitted to valuing her work and requesting her specifically to work on their projects.
Katherine Johnson was a mathematician who is best known for calculating the trajectories for the Friendship 7 mission but her intelligence extends much more. Johnson is still alive today and in 2015, then president Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her distinguished thirty-three-year career at Langley Research. Johnson also worked on the Apollo missions and Space shuttle programs. Johnson was one of the three black students to help integrate West Virginia's graduate schools, receiving Bachelors in Mathematics and French at West Virginia State. At the age of ten, she became a high school freshman and at the age of eighteen, she attended college, graduating with some of the highest honors in her youth. Johnson eventually left graduate school in order to start her own family and in 1952, a relative told her about available positions at Langley Laboratory She spent the next four years analyzing data from flight tests and plane crashes. Johnson is of the age ninety-nine but has expressed her concern for today's youth becoming too fixated and reliant on the internet, refusing to exercise their brain to learn.
Mary Jackson was the only black female aeronautical engineer in her area in the 1950s after she overcame multiple obstacles that people put in front of her to prevent her from reaching her position. She died in 2005 and really took the title "human computer' to hear, becoming NASA's first black female engineer. She earned a dual bachelor in Math and Physician Science from Hampton Institute and joined NASA in 1951 after her of opportunities for her.
These three women were instrumental towards not just science but also towards women's roles and Civil Rights. While they are seldom spoken of, they provide great change and became great role models for youth nationwide.
Dorothy Vaughan was NASA's first African American supervisor who unfortunately passed away in 2008. In 1949, she was promoted to lead a group at NASA becoming NASA's first black supervisor and one of the only female supervisors. She was credited as charismatic, commanding and assertive which made her ideal to lead people or the "human computers", the women who help calculate and run through the math behind NASA's missions. Vaughan's intelligence was demonstrated in numerous ways. She received a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics from Wilberforce University and engineer's even admitted to valuing her work and requesting her specifically to work on their projects.
Katherine Johnson was a mathematician who is best known for calculating the trajectories for the Friendship 7 mission but her intelligence extends much more. Johnson is still alive today and in 2015, then president Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her distinguished thirty-three-year career at Langley Research. Johnson also worked on the Apollo missions and Space shuttle programs. Johnson was one of the three black students to help integrate West Virginia's graduate schools, receiving Bachelors in Mathematics and French at West Virginia State. At the age of ten, she became a high school freshman and at the age of eighteen, she attended college, graduating with some of the highest honors in her youth. Johnson eventually left graduate school in order to start her own family and in 1952, a relative told her about available positions at Langley Laboratory She spent the next four years analyzing data from flight tests and plane crashes. Johnson is of the age ninety-nine but has expressed her concern for today's youth becoming too fixated and reliant on the internet, refusing to exercise their brain to learn.
Mary Jackson was the only black female aeronautical engineer in her area in the 1950s after she overcame multiple obstacles that people put in front of her to prevent her from reaching her position. She died in 2005 and really took the title "human computer' to hear, becoming NASA's first black female engineer. She earned a dual bachelor in Math and Physician Science from Hampton Institute and joined NASA in 1951 after her of opportunities for her.
These three women were instrumental towards not just science but also towards women's roles and Civil Rights. While they are seldom spoken of, they provide great change and became great role models for youth nationwide.
Sources:
https://www.npr.org/2016/12/16/505569187/hidden-figures-no-more-meet-the-black-women-who-helped-send-america-to-space
https://www.nasa.gov/content/katherine-johnson-biography
https://www.nasa.gov/content/dorothy-vaughan-biography
https://www.nasa.gov/content/mary-jackson-biography
https://www.biography.com/people/mary-winston-jackson-120616
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/sep/22/hidden-figures-mathematician-katherine-johnson-nasa-facility-open
Great post! I enjoyed your insightful explanations of the impact of these hidden figures on space technology. Another hidden figure (except not in aerospace) during this time period was Raye Montague, who was the first person to design a ship using the computer. She was also the first female program manager of ships in the history of the US Navy.
ReplyDeletehttp://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/meet-woman-broke-barriers-hidden-figure-us-navy/story?id=45566924
I really enjoyed this post. While the movie has been enjoyed by a lot of people, most people do not know the immense historical context behind this. Obviously, race plays a large part in the story of these women. The changing attitudes with regard to race's role in the workplace helped one woman especially, Dorothy Vaughan, get her career in NASA started. Roosevelt signed laws that prevent racial discrimination in any of the jobs in the National Defense Industry. It was because of this change that Vaughan, who was in one of the first groups of African Americans to be hired as mathematicians, was able to get hired and establish a place at NASA.
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