Bedtime Biography: Hidden Figures summary

Before there was NASA, there was NACA, or the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.

In May 1943, NACA was having a problem. The need for more warplanes in World War II triggered a rapid expansion of the US aircraft industry and put pressure on the agency to keep up with demand. At the same time, the war was draining the usual pool of hires who'd fill the new, open positions – namely, men. So, for the first time, women were hired to perform mathematical computations. This earned them the nickname “Computers.” But it was an era in which only 10 percent of white women received college degrees, and so there just weren’t enough qualified white mathematicians to go around. 

Once the war had ended, the United States had to reconcile both its collective psyche and its economy with the ensuing peace. Female employees across the country, both Black and white, were no longer in high demand. Many – two million, to be exact – were fired and expected to go back to domestic life. 

A lot of them welcomed the change and were happy to give up the stressful wartime work in favor of marrying and starting families with the men they’d met on the job. But some, like Dorothy, had built new lives during the war and didn’t want to leave. Langley acknowledged that her years of experience made her an invaluable resource to the agency and offered her a permanent position. And so, in the same way she’d had to figure out aeronautical research techniques on the job, she now had to navigate more uncharted territory: figuring out how to advance as a woman in a profession dominated by men. 

In 1953, Katherine Goble joined the ranks of NACA’s West Computers. Katherine had inherited her father’s talent with people and math, and she’d taken to heart a lesson he instilled in her: “You are no better than anyone else, and no one is better than you.” A truly remarkable person, young Katherine would often leave her own classroom to help her older brother with his lessons. And, over the course of one summer, she picked up fluent French at the hotel her father worked at by eavesdropping on an actress’s telephone calls and practicing with the cook.

Like Dorothy, Katherine started college on a full scholarship at just 15-years-old. By 18, she’d graduated with degrees in math and French, and had planned on pursuing math in graduate school. But becoming a mother put her dream of being a research mathematician on hold. Chance and opportunity, though, would eventually lure it back.

In 1959, NASA decided it was time to put an American man into space. The agency presented the “Mercury Seven” astronauts to the world – men who’d been selected according to Goldilocks-like requirements: not too tall, not too heavy, not too old . . . the list went on and on. 

One of these men was former marine test pilot John Glenn, who’d go on to become the first American to make an orbital flight around Earth. This feat required the utmost precision and accuracy: he’d have to be launched at exactly the right angle and with the perfect amount of force so that his capsule would shoot up through the atmosphere, orbit Earth, come back down, and land close to the Navy ships waiting to retrieve him.

You’ve reached the end of this Bedtime Biography. Thank you for listening. Why not pause listening now so you can stay in a relaxed state? And if you’re off to bed now, I wish you a good night’s sleep.