The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians who Helped Win the Space Race
Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly tells the untold story of the African American women mathematicians who played a vital role in the American space program. Their perseverance and contributions paved the way for equality and progress in the STEM industry.
Neil Armstrong didn’t fly to the moon and back on his own. There were many people hard at work behind the scenes, most of whom haven’t had their stories told until now.
Before it became the National Aeronautics and Space Agency in 1958, NASA was known as NACA, or the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, and its research headquarters were located at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, in Hampton, Virginia.
NACA, founded in 1917, was originally a place where warplanes and other kinds of machines for flight were developed. This all changed during the Cold War with the Soviet Union when NACA turned into NASA and devoted itself to winning the space race.
In the 1940s, Langley hired its first black employees as “computers,” since they would be performing mathematical computations. Prior to the forties, racial discrimination prevented these jobs from being accessible to black people.
But this changed thanks in part to pioneering civil-rights activists like A. Philip Randolph, who threatened to send 100,000 protesters to march on the capitol to bring discrimination to national attention.
So, in 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, which desegregated the defence industry, and Executive Order 9346, which created the Fair Employment Practices Committee.
While these orders allowed black women to work at Langley, it was still a segregated workplace. In fact, the first group of black women there were known as the “West Computers,” since they all worked on the west side of Langley’s campus, separate from the white employees.
Nonetheless, they were still at the heart of Langley’s operations, and their story is a vital part in key twentieth-century developments like World War II, the Cold War and the space race, as well as the civil rights movement and the transition to electronic computing.
Some of these women have been duly recognized, such as Katherine Johnson, who was given the highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 2015. Yet the majority of the world is still unaware that there was a team of all-black, all-female math whizzes helping the United States explore space.
Hidden Figures (2016) reveals the untold story of the black female mathematicians who helped send John Glenn on his first orbit around the Earth and Neil Armstrong to the moon. These courageous, trailblazing women answered the call of duty by leaving their teaching jobs in segregated Southern schools behind and helping to shape the modern space program.
Ich bin begeistert. Ich liebe Bücher aber durch zwei kleine Kinder komme ich einfach nicht zum Lesen. Und ja, viele Bücher haben viel bla bla und die Quintessenz ist eigentlich ein Bruchteil.
Genau dafür ist Blinkist total genial! Es wird auf das Wesentliche reduziert, die Blinks sind gut verständlich, gut zusammengefasst und auch hörbar! Das ist super. 80 Euro für ein ganzes Jahr klingt viel, aber dafür unbegrenzt Zugriff auf 3000 Bücher. Und dieses Wissen und die Zeitersparnis ist unbezahlbar.
Extrem empfehlenswert. Statt sinnlos im Facebook zu scrollen höre ich jetzt täglich zwischen 3-4 "Bücher". Bei manchen wird schnelle klar, dass der Kauf unnötig ist, da schon das wichtigste zusammen gefasst wurde..bei anderen macht es Lust doch das Buch selbständig zu lesen. Wirklich toll
Einer der besten, bequemsten und sinnvollsten Apps die auf ein Handy gehören. Jeden morgen 15-20 Minuten für die eigene Weiterbildung/Entwicklung oder Wissen.
Viele tolle Bücher, auf deren Kernaussagen reduziert- präzise und ansprechend zusammengefasst. Endlich habe ich das Gefühl, Zeit für Bücher zu finden, für die ich sonst keine Zeit habe.
Hol dir mit Blinkist die besten Erkenntnisse aus mehr als 7.000 Sachbüchern und Podcasts. In 15 Minuten lesen oder anhören!
Jetzt kostenlos testen
Blink 3 von 12 - Eine kurze Geschichte der Menschheit
von Yuval Noah Harari
