Hidden figures

the untold true story of four African-American women who helped launch our nation into space

231 pages

English language

Published May 11, 2016 by HarperCollins.

ISBN:
9780062662385
OCLC Number:
964450826

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4 stars (1 review)

Before John Glenn orbited the Earth or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of professionals worked as "Human Computers," calculating the flight paths that would enable these historic achievements. Among these were a coterie of bright, talented African-American women. Segregated from their white counterparts by Jim Crow laws, these "colored computers," as they were known, used slide rules, adding machines, and pencil and paper to support America's fledgling aeronautics industry, and helped write the equations that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space. Drawing on the oral histories of scores of these "computers," personal recollections, interviews with NASA executives and engineers, archival documents, correspondence, and reporting from the era, Hidden Figures recalls America's greatest adventure and NASA's groundbreaking successes through the experiences of five spunky, courageous, intelligent, determined, and patriotic women: Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, Christine Darden, and Gloria Champine. Moving from World War II through …

25 editions

Subjects

  • Officials and employees
  • Women mathematicians
  • Space race
  • United States
  • African American mathematicians
  • United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
  • African American women
  • United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration
  • African Americans
  • Juvenile literature
  • Biography
  • Women

Places

  • United States