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The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race
William Morrow
September 2016
On Sale: September 6, 2016
368 pages
ISBN: 006236359X
EAN: 9780062363596
Kindle: B0166JFFD0
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction History
The phenomenal true story of the black female mathematicians at NASA at the leading edge of the feminist and civil rights movement, whose calculations helped fuel some of Americaโs greatest achievements in spaceโa powerful, revelatory contribution that is as essential to our understanding of race, discrimination, and achievement in modern America as Between the World and Me and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. 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 dedicated female mathematicians known as โhuman computersโ 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 Southโs segregated public schools, they were called into service during the labor shortages of World War II, when Americaโs 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 Samโs call, moving to Hampton, Virginia and the fascinating, high-energy world of the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory. Even as Virginiaโs Jim Crow laws required them to be segregated from their white counterparts, the women of Langleyโs all-black โWest Computingโ 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 NASAโs 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 countryโs future.
 Media BuzzNews at 4: Wednesday Reads - January 11, 2017
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