Margot Lee Shetterly’s Hidden
Figures: Young Readers’ Edition explores some of the history of women in
computing and events within the nascent National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA), but most dramatically and importantly the historic role
of black women at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory’s West Campus.
It tells the true story of four pioneering “computers” (humans who used
calculating machines) who by their wits, will and sheer mathematical skill, made
their mark on a world that excluded African Americans, and certainly women,
from many roles. Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Christine
Darden, early on, were pleased to be hired as computers because “for ambitious
young women with mathematical minds, there wasn’t a better job in the world.”
Their paths were rough, however, as they faced discrimination at every turn;
they knew they had to prove themselves doubly well. Against the backdrop of the
growing civil rights movement, these women showed extraordinary determination
as they advanced in their professions and made game-changing contributions in
the international space race dominating the public’s attention. Ages 8-12.
