Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly (Book Review)

Title: Hidden Figures
Author: Margot Lee Shetterly
Publication: William Morrow, hardcover, 2016
Genre: Nonfiction/History/Women’s Studies

Plot: The phenomenal true story of the black female mathematicians at NASA whose calculations helped fuel some of America’s greatest achievements in space. Soon to be a major motion picture starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monae, Kirsten Dunst, and Kevin Costner, opening in January  2017.
Before John Glenn orbited the earth, or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as “human computers” 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 South’s segregated public schools, they were called into service during the labor shortages of World War II, when America’s 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 Sam’s call, moving to Hampton, Virginia and the fascinating, high-energy world of the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory.

Even as Virginia’s Jim Crow laws required them to be segregated from their white counterparts, the women of Langley’s all-black “West Computing” 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 NASA’s 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 country’s future.

 Purchase Links

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Audience: Fans of narrative history, civil rights, inspirational women - but this practically reads like a novel!

About the Author: Margot Lee Shetterly grew up in Hampton, Virginia, where she knew many of the women in Hidden Figures.  She is an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow and the recipient of a Virginia Foundation for the Humanities grant for her research on women in computing.  She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

My Impressions: I didn’t know much about this book before I started reading but was instantly hooked. I liked that author Shetterly became aware about these women and their history during an adult visit to her parents, learning her old Sunday School teacher had a personal story of such magnitude it simply had to be told. The book is thoroughly researched and beautifully written, and contains so many fascinating anecdotes that I kept reading aloud from it to my father, author of his own book about brave African-Americans making a difference (in his case, fighting for the right to vote). One of my favorite facts was that the black women working as computers (the word sounds strange to a modern audience but they were computing) were assigned to a cafeteria table that was labeled “Colored Computers” – the only group of employees with a designated seating area. Petite Miriam Mann kept making the sign disappear, causing her colleagues to fear there would be repercussions, but eventually some anonymous HR staffer gave up replacing the signs. I am sure I will enjoy the movie of this book as well, and it has a great cast.

Source: I received a copy of Hidden Figures from TLC Book Tours and William Morrow Books in return for a candid review. Thank you for the opportunity to read such a fascinating story!  For other stops on the Hidden Figures tour, see below:

September 6th: A Bookish Way of Life
September 7th: Doing Dewey
September 8th: Tina Says…
September 9th: Sapphire Ng
September 12th: Read. Write. Repeat.
September 13th: Kritters Ramblings
September 14th: Back Porchervations
September 15th: A Bookish Affair
September 16th: Reading Reality
September 19th: 100 Pages a Day…Stephanie’s Book Reviews
September 20th: In the Garden of Eva
September 22nd: View from the Birdhouse
September 26th: Man of La Book
September 27th: Gspotsylvania: Ramblings from a Reading Writer Who Rescues Birds and Beasts