Here are brief biographies of these women: Jackson hailed from Hampton, Virginia. Scientific American is part of Springer Nature, which owns or has commercial relations with thousands of scientific publications (many of them can be found at, contributed to a satellite-launching rocket called Scout, 'Hidden Figures': 'The Right Stuff' vs. Real Stuff in New Film About NASA History, How 'Hidden Figures' Came Together: Interview with Author Margot Shetterly, 'Hidden Figures' Movie Probes Little-Known Heroes of 1960s NASA, Hubble Captures Close-Up of Comet NEOWISE, Proposed House Bill Would Delay NASA's Return to the Moon, SpaceX to Make Starlink Satellites Dimmer to Lessen Impact on Astronomy, China's Chang'e 5 Lands on Moon to Collect Fresh Samples, The Arecibo Radio Telescope's Massive Platform Has Collapsed, China's Chang'e-5 Mission Launches to Collect Lunar Samples. She began her career as a schoolteacher, and took on several other jobs before joining NACA. After 30 years with NACA and NASA (at which point she was an engineer), Jackson decided to become an equal opportunity specialist to help women and minorities. Plot Summary Hidden Figures is based in the 60s when women and coloured people were given the `treatment’ in America. Revealing the inspirational untold story of female African-American mathematicians working at NASA during the 1960s, the film Hidden Figures is based on a book by Margot Lee Shetterly. According to Barry, that's pretty much exactly how he was. Hollywood's latest propaganda is the movie "Hidden Figures" which tries to portray a story that a handful of black ladies were the key to the Apollo moon shot and that they had to battle racism to accomplish their feat. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Hidden Figures : The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped, This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. To do that, however, she needed to take after-work graduate courses held at segregated Hampton High School. They became known as the "West Computers." Two years later, when the college chose to integrate its graduate schools, Johnson and two male students were offered spots. Copyright 2016 SPACE.com, a Purch company. NY TRUMPER. — Kenneth Chisholm As the United States raced against Russia to put a man in space, NASA found untapped talent in a group of African-American female mathematicians that served as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in U.S. history. Based on a true story, Hidden Figures follows the events of the U.S. and Russian race to put the first man in orbit. " Hidden Figures," a 2016 book by Margot Lee Shetterly and a movie based on the book, celebrates the contributions of some of those workers. Here are four other women from that era. (Inside Science) -- The Oscar-nominated movie "Hidden Figures" brought significant attention to the accomplishments of Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson and Dorothy Vaughan -- three African-American women who worked for NASA during the space race. For example: Williamina Fleming is best known for classifying stars based on their temperature, and Annie Jump Cannon developed a stellar classification system still used today (from coolest to hottest stars: O, B, A, F, G, K, M.). The book takes place from the 1930s through the 1960s when some viewed women as inferior to men. Editor's note: After we published this story on Dec. 21, 2016 Hidden Figures was nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Picture. As Spencer tells Popular Mechanics, Vaughan struggled with the same things all female computers did while at NASA. For NASA to get John Glenn into space and home safely, institutions that supported prejudices and biases needed to start tumbling down. Themes of Hidden Figures include racism, sexism, and the drive to achieve something. While Johnson is the main character, Hidden Figures also follows the trajectories of Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson as they work on the Friendship Seven blast-off. The movie muddies the timeline a bit, but Johnson's first big NASA assignment was computing the trajectories for Alan Shepard's historic flight in 1961. 7 White People Are Bad, Black People Are the Greatest Days! Like in the movie, she worked with airplanes in the Guidance and Navigation Department. She attended a high school on the campus of West Virginia State College by age 13, and began attending the college at age 18. Although described as a behind-the-scenes sort of worker, she helped many people get promoted or become supervisors. This is a touching story of four African-American women who worked between 1941-1970 as computers for NASA to help the war effort in making jet planes fly faster and safer and later, rockets in the space program. In 2015, President Obama gave Katherine Johnson the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) was one of NACA's early computer hires during World War II. As Shetterly says to Popular Mechanics, the movie also focuses on Johnson, Jackson, and Vaughn's "transcendent sense of humanity" that allowed them to endure. These women made discoveries still fundamental to astronomy today. Katherine Johnson, the movie's protagonist, was something of a child prodigy. In the 1960s, Mercury astronauts Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, John Glenn and others absorbed the accolades of being the first men in space. Hidden Figures is a 2016 American biographical drama film directed by Theodore Melfi and written by Melfi and Allison Schroeder. The story of … After graduating with highest honors, she started work as a schoolteacher in 1937. Jackson petitioned the City of Hampton to be able to learn next to her white peers. ‘Hidden Figures’ is exelent film tell story about The untold story of Katherine G. Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson – brilliant African-American women working at NASA and serving as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in history – the launch of astronaut John Glenn into orbit. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io, The Best Documentaries to Stream on Netflix, All the Sci-Fi Movies You Need to See in 2019. Johnson's main job in the lead-up and during the mission was to double-check and reverse engineer the newly-installed IBM 7090s trajectory calculations. How we test gear. Nonetheless, it was a huge success and NASA immediately set their sights on America's first orbital mission. The women who helped pioneer space travel have rocketed into the public eye thanks to the acclaimed movie " Hidden Figures ". HIDDEN FIGURES is the incredible untold story of Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae)-brilliant African-American women working at NASA, who served as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in history: the launch of astronaut John Glenn into orbit, a stunning achievement that restored the nation's … And yet, despite the accolades and getting the Hollywood treatment, she told the audience in May that she was just doing her job and "it was just another day's work.". This competition is now closed. "The conflict of working outside of the home to provide the best life for your children and, yet, not physically being there. Jackson responds, "I wouldn't have too. " Hidden Figures," a 2016 book by Margot Lee Shetterly and a movie based on the book, celebrates the contributions of some of those workers. Still, the law required that she and her black colleagues needed to work separately from white female computers, and the first supervisors were white. "Hidden Figures" focuses on three computers, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Dorothy Vaughan. Hidden Figures: The Real Story Hidden Figures tells the little-known story of a group of African American women who were recruited by Nasa and put to work on … The First She would retire from NASA in 1986. over 10,000 stars using a scheme she created, National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, hired five women to be their first computer pool, to desegregate West Virginia's state college, senior aeronautical research engineer Kazimierz Czarnecki, Lego 'Women of NASA' Up to #1 Toy on Amazon, The Secret of These Numbers Is in Plain Sight, How the Microwave Was Invented by AccidentÂ, Google and NASA Say Their Quantum Computer Finally Works. While they did the same work as their white counterparts, African-American computers were paid less and relegated to the segregated west section of the Langley campus, where they had to use separate dining and bathroom facilities. Her job during World War II was a temporary position, but (in part thanks to a new executive order prohibiting discrimination in the defense industry) she was hired on permanently because the laboratory had a wealth of data to process. The quote underlines this based-on-a-true-story movie. The computers worked at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory in Virginia. Subscribers get more award-winning coverage of advances in science & technology. He was always concerned about the people around him and it didn't matter what package they were in. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. Human computers were not a new concept. There's a short scene where Glenn is talking to reporters, and beside him there's a woman—Cece Bibby—painting the Friendship Seven logo onto the spacecraft. As chronicled in Dava Sobel's book The Glass Universe, these women were every bit as capable as men despite toiling under less-than-favorable conditions. Based on Margot Lee Shetterly’s non-fiction book of the same name, Hidden Figures introduces us to these inspirational women in 1961, working in a segregated section labelled “Black Computers”, encountering discrimination that today, less than six decades later, seems unimaginable. Gear-obsessed editors choose every product we review. ORDER HIDDEN FIGURES FROM GOOGLE PLAY click here to learn the fascinating untold story behind the upcoming fox movie. ", The film primarily focuses on John Glenn's 1962 trip around the globe and does add dramatic flourishes that are, well, Hollywood. You probably won’t recognise the names Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson and Dorothy Vaughan. Despite having the same education, they had to retake college courses they had already passed and were often never considered for promotions or other jobs within NACA. "Hidden Figures," which debuted in select U.S. theaters on Sunday (Dec. 25) and opens wide Jan. 6, tells the "untold story" of Dorothy Vaughan … For example, some of her math equations were used in a lecture series compendium called Notes on Space Technology.