Margot Lee Shetterly brings into view the crucial role played by four African-American women at NASA during segregation, 1940s-60s.
Genre: Books, Nonfiction.
Full Title: Hidden Figures — The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race.
Author: Margot Lee Shetterly, American nonfiction writer and magazine publisher.
Publisher: HarperCollins.
Place: New York, NY
Description: In Hidden Figures, Margot Lee Shetterly brings into fuller view the role played by Dorothy Vaughan, Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Christine Darden at NASA in the 1940s-60s, during a concerted push for achievement in aerospace engineering and administration.
Originally relegated to teaching math in the South’s segregated public schools, the four African-American women were called into service during the labor shortages of World War II, and became part of a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as “human computers,” who used pencils, slide rules, and adding machines to produce calculations that launched rockets and helped fuel some of America’s most significant successes in space.
Shetterly chronicles their careers over nearly three decades, as they faced the challenges of Jim-Crow-era segregation, forged alliances, and used their intellect to change their own lives as well as their country’s future. In Hidden Figures, Shetterly gives us a powerful, revelatory contribution to underwritten histories, essential to our understanding of race, discrimination, and achievement in modern America.
Released in the same year with a film adaptation — starring Octavia Spencer, Taraji P Henson, and Janelle Monáe — to considerable critical and popular acclaim.
For more details, see the book’s publication site at HarperCollins.
