Sloan Foundation to support her research. In 2014, Shetterly sold a 50-page proposal for Hidden Figures to the publisher William and Morrow, then won a grant from the Alfred P.

She eventually shifted gears to publishing and in 2005 moved to Valle de Bravo, Mexico, with her husband Aran, where they spent 11 years publishing the magazine “Inside Mexico.” Shetterly, herself comfortable with calculations, graduated from the University of Virginia and landed in the financial sector, working for J.P. And not just because they are black, or because they are women, but because they are part of the American epic.” “Not as a separate history, but as a part of the story we all know… the protagonists of the drama. “What I wanted was for them to have the grand, sweeping narrative that they deserved, the kind of American history that belongs to the Wright Brothers and the astronauts,” Shetterly writes. It made possible the work that came next-devoted and indispensable-from black women whose calculations allowed the country to successfully send astronauts into orbit, and to the moon and back. Roosevelt to sign Executive Order 8802, which prohibited racial discrimination in the national defense industry. The book begins in 1943 amid a World War II-driven labor shortage, leveraged by Civil Rights leader A. Through hundreds of interviews and via thousands of documents, Shetterly tells their stories. Hidden Figures brings four particularly vivid women out of the shadows-Dorothy Vaughan, Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson and Christine Darden. But it took the fresh eyes of a visit home in 2010 to trigger Shetterly’s curiosity-then near-obsession-with the many black women mathematicians who had worked for NASA.

This book brings to life the stories of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden, who lived through the Civil Rights era, the Space Race, the Cold War, and the movement for gender equality, and whose work forever changed the face of NASA and the country.Margot Lee Shetterly grew up in Hampton, Va., the daughter of two people with doctorates-Robert Benjamin Lee, a NASA research scientist, and Margaret G. It's the powerful story of four African-American female mathematicians at NASA who helped achieve some of the greatest moments in our space program.īefore 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. This edition of Margot Lee Shetterly's acclaimed book is perfect for young readers.

Hidden figures by margot lee shetterly