Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly (review)

Almost 20 years ago, Jennifer Light wrote about the untold story of women's roles in early computer history.¹ Known as human computers, these women calculated ballistic trajectories and decrypted coded messages during the Second World War, often using the aid of machines, such as differential analyzers and desktop commercial calculators. Since then, historians of computing have continued to explore how analyzing the gender politics of computing can transform our narratives of the field.² Much of this work focuses on white women, and therefore Margot Lee Shetterly's book Hidden Figures stands out for its demonstration of how the histories of gender and race are entwined in the history of computing. A best seller with an award-winning film modeled after it, Hidden Figures shows us the highly capable, scientifically minded women of color who contributed to some of the most innovative technology in American history.

Hidden Figures tells the connected stories of the black women mathematicians who helped to put men on the moon and inhabited the spaces previously occupied only by white men. Because of the loss of manpower for labor during World War II, women were called by the US government to enlist in the workforce. Hundreds of women answered the call, but Shetterly focuses on a select few who stand out through their accomplishments and long careers at NASA. Through three intertwined personal stories, Shetterly shows how many of these "figures" began their work as computers in the segregated West Area computing pool for black women at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the precursor to NASA. Dorothy Vaughan became the first black manager of the West Area pool and later reinvented herself as a computer programmer, keenly aware of a shift from computing performed manually by humans to computing processed by room-sized machines. Katherine Johnson worked with engineers in the Flight Research Division where she eventually became the first female to have her name listed as an author of a report. Mary Jackson gained the title of engineer after attaining special permission to attend the whites-only local high school that offered night courses on engineering.

A fourth story enables Shetterly to address race and gender during NASA's origins. In 1958, after the West Area Computers Unit dissolved and NACA transitioned to NASA, Vaughan led an effort that enabled many West Area computers to become fully a part of NASA's research operations. This is the group that Christine Darden joined when she arrived at NASA in 1967, and that was crucial to major efforts such as John Glenn's orbital flight. Despite these achievements, Darden was aware of the still ongoing gender segregation at NASA, and indeed she asked her superiors "why is it that men get placed into engineering groups while women are sent to computing pools" (p. 261). She then transferred to the sonic boom engineering group, where she would become an internationally recognized expert in her field.

Shetterly discusses the history of segregation at Langley by emphasizing the management of the West Area pool, the use of "colored" restrooms, and the implementation of all-male meetings. The West Area women felt they had to prove themselves more capable than their white women counterparts and the male engineers with whom they worked just to gain access to many of the segregated spaces. They corrected each other's work, appearance, and demeanor, internalizing the need to be "twice as good to get half as far" (p. 48). Shetterly presents a "triumph of meritocracy" by focusing on the achievements and accomplishments of the women rather than the discriminatory institutional barriers. She aims to tell a story of hope, where "each of us should be allowed to rise as far as our talent and hard work can take us" (p. 247). Centering merit and ability allows for that story—one that...