The events of the time period at Langley are filtered through their personal experiences. The four women provide the framework of almost every chapter. Shetterly makes the narrative of Hidden Figures feel cohesive using techniques that include point-of-view characters (like Johnson, Vaughan, and so on) and continual comparison. What techniques does Shetterly use to make that story feel cohesive? In sweeping, dramatic detail, she sheds light on a forgotten but key chapter in our history, and instills in us a sense of wonder, and possibility.Hidden Figures tells a story that spans three decades, during which there's a world war and multiple social and scientific movements that affect thousands of Langley employees. She shows us the surprising ways that women and people of color have contributed to American innovation while pursuing the American Dream.
In this keynote, Margot Lee Shetterly talks about race, gender, science, the history of technology, and much more. They were part of a group of hundreds of black and white women who, over the decades, contributed to some of NASA’s greatest successes. Even as Jim Crow laws segregated them from their white counterparts, the women of this all-black “West Computing” group helped America achieve a decisive victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War. Suddenly, these overlooked math whizzes had jobs worthy of their skills at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, in Hampton, Virginia. Teaching math at segregated schools in the South, they were called into service during the WWII labor shortages. Set against the rich backdrop of World War II, the Space Race, the Civil Rights Era, and the burgeoning fight for gender equality, this talk brings to life the stories of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden, who worked as mathematicians at NASA during the golden age of space travel. Audiences of all backgrounds will be captivated by the phenomenal true story of the black “human computers” who used math to change their own lives-and their country’s future.
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