Hidden Figures: The Untold Story of the African American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly

Hidden Figures: The Untold Story of the African American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I knew that this book told the tale – one that almost got lost to history – of the real life women who worked at NASA during the space race. (I also knew this was about African American women, since that was in the book title). What I didn’t know, though, was that the story was more – it was the story of these women who were instrumental in the space race, and told the tale of NASA itself, at least from its beginnings long ago when it worked as the NACA (1915-1958; National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics), up to the early 1970s (though the ‘more’ section after the end of the book brought things up to the 1980s).

Well, no, not from 1915. More from shortly before WWII up to the early 1970s. WWII, you see, saw a deep demand for workers – that eventually included those who weren’t lily white men (first with white women – who worked as ‘computers’ (with a very rare exception here or there who worked as engineers or scientists), then with those who weren’t lily white – ‘colored’ men and women. The women, even though many came to the agency with roughly the same education and training, and many times a lot more experience, coming in as ‘subprofessional’ ‘computers’, while the men most often came in as engineers.

The book follows some of the very important women who came in during WWII, worked at NACA until the USA was humiliated by sputnik, and NASA was created in 1958 (incorporating ‘all’ of the various US groups who had been working on space ‘stuff’). Then continues the story from there until . . well, I already said. I’m repeating myself. Heh.

A rather informative and interesting look back on history. Telling the story of those African American women working as professionals at NACA/NASA, and telling the story of the time – of the civil rights action going on at the same time as these scientific advancements were occurring. Also with a mention of how important Star Trek was (what with the third in command, as Martin Luther King, Jr. saw it, being a black woman (and how Nichelle Nichols had to be talked out of leaving the show by King).

NACA -
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NASA –
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January 24 2017




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