Motivational Lessons In Hidden Figures

This is a book review of the book “Hidden Figures” authored by Margot Lee Shetterly and published by William Morrow and Company in September 2016. The volume of the book is 368 pages and its genre is biography, feminism, history, and science. The book revolved around three African-American women whose roles had significant impacts on the US space race at NASA’s Langley research center during the time where there was inequality, racism but scientific, social, and political developmental yet slow progress. The title of the book refers to two things as it has a double meaning. It refers to the calculations and women behind the great space achievements which were recorded in American history between the ’40s and ’70s.

The events in the book started to take place in the midst of world war II where The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) needed a variety of workers, including computers which were the name given to human calculators who were mainly women. Since Hampton was a segregated area back then, it took a lot of pressure and effort for black applicants to be considered and hired at NACA. African-American computers were hired and placed in a segregated campus called the West Area. This was the point where the hidden figures of this story were introduced.

After graduating from college, Dorothy Vaughan worked as a mathematics teacher which was a big deal considering the black community due to racial discrimination. After a lot of devotion and sacrifices which included leaving the comfort of her family and breaking it apart, Dorothy joined NACA as a computer. There were many times where Mrs. Vaughan’s job at NACA was jeopardized by circumstances but every time she dealt with matters pragmatically and fiercely. After the head of the West Area resigned, Dorothy was assigned as the new supervisor. Due to gender and race inequality, Katherine Johnson was not given the same support or opportunities offered to the superior race and gender. Although Katherine got into West Virginia State College with a full scholarship at the age of fifteen due to her academic excellence in mathematics, Katherine’s career success was always held back because of her gender and color. Katherine worked as a math teacher and pursued graduate studies in mathematics before joining NACA under Dorothy’s supervision. Mary Jackson worked as a teacher and secretary before joining the West computing team at Langley where she faced a lot of communism, sexism, and racial discrimination. However, black women including her were motivated to give their best under Dorothy’s supervision. Despite the slow yet significant progress Dorothy has achieved on behalf of her gender and mostly race, her division was at risk to become obsolete when NACA installed international business machines (IBM) which was able to proceed with way more calculations in no time compared to human computers. Dorothy learned how to code and deal with IBM to make herself and her team indispensable. America’s competitor, Russia, sent its first satellite into space which frustrated and scared the Americans. The US scrambled to catch up with Russia, sending satellites in orbit. Congress did not want to waste any more money funding failed space attempts. Despite that and coming up with racism, Katherine maintained her enthusiasm and dedication to her work and used her intelligence to help the US fight its way in the space race. Due to the non-existent protocol that would allow women into the editorial meetings, Katherine was unable to work effectively as the data was not delivered to her as soon as they were available. Her persistence got her entry to those meetings and her analytical geometry skills played a vital role in the success of the first manned space mission named Mercury. After many failed attempts, the space agency sent a manned capsule that orbited the earth’s surface. Katherine played a major role in space scientific progress. Mary was later sent to the East Area to work with engineer Kazimierz Czarnecki who supported her and offered her a job on his team. He encouraged Mary to become an engineer instead of being a computer after seeing what she was capable of. She was informed that her credentials were not sufficient enough to make her a qualified applicant and that she needed to take some advanced extension courses to be allowed in the engineering training program at NACA. To achieve that, Mary filed a petition to attend courses at the segregated Hampton high school since she could not attend the University of Virginia. Her persistence paid off, making her the first colored woman to attend an all-white school. In 1957, astronaut John Glenn’s successful space flight ensured the future of the space agency. Katherine’s hard work, devotion and dedication gained Glenn’s trust which made him insist that Katherine should be the one double-checking the mathematical calculations used in sending him to space. In 1958, NACA has renamed the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Katherine continued to work at NASA and helped make the dream of sending men to the moon come to reality. Her triumphant ending proved that persistence, intelligence, dedication, and devotion along with community support could make the impossible possible. Despite the doubt she continued to received when she joined NASA because of her color, she proved herself to be as competent as her white male coworker. In 1971, Dorothy retired but her legacy continues where many females and black workers continue to thrive on Langley’s campus thanks to her contribution to making impossible opportunities possible for them. After contributing to NASA’s success, women like Mary were not equal to men which made Mary decide to work in the human resources department where she pushed for women's advancement, hoping to ensure gender equality in the workplace.

The book was great as the author emphasized the issues that rose in African-American history, visualizing them to the reader by using linguistic words and expressions. She highlighted community support and feminism, breaking ignorance about the space history involved with racism and sexism. In addition to this, the author also included how the characters stood against discrimination, contributing to a better future for females and colored individuals. However, it might be argued that this book was bad in terms of quality. The author’s arguments contained circular reasoning where the concepts kept being repeated over and over the chapters. The chapters switched from character to character, and the book did not include the character’s personal lives which did not enable the readers to connect with them. Thus, the author kind of failed to deliver how oppressed and segregated colored people were.

In conclusion, the book was great despite not having the optimum writing quality. There were many histories and motivational lessons taught in “Hidden figures”. African-American were segregated everywhere where they had colored-signed washrooms, showers, meal halls, and public transportation. As if that was not enough racism, using public transportation posed a risk for American-Africans' safety. They were either dragged off the buses or beaten by the police. They also had to work harder than the white citizens in hopes of securing their precarious jobs with a relatively lower salary. In addition to this, America refused to provide equal education to all children where schools that stood up against segregation got shut. It was also frustrating to black activists to see that many resources were provided for space research rather than providing them for the struggled black families who were barely afforded to eat. There was a significant yet slow change where if it was not for the black activists and lawyer, black people who achieved great things in science would have not been able to pursue graduate studies which were an essential key. What Katherine, Dorothy, and Mary achieved proved the point that colored and female individuals are capable in sciences just as much as white men.