Hidden Figures: Young Readers Edition

Mary Jackson began working as a human computer in 1951 and became NASA’s first female African American engineer. She grew up in Hampton, Virginia, and studied math and science at the Hampton Institute. After graduation, she found a job as a schoolteacher in Maryland. However, a year later, Mary’s father fell ill, and Mary had to return to Virginia to care for him. This incident highlights the burden placed on women that held them back from professional achievement. Back home, Mary worked at a community center and married Levi Jackson. She had a son and became a stay-at-home mom. When she wasn’t caring for her son, Mary stayed busy in her community. She especially loved leading her local Girl Scout troop and supporting the “organization’s commitment to preparing women to take their place in the world” (78). This foreshadows her future as a role model for women in math and science.

Among the four women in the book, Mary stands out for her commitment to community service and helping the next generation. She embodies Fighting Discrimination Through Community Support. During her time at NASA, she continued the work at the local Girl Scout troop. She supported her own children in their endeavors and even partnered with a white woman working at NASA to speak to Black high school girls about jobs in math and science. Mary knew that her success was partly due to the women who came before her, and she was committed to supporting the next generation.

Shetterly explains that Mary saw life as “a long process of raising one’s expectations” (79). She was “an independent-minded woman” who refused to believe in the limits that society placed on her. At NACA, Mary often stood up for herself and spoke up against discrimination, which allowed her to advance professionally. In Chapter 11, when she tells a white engineer about the injustice of being forced to use the “colored” bathroom, he invites her to come work on his team and continues to encourage and support Mary to become an engineer herself. Furthermore, Mary had to stand up for herself again when she asked permission to take classes at the local all-white school. The permission was granted, and Mary took the classes she needed to become an engineer. These anecdotes convey the importance of voicing injustice.

Katherine Goble Johnson came to work at NACA in 1953 and would go on to perform key calculations for the space program. As a young girl, Katherine inherited her father’s reputation as a “math whiz.” She graduated high school early, at 14, and enrolled in the West Virginia State Institute for college. She took every math class that the university offered, so her professor began organizing special advanced classes just for her. He encouraged her to pursue graduate studies, believing that she would make an excellent research mathematician. However, becoming a mathematician would have been all but impossible for a Black woman in the 1930s, so Katherine became a teacher instead. She married Jimmy Goble but kept the marriage a secret because married women weren’t allowed to be teachers. By relaying this part of Katherine’s story, Shetterly conveys the myth of meritocracy and highlights obstacles relating to Race, Gender, and Professional Opportunities.

In the early 1940s, West Virginia was forced to integrate the state’s graduate schools because there were no graduate options for Black students. Katherine was chosen as one of three “unusually capable” candidates to be West Virginia State College’s first Black students. She studied mathematics for a semester but left school when she discovered that she was pregnant. Katherine had three daughters and went back to teaching school. In this sense, Shetterly compares Katherine’s story of motherhood to Mary’s to highlight the prevalence of gendered barriers to career advancement.

At NACA, Katherine distinguished herself with her persistence, dedication, and sharp mind. Her tenacity and strength of character were also clear in her personal life as she coped with her husband’s death and became a single parent with “dignity.” When NACA became NASA, Katherine was determined to work on space travel. She was curious and learned everything she could about flying and space travel. Her persistence won her the respect of her colleagues, and she played an essential role by performing important calculations for Alan Shepard’s first flight into space, John Glenn’s 1962 orbital flight around the Earth, and the 1969 Moon landing. Most famously, Glenn asked for Katherine to double-check the mechanical computer’s calculations before he went into space. The biography therefore emphasizes that Katherine was not only present but pivotal during this historical moment, highlighting the fact that African American people, particularly women, have not been accurately celebrated in the historical record.

Shetterly describes Katherine saying, “You have to expect progress to be made” (197), a statement that relates to both technology and culture. Katherine is therefore a hopeful figure in the text whom Shetterly draws on to convey hope to, and incite aspiration in, young readers. Throughout her life and career, Katherine always believed that the future could be better, and that hard work could make the impossible possible. This confidence helped her keep going, even when things got hard, and allowed her to build a distinguished career at NASA.