Hidden Figures begins with the following author's note from Shetterly:
"Negro." "Colored." "Indian." "Girls." Though some readers might find the language of Hidden Figures discordant to their modern ears, I've made every attempt to remain true to the time period, and to the voices of the individuals represented in this story.
This guide follows Shetterly's example, using the terms that Shetterly includes where she includes them.
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Hidden Figures opens with a prologue in which the author, Margot Lee Shetterly, outlines her research into the women—particularly black women—who worked as “human computers” at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, from the 1940s on. Shetterly knows many of these women and their families personally, and as she digs deeper into their stories, she discovers that there are hundreds upon hundreds of them, largely forgotten by history.
Black women were first hired at Langley during the height of WWII, when the NACA personnel manager at the time, Melvin Butler, faced enormous pressure to keep Langley properly staffed during wartime. Langley creates the “West Computers,” named for their segregated space in the West Area, and hires (among other mathematicians) Dorothy Vaughan. Vaughan is a hardworking, frugal, brilliant high school mathematics teacher, mother of four (and later more), who applies to the job at Langley after seeing Butler’s multiple flyers for the position.
When Vaughan arrives at Langley, overcrowding and Jim Crow laws have tensions running high, as the American Negro is conflicted in their search for the “double V” (victory abroad, over the Axis powers, and victory at home, over racism and inequality). Restaurants that won’t serve Dorothy Vaughan will happily serve Germans from the POW camp in the area. At Langley, attitudes toward the computers range from friendliness to hostility, with most engineers ambivalent—as long as computers can do math, they’re useful, white or black. One of Vaughan’s fellow West Computers, Miriam Mann, steals the “COLORED COMPUTERS” sign from their segregated cafeteria table, a small act of protest until Langley stops replacing the sign.
The computers do long, complex equations by hand, supporting engineers who are trying to improve aircraft. Vaughan works at the NACA for seven months before the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and when WWII ends, she keeps her job at Langley, unlike many women across America. Research becomes more experimental after wartime pressures lift, and in 1947, an American aircraft breaks the sound barrier. As research becomes more specialized, it makes sense for computers to specialize as well, joining engineering teams so their math is more accurate for specific experiments. The white supervisor of West Computing, Blanche Sponsler, leaves Langley for health reasons; in her absence, Vaughan steps up as supervisor, the first black supervisor at the NACA, though it takes the NACA two years to make the title official.
Mary Jackson joins West Computing in 1951. She’s 26 years old, with degrees in math and physical science, and she’s passionately involved in the Hampton community (especially Girl Scouts). There’s a nationwide fear of spies and communism, as the tension between the United States and the USSR rises. The USSR uses America’s racist domestic policies as leverage to gain allies in non-white nations, so President Truman desegregates the military and tries to instate some anti-workplace-discrimination practices. After two years at West Computing, Jackson is sent by Vaughan to work on a specific engineering project, where she encounters racism from some East Computers. She complains to Kazimierz “Kaz” Czarnecki, an engineer who offers to let her work for him instead. With Czarnecki’s support, and after petitioning the City of Hampton to let her take classes at a white school, Jackson becomes the first black female engineer at the NACA.
Katherine Johnson joins West Computing in 1953 (at the time she was known as Katherine Goble, having taken the last name of her first husband, who dies of an inoperable tumor in 1956, but she’s most famous as Johnson, so this summary will refer to her as such). Johnson is at Langley two weeks before Vaughan assigns her to a project for the Flight Research Division, where she stays; Vaughan talks to Johnson’s boss, Henry Pearson, to make the position official and get Johnson a raise. Vaughan also predicts the rise of non-human computers, and she encourages other women to take programming courses.
In 1957, as the USSR launches Sputnik and there are protests over desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas, Christine Mann (later Christine Darden) is a high school student, mathematically inclined and politically engaged. The next year, under enormous pressure to beat the USSR into space, the NACA dissolves West Computing, then is reorganized, becoming NASA. When West Computing is dissolved, Vaughan loses her position as supervisor and is “one of the girls” again. Johnson gets remarried, and she excels with the Flight Research Division. In 1960 she authors a paper on azimuth angles—one of few women to be recognized as authoring a report.
The 60s see NASA’s rise on a national and global stage, as work at Langley is thrown into the spotlight. Vaughan reinvents herself as a programmer, taking engineers’ problems to machine computers instead of her old West Computing pool. In 1962, John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the Earth, using calculations Johnson checks by hand. In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his “I Have a Dream” speech. Christine Darden joins Langley in 1967, Dr. King is assassinated in 1968, and Neil Armstrong touches down on the Moon in 1969. America wins the race to the Moon, but the civil rights movement feels like it’s at a standstill. Johnson, Vaughan, Jackson, Darden, and the thousands of black folks who helped make the Moon Landing possible watch the televised broadcast of white men, alongside 600 million others worldwide. Johnson feels hopeful, though, as the moon landing confirms her belief in progress: Once you take the first step, anything is possible.
The epilogue of Hidden Figures recounts the protagonists’ remaining tenure at Langley. Jackson pivots to become Langley’s Federal Women’s Program Manager, helping other women get the jobs and promotions they deserve. Johnson is the most famous of any NASA computer, black or white. Darden gets a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, though she feels she missed the height of the Langley space-race activity. Vaughan retires in 1971, and though her name doesn’t appear on any report, she contributed to countless numbers of them—and her greatest legacy is still at work, in the young women like Darden still in the office at Langley.
