Hidden Figures

by Margot Lee Shetterly

  Pearcy, Arthur. Flying the Frontiers: NACA and NASA Experimental Aircraft. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1993.

  Phillipps, William Hewitt. Journey in Aeronautical Research: A Career at NASA Langley Research Center. Washington, DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1998.

  Phillipps, William Hewitt. Journey into Space Research: Continuation of a Career at NASA Langley Research Center. Washington, DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2005.

  Powers, Sheryll Goecke. Women in Flight Research at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center from 1946 through 1995. Washington, DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1997.

  Reginald, William. The Road to Victory: A History of Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation in World War II. Newport News, VA: City of Newport News, 1946.

  Rice, Connie Park. Our Monongalia: A History of African Americans in Monongalia County, West Virginia. Terra Alta, WV: Headline Books, 1999.

  Roland, Alex. Model Research: The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, 1915–1958. Washington, DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1985.

  Rossiter, Margaret W. Women Scientists in America: Before Affirmative Action 1940–1972. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.

  Rouse, Jr. Parke S. The Good Old Days in Hampton and Newport News. Petersburg, VA: Dietz Press, 2001.

  Smith, Bob. They Closed Their Schools: Prince Edward County, Virginia, 1951–1964. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 1965.

  Sparrow, James T. Warfare State: World War II Americans and the Age of Big Government. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

  Stillwell, Wendell H. X-15 Research Results. Washington, DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1964.

  Warren, Wini. Black Women Scientists in the United States. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000.

  Wolfe, Tom. The Right Stuff. New York: Macmillan, 2004.

  Woodbury, Margaret Claytor, and Ruth C. Marsh. Virginia Kaleidoscope: The Claytor Family of Roanoke, and Some of Its Kinships, from First Families of Virginia and Their Former Slaves. Ann Arbor, MI: Ruth C. Marsh, 1994.

  Wright, Gavin. Sharing the Prize: The Economics of the Civil Rights Revolution in the American South. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.

  Articles

  Bailey, Martha J., and William J. Collins. “The Wage Gains of African-American Women in the 1940s.” National Bureau of Economic Research, 2004, http://www.nber.org/papers/w10621.pdf.

  Branson, Herman. “The Role of the Negro College in the Preparation of Technical Personnel for the War Effort.” The Journal of Negro Education, July 1942, 297–303.

  Burgess, P. R. “Uncle Sam’s Eagles Saved Hampton.” Richmond Times Dispatch, January 13, 1935.

  Collins, William J. Race. “Roosevelt and Wartime Production: Fair Employment in World War II Labor Markets.” American Economic Review 91, no. 1 (March 2001): 272–86.

  Dabney, Virginius. “To Lessen Race Friction.” Richmond Times-Dispatch, November 13, 1943.

  Darden, Christine M. “Affordable Supersonic Transport: Is it Near?” Japan Society for Aeronautical and Space Sciences lecture, Yokohama, Japan, October 9–11, 2002.

  Davis, John A., and Cornelius Golightly. “Negro Employment in the Federal Government.” Phylon 6, no. 4 (1945): 337–46.

  Dunnigan, Alice A., “Two Women Help Chart the Way for the Astronauts.” Norfolk Journal and Guide, July 6, 1963.

  “Four Women ‘Engineers’ Begin Jobs.” Norfolk Journal and Guide, May 22, 1943.

  Frazier, Lisa. “Searching for Dorothy.” Washington Post, May 7, 2000.

  “Funeral Services Held for James F. Goble.” Norfolk Journal and Guide, December 29, 1956.

  Gainer, Mary E. and Robert C. Moyer. “Chasing Theory to the Edge of Space: The Development of the X-15 at NACA Langley Aeronautical Laboratory.” Quest Spaceflight Quarterly, no. 2, 2012.

  Goldstein, Richard. “Irene Morgan Kirklady, 90, Rights Pioneer, Dies.” New York Times, August 1, 2007.

  Gup, Ted. “The Ultimate Congressional Hideaway.” Washington Post, May 31, 1992.

  Hall, Jacqueline Dowd. “The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the Past.” The Journal of American History, March 2005, 1233–63.

  Hall, Phyllis A. “Crisis at Hampton Roads: The Problems of Wartime Congestion, 1942–1944.” The Virginia Magazine of History and Bibliography, July 1993, 405–32.

  Heinemann, Ronald L. “The Byrd Legacy: Integrity, Honesty, Lack of Imagination, Massive Resistance.” Richmond Times-Dispatch, August 25, 2013.

  Hine, Darlene Clark. “Black Professionals and Race Consciousness: Origins of the Civil Rights Movement, 1980–1950.” Journal of American History, March 2003, 1279–94.

  “Lady Mathematician Played Key Role in Glenn Space Flight.” Pittsburgh Courier, March 10, 1962.

  Lawrence, Dave. “Langley Engineer Is Remembered for Part in History.” Daily Press, August 21, 1999.

  Lewis, Shawn D. “She Lives with Wind Tunnels.” Ebony Magazine, August 1977, 116.

  Light, Jennifer S. “When Computers Were Women.” Technology and Culture, July 1999, 455–83.

  McCuiston, Fred. “The South’s Negro Teaching Force.” The Journal of Negro Education, April 1932, 16–24.

  “Newsome Park to Open Soon; Shopping Center Is Feature.” Norfolk Journal and Guide, March 27, 1943.

  Reklaitis, Victor. “Hampton Archive: J. S. Darling: Leader of Seafood Industry in Hampton.” Daily Press, August 27, 2006.

  Rorty, James R. “Virginia’s Creeping Desegregation: Force of the Inevitable.” Commentary Magazine, July 1956.

  Rouse, Parker. “Hampton Archive: Early Days at Langley Were Colorful.” Daily Press, March 25, 1990.

  Shloss, Leon. “Russia Said to Have Fastest Fighter Plane.” Norfolk Journal and Guide, February 18, 1950.

  St. John Erickson, Mark. “No Easy Journey.” Daily Press, May 1, 2004.

  Stradling, Richard. “Retired Engineer Remembers Segregated Langley.” Daily Press, February 8, 1998.

  Thompson, James G. “Should I Sacrifice to Live ‘Half-American’?” Pittsburgh Courier, January 31, 1942.

  Uher, Bill. “Tuskegee Airman Reunites with ‘Best Plane in the World.’ ” NASA.gov, June 10, 2004.

  “USO Secretary Weds Navy Man.” Norfolk Journal and Guide, November 25, 1944.

  Vaughn, Tyra M. “After Civil War, Black Businesses Flourished in Hampton Roads.” Daily Press, February 14, 2010.

  Walker, W. R. “Mimosa Crescent, Post-War Housing Project, Started.” Norfolk Journal and Guide, July 15, 1944.

  Watson, Denise M. “Lunch Counter Sit-ins: 50 Years Later.” Virginian-Pilot, February 15, 2010.

  Weaver, Robert C. “The Employment of the Negro in War Industries.” The Journal of Negro Education, Summer 1943, 386–96.

  “What’s a War Boom Like?” Business Week, June 6, 1942, 22–32.

  NOTES

  The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific entry, please use your e-book reader’s search tools.

  PROLOGUE

  Page Number

  xvi “GS-9 Research Scientist”: W. Kemble Johnson to NACA, “Fair Employment,” December 14, 1951. National Archives at Philadelphia, hereinafter referred to as NARA Phil.

  xvi two white head computers: Blanche S. Fitchett personnel file, US Civil Service Commission. National Personnel Records Center, hereinafter referred to as NPRC.

  xvi ‘This is a scientist, this is an engineer’: Women Computers, video recorded at NASA Langley, December 13, 1990. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-MN3Cp2Cpc.

  xvi “I just assumed they were all secretaries”: Ibid.

  xvi Five white women: “What’s My Name?” Air Scoop, June 14, 1946.

  xvi “Several hundred”: Beverly Golemba, “Human Computers: The Women in Aeronautical Research,” PhD dissertation, St. Leo College, 1994, 4. Available at NASA Cultural Resources, http://c
rgis.ndc.nasa.gov/crgis/images/c/c7/Golemba.pdf.

  xviii “Spacetown USA”: James R. Hansen, Spaceflight Revolution: NASA Langley Research Center from Sputnik to Apollo (Washington, DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1995). The town was dubbed “Spacetown, USA” at the October 5, 1962, astronaut parade celebrating Project Mercury. Hansen’s book (p. 78–79) has wonderful pictures of the day.

  CHAPTER 1: A DOOR OPENS

  1 “This establishment has urgent need”: Melvin Butler to Chief of Field Operations, Telegram, US Civil Service Commission, May 13, 1943, NARA Phil.

  1 Every morning at 7:00 a.m.: M. J. McAuliffe to Recruiting Representatives, Fourth Regional Office, “Recruiting Workers for National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory),” January 28, 1944, NARA Phil.

  1 Dispatching the lab’s station wagon: Ibid.

  1 so help me God: This is the oath taken by all federal civil servants. The full text is available at https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/3331.

  2 with a jump seat: W. Kemble Johnson, interview with Michael D. Keller, June 27, 1967, Langley Archives Collection, hereinafter referred to as LAC.

  2 500-odd employees: James Hansen, Engineer in Charge: A History of the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, 1917–1958 (Washington, DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1987). Statistics taken from Appendix B, “Growth of Langley Staff, 1919–1958,” 413.

  3 fifty thousand per year: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Message to Congress on Appropriations for National Defense, May 16, 1940, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=15954

  3 ninety planes a month: Arthur Herman, Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II (New York: Random House Publishing Group, 2012), 11.

  3 the largest industry in the world: Judy A. Rumerman, “The American Aerospace Industry During World War II,” US Centennial of Flight Commission website, http://www.centennialofflight.net/essay/Aerospace/WWII_Industry/Aero7.htm. Comparative aircraft production statistics at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_aircraft_production.

  4 started in 1935: “What’s My Name?”

  4 investing $500: R. H. Cramer to R. A. Darby, “Computing Groups Organization and Practice at NACA,” April 27, 1942, http://crgis.ndc.nasa.gov/crgis/images/7/76/ComputingGroupOrg1942.pdf.

  5 grudgingly admitted: Ibid.

  5 a boost to the laboratory’s bottom line: Ibid.

  5 “Reduce your household duties!”: February 3, 1942, Langley Archives Collection (hereafter referred to as LAC).

  5 “Are there members of your family”: “Special Message to the Staff,” Air Scoop, September 19, 1944.

  5 “Who the hell is this guy Randolph?”: Jervis Anderson, A. Philip Randolph: A Biographical Portrait (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 259.

  6 “the stare of an eagle”: Ibid.

  6 Sherwood’s, group had already moved there: NARA Phil.

  7 Melvin Butler himself hailed from Portsmouth: Jennifer Vanhoorebeck, “T. M. Butler, Hampton Leader, Dies,” Daily Press, May 11, 1996.

  7 practical solutions: In the NACA’s charter was the charge “to supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight with a view to their practical solution.” The pragmatic, empirical approach to aeronautical research was one of the agency’s defining characteristics and permeated every aspect of its work. For more on the NACA’s early days, see Hansen, Engineer in Charge, chapter one.

  8 bearing the words COLORED GIRLS: Miriam Mann Harris, “Miriam Daniel Mann,” September 12, 2011, LAC.

  CHAPTER 2: MOBILIZATION

  9 100-plus degrees: “The Weather of 1943 in the United States,” Monthly Weather Review, December 1943, accessed July 23, 2015, http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/mwr/071/mwr-071-12-0198.pdf.

  9 eighteen thousand bundles of laundry each week: “A Short History of Camp Pickett,” Camp Pickett Post Public Information Office, April 1951, 6.

  9 stood at the sorting station: Dorothy J. Vaughan Personnel File, US Civil Service, NPRC.

  9 the Port of Embarkation: “A Short History of Camp Pickett,” 3.

  10 stemmers in the tobacco factories: W.E.B. Du Bois, “The Negroes of Farmville, Virginia: A Social Study,” Bulletin of the Department of Labor 14 (January 1898): 1–38, https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/docs/publications/bls/bls_v03_0014_1898.pdf.

  10 supported three workers: Kathryn Blood, “Negro Women War Workers,” Bulletin 205 (Washington, DC: US Department of Labor, Women’s Bureau, 1945), 8, http://digitalcollections.smu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/hgp/id/431.

  10 40 cents an hour: Vaughan Personnel File.

  10 Only a week had elapsed: Ibid.

  10 “upper level of training and intelligence in the race”: Fred McCuistion, “The South’s Negro Teaching Force,” Journal of Negro Education, April 1932, 18.

  10 “direct its thoughts and head its social movements”: Ibid.

  10 a barbershop, a pool hall, and a service station: Ann Vaughan Hammond, personal interview, April 2, 2014.

  10 house on South Main Street: Ibid.

  11 ranked in the bottom quarter: Robert Margo, Race and Schooling in the South, 1880–1950: An Economic History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950), 53.

  11 almost 50 percent less: Ibid.

  11 bested what she earned as a teacher: Vaughan Personnel File.

  12 died when she was just two years old: Dewey W. Fox, A Brief Sketch of the Life of Miss Dorothy L. Johnson (West Virginia African Methodist Episcopal Sunday School Convention, January 1, 1926), 3.

  12 worked as a charwoman: 1910 US Census. 1910; Census Place: Kansas Ward 8, Jackson, Missouri; Roll: T624_787; Page: 16A; Enumeration District: 0099; FHL microfilm: 1374800, Ancestry.com.

  12 before she entered school: Fox, A Brief Sketch, 3.

  12 vaulted her ahead two grades: Ibid.

  12 enrolling her in piano lessons: Ibid.

  12 a successful Negro restauranteur: Connie Park Rick, Our Monongalia (Terra Alta, WV Headline Books, 1999), 106 and 142. John Hunt met Leonard Johnson on a business trip to Kansas City and was so impressed he invited him to work for him in Morgantown. Dorothy’s father earned the moniker “Kansas City” Johnson and eventually opened his own restaurant.

  12 Beechhurst School: Fox, A Brief Sketch, 6.

  12 valedictorian’s spot: Ibid., 6.

  12 “This is the dawn of a life”: Ibid., 8.

  13 “splendid grades”: Ibid., 5.

  13 recommended her for graduate study: Ann Vaughan Hammond, personal interview, June 30, 2014.

  13 the inaugural class for a master’s degree: “Mathematicians of the African Diaspora: Dudley Weldon Woodard,” University at Buffalo, State University of New York Mathematics Department, http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/PEEPS/woodard_dudleyw.html

  13 the first two Negroes to earn doctorates in mathematics: Johnny L. Houston, “Elbert Frank Cox,” National Mathematical Association Newsletter, Spring 1995, 4.

  13 like a third of all Americans: Robert A. Margo, “Employment and Unemployment in the 1930s,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 7, no. 2 (Spring 1993) 42.

  13 felt it was her responsibility: Hammond interview, June 30, 2014.

  14 in rural Tamms, Illinois: Vaughan Personnel File.

  14 the school ran out of money: Ibid.

  14 as an itinerant bellman: Hammond interview, April 2, 2014.

  14 at the Greenbrier: Ibid.

  15 Dorothy spied the notice: Ibid.

  15 “This organization is considering a plan”: W. Kemble Johnson to Grace Lawrence, February 5, 1942, and Mary W. Watkins to W. Kemble Johnson, February 9, 1942, NARA Phil.

  15 “It is expected that outstanding students”: Ibid.

  15 “since the Emancipation Proclamation”: Jervis Anderson, A. Philip Randolph: A Biographical Portrait (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 259.

  15 sister-in-law had moved to Washington: Vaughan Personnel File.

  16 “Pa
ving the Way for Women Engineers”: “Paving the Way for Women Engineers,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, May 8, 1943.

  16 running a nursery school: “Hampton School Head Urges Students to Remain in School,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, September 4, 1943.

  16 Mary Cherry: “Paving the Way for Women Engineers.”

  16 teaching machine shop: Miriam Mann Harris, personal interview, May 6, 2014.

  17 reviewed her qualifications in detail: Vaughan Personnel File.

  17 48 hours: Ibid.

  CHAPTER 3: PAST IS PROLOGUE

  19 to accommodate 180 students: Jarl K. Jackson and Julie L. Vosmik, “National Historic Landmark Nomination: Robert Russa Moton High School,” National Park Service, December 1994, https://www.nps.gov/nhl/find/statelists/va/Moton.pdf

  19 167 students arrived for classes: Ibid.

  19 Farmville chapter of the NAACP: “New NAACP Branches Formed in Two Counties,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, January 14, 1939.

  19 an auditorium outfitted with folding chairs: Bob Smith, They Closed Their Schools: Prince Edward County, Virginia, 1951–1964 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1965), 60.

  20 vocal quartets had come away victorious: “500 Students in VA State Music Festival,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, April 20, 1935.

  20 “hardest working director”: Ibid.

  20 “The Light Still Shines”: Eloise Barker, “Farmville,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, December 11, 1943.

  20 4-H club made care packages: “Farmville,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, November 28, 1942.

  20 “What Can We Do to Win the War?”: Ibid.

  20 put war stamps on sale: Ibid.

  20 held going-away parties: Patrick Louis Cooney and Henry W. Powell, “Vagabond: 1933–1937,” The Life and Times of the Prophet Vernon Johns: Father of the Civil Rights Movement (Vernon Johns Society), http://www.vernonjohns.org/tcal001/vjvagbnd.html.

  20 a unit called Wartime Mathematics: Vaughan Personnel File; Alan W. Garrett, “Mathematics Education Goes to War: Challenges and Opportunities during the Second World War,” paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, April 21, 1999.

  21 “pay at the rate of $2,000 per annum”: Vaughan Personnel File.