Kathryn Peddrew

Kathryn Peddrew (June 14, 1922 - March 4, 2012) was an African American chemist who spent her entire career at NACA/NASA. She is most known for being a part of an all-African American team in the West Building at NACA known as the "West Computers". 
== Biography ==
=== Early life ===
Her parents told her she could be whatever she wanted to be, however she later discovered limitations: she endured both racial and gender discrimination in her job search. She tried multiple times to find a research position with her chemistry degree. She eventually found a NACA bulletin that catered to her background in chemistry. Though she got in, she was not permitted to work in chemistry since she was African American.
=== Education and career ===
Kathryn Peddrew was born in Martinsburg, WV on June 14th, 1922. Not much is known about her early life before college. For her education, Peddrew attended Storer College in her home state of West Virginia. She focused her studies on chemistry and graduated with a chemistry degree in 1943. After college, she began looking for research opportunities. Her first choice was to travel with one of her former professors to New Guinea to study quinine deafness. Unfortunately, these plans fell through as the research program had made no plans for female housing. 
Forced to make a pivot in her plans, she saw an advertisement from NACA (eventually known as NASA) saying that they were hiring chemists. At the time, there was a large increase in women being hired by NACA due to men going overseas to fight in WWII. She decided to apply for this position and was hired. However, when she arrived at the job, she was relocated to the West Area Computing Unit after it was discovered that she was African American. Although African American women were given job opportunities by NACA, they were generally not considered to be “equal” to their white counterparts at the time. They were forced to work and eat in certain locations, most notably in the all-black West Building at NACA. They did however collaborate with all-white teams occasionally if their group or another group finished their projects first.
She and her colleagues were referred to as the “West Computers”, a group that consisted of Dorothy Vaughn, Mary Jackson, Miriam Daniel Mann, and of course Peddrew herself to name a few. Here she conducted aeronautical and aerospace research, doing the majority of her work in the Instrument Research Division. Peddrew spent her entire 43-year career at NACA/NASA, ultimately retiring in 1986.
==== Discrimination ====
Throughout Peddrew’s life, she had faced both gender and racial discrimination. Prior to working at NACA, Peddrew applied to join a research team based in New Guinea, but was declined as they did not have any housing for women. Due to a shortage of men because of World War II, women were beginning to be hired by NACA, including African American women. Kathryn Peddrew joined NACA/NASA in 1943. At first, she was hired as a chemist, but when the team found out that she was African American, they transferred her to the West Area Computing Unit at Langley. Not only were they segregated in this manner, but they also sat in different areas in the cafeteria where the tables were labeled “colored”.
=== Accomplishments and research ===
Kathryn Peddrew was part of the West Computing Unit, which people called “human computers”, but unfortunately due to the discrimination a lot of her work went unacknowledged. Peddrew worked at NACA for forty years and researched aeronautics, aerospace, and the balance in the Instrument Research Division. Kathryn Peddrew made many breakthroughs that were incredibly important to NACA’s development. She also inspired many black women who came after her. 
=== Death ===
Peddrew died on March 4th, 2012.
Category:American people
Category:American chemists
Category:1922 births