Title: Hidden Figures
Description: "Before John Glenn orbited the earth, or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as “human computers” used pencils, slide rules and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space.

Among these problem-solvers were a group of exceptionally talented African American women, some of the brightest minds of their generation. Originally relegated to teaching math in the South’s segregated public schools, they were called into service during the labor shortages of World War II, when America’s aeronautics industry was in dire need of anyone who had the right stuff. Suddenly, these overlooked math whizzes had a shot at jobs worthy of their skills, and they answered Uncle Sam’s call, moving to Hampton, Virginia and the fascinating, high-energy world of the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory.

Even as Virginia’s Jim Crow laws required them to be segregated from their white counterparts, the women of Langley’s all-black “West Computing” group helped America achieve one of the things it desired most: a decisive victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and complete domination of the heavens.

Starting in World War II and moving through to the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement and the Space Race, Hidden Figures follows the interwoven accounts of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Christine Darden, four African American women who participated in some of NASA’s greatest successes. It chronicles their careers over nearly three decades they faced challenges, forged alliances and used their intellect to change their own lives, and their country’s future." --source: Harper Collins Publishers
Subjects: United States, African American mathematicians, United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, African American women, Officials and employees, Women mathematicians, Employees, Biography, Space race, United states, national aeronautics and space administration, African americans, biography, Mathematicians, biography, United states, officials and employees, United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration, African Americans, Juvenile literature, Women, JUVENILE NONFICTION, Mathematics, African American, People & Places, Mathematicians, Biography & Autobiography, Science & Technology, African americans, biography, juvenile literature, Aeronautics, juvenile literature, Aeronautics, history, Women, biography, juvenile literature, Women, united states, biography, Afronorteamericanas matemáticas, Estados Unidos. Administración Nacional de Aeronáutica y Espacio, Funcionarios y empleados, Estados Unidos, Biografía, Mujeres matemáticas, Mujeres afroamericanas, Carrera en el espacio, nyt:combined-print-and-e-book-nonfiction=2016-09-25, New York Times bestseller, Large type books, 20th Century, SOCIAL SCIENCE, Ethnic Studies, African American Studies, Raumfahrtprogramm, Mathematikerin, Femmes scientifiques, Biographies, Sexisme dans les sciences, Noirs, Se gre gation, Conqu©®te de l'espace, Astronautics, Hitory, Umschulungswerkst©Þtten f©ơr Siedler und Auswanderer
Places: NASA Langley Research Center, United States, Estados Unidos
People: Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, Miriam Mann, John Glenn, John F. Kennedy, Mary Jackson (1921-2005), Christine M. Darden, Dorothy Vaughan (1910-2008), Katherine G. Johnson
Time periods: Cold War, World War II