An edition of Hidden Figures (2016)

Hidden figures

the untold true story of four African-American women who helped launch our nation into space

Young readers' edition. First edition.
  • 3.86 ·
  • 7 Ratings
  • 172 Want to read
  • 11 Currently reading
  • 16 Have read

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  • 3.86 ·
  • 7 Ratings
  • 172 Want to read
  • 11 Currently reading
  • 16 Have read

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Last edited by ImportBot
February 17, 2024 | History
An edition of Hidden Figures (2016)

Hidden figures

the untold true story of four African-American women who helped launch our nation into space

Young readers' edition. First edition.
  • 3.86 ·
  • 7 Ratings
  • 172 Want to read
  • 11 Currently reading
  • 16 Have read

Before John Glenn orbited the Earth or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of professionals worked as "Human Computers," calculating the flight paths that would enable these historic achievements. Among these were a coterie of bright, talented African-American women. Segregated from their white counterparts by Jim Crow laws, these "colored computers," as they were known, used slide rules, adding machines, and pencil and paper to support America's fledgling aeronautics industry, and helped write the equations that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space. Drawing on the oral histories of scores of these "computers," personal recollections, interviews with NASA executives and engineers, archival documents, correspondence, and reporting from the era, Hidden Figures recalls America's greatest adventure and NASA's groundbreaking successes through the experiences of five spunky, courageous, intelligent, determined, and patriotic women: Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, Christine Darden, and Gloria Champine. Moving from World War II through NASA's golden age, touching on the civil rights era, the Space Race, the Cold War, and the women's rights movement, Hidden Figures interweaves a history of scientific achievement and technological innovation with the intimate stories of five women whose work forever changed the world -- and whose lives show how out of one of America's most painful histories came one of its proudest moments.

Publish Date
Publisher
HarperCollins
Language
English
Pages
231

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Previews available in: English

Edition Availability
Cover of: Hidden Figures Illustrated Edition
Cover of: Hidden figures
Hidden figures
2016, William Collins
in English
Cover of: Hidden figures
Hidden figures: the untold true story of four African-American women who helped launch our nation into space
2016, HarperCollins
in English - Young readers' edition. First edition.
Cover of: Hidden Figures
Cover of: Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race

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Book Details


Table of Contents

Setting the scene
A door opens
Mobilization
A new Beginning
The double V
The "colored" computers
War birds
The duration
Breaking barriers
No limits
The area rule
An exceptional mind
Turbulence
Progress
Young, gifted, and black
What a difference a day makes
Writing the textbook on space
With all deliberate speed
Model behavior
Degrees of freedom
Out of the past, the future
America is for everybody
One small step.

Edition Notes

Includes bibliographical references (pages 207-218) and index.

Ages 8-12.

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
510.92/520973, B
Library of Congress
QA27.5 .L44 2016d, QA27.5.L44 2016b

The Physical Object

Pagination
231 pages
Number of pages
231

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL26883471M
Internet Archive
hiddenfiguresunt0000shet_q6e7
ISBN 10
0062662384, 0062662376, 0606396233
ISBN 13
9780062662385, 9780062662378, 9780606396233
LCCN
2016952958
OCLC/WorldCat
964450826

Work 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

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History

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February 17, 2024 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
December 19, 2023 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
September 14, 2023 Edited by Valerii Duz //covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/13270730-S.jpg
April 17, 2023 Edited by AgentSapphire Edited without comment.
November 24, 2016 Created by Romina Added new book.