When we think of STEM — science, technology, engineering, math — we tend to think of male-dominated worlds of startups and computers: Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs. So then where does Hidden Figures, the story of a group of African-American women mathematicians belong? These women answered a call to work for the government during World War II, doing the essential calculations to build aerodynamic fighter planes, then stayed to work at what became NASA — and eventually did the computations to put John Glenn on the moon. These women, with their human brain power alone, did the number crunching — they were called human “computers” — that today we give over and take for granted as being done by non-human machines.
Equally fascinating to me, and one of the reasons I pulled this book from my precarious towering pile, was that it didn’t haven any blurbs screaming MAJOR MOTION PICTURE COMING SOON! (which I found out later) — it had no blurbs at all. Indeed, in Hidden Figures, true to its quiet presentation, the historical narrative is straightforward, and gets the storytelling job done, much like Dorothy “Dot” Vaughn, Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and the other women who spent their days and talents doing such reliably superb work that they were often favored over the male engineers and mathematicians. Math doesn’t care who does it: “In math, you’re either right or you’re wrong,” said Katherine Johnson.
To make good on Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory’s “Victory Through Airpower!” motto, there were a lot of calculations to be done; the first female computing pool made its debut in 1935 — to much objection from the male engineers. But when the need for human computational experts still far exceeded the number of people employed, Langley began reaching out to qualified African-American women; indeed applications no longer required photos — a mandate from the old Woodrow Wilson administration. A building, “West Computing,” was commissioned at Langley to house these workers sorely needed by a nation at war. But while people like Dorothy Vaughn (who later made it into management) were now working side by side with whites doing the same work, they would still have to face the discriminatory walk through labyrinthine corridors until they found the washroom with the sign COLORED GIRLS.
For hours a day, the human computers set about calculating angles of air resistance and drag, finding the best wing shapes and using equations such the Whitcomb area rule to engineer aircraft shapes able to reach transonic and supersonic speeds, developed and tested at Langley in the 1930s and ’40s. In the postwar period, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) began to look heavenward and became the National Aeronautics and Space Administration — i.e., NASA — and many of the Langley computers were transferred there, as the mission in peacetime became to conquer space.
Even though this took place in a different century, this in some ways is a perfect book for our times. A desperate government was willing to override preconceived notions of gender and race for more overarching goals. Not to mention that, coincidentally, women were paid less for the same work, classified as entry-level “computers” rather then mathematicians and engineers, a title and salary that all the men with similar (or even lesser) credentials received automatically.
Today’s “we pick the most qualified people,” is code for keeping white men in power. Here, when the government literally needed to hire the most talented people — they turned out to be women, not men, and African American, not white (or Asian — as anti-Asian immigration laws from the 1920s kept the Asian-American population low) — the urgencies of war and then the space race with the Russians set these exigencies on a collision course with segregation.
In 1941, to help fulfill the enormous labor needs of the military, Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 — “There shall be no discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries and in Government, because of race, creed, color, or national origin” — the first Presidential directive on race since Reconstruction. However, Virginia, where Langley was based, was a segregationist state (the Loving v. Virginia miscegenation case would challenge the state two decades later) and the African-American women of the West Computing group had to sit at a cafeteria table designated for COLORED COMPUTERS. One computer, Miriam Mann, started her one-person resistance by disposing of the sign daily, hiding it in her purse. But the next day, a new sign would appear. “They are going to fire you over that sign, Miriam,” her husband said. But she kept on with her quiet fight until finally one day the sign was no longer replaced.
This book comes at a time when a U.S. election has seemingly fractured the populace beyond repair. For the black female computers, FDR’s directive provided an opportunity for these women to become breadwinners (with the social esteem they received from their meaningful work) and pull their families into the middle class. With unequal pay for women, and for African Americans, a job like this for the government was indeed appealing. How these women then navigated this workplace — especially with the space race coinciding with the efflorescence of the civil rights movement pushing against Jim Crow — shows that there are ways to fight injustice while also getting a man on the moon.
The story is engagingly told with a minimum of writerly embellishment, a perfect choice given how the history itself is substantial and full of quiet drama: from the women’s sometimes ambitious, sometimes witty resistance, to the humiliations of so-called “separate but equal,” to astronaut John Glenn’s warmth to his team and his coolness under the unimaginable pressure of attempting a feat no one was even sure was possible — while two Russian cosmonauts had already orbited the Earth multiple times (not to mention Sputnik slowly, unnervingly beeping in American skies), America was attempting to put a human into orbit for the first time.
Hidden Figures also tells a fascinating story of technology, as the first automated computers began to infiltrate the human workplace at this time — it could do in hours what took the most gifted mathematical savant days. For NASA, the stakes couldn’t have been higher: previously, the longest any American had been in space was for 15 minutes, in a sub-orbital flight. But before the launch, John Glenn insisted that the voluminous electronic computations be double-checked by none other than Katherine Vaughn. Human brain versus electronic computer: once she confirmed the numbers matched, Glenn proceeded onto the historic flight of the Friendship 7, which would put an American into deep space for the first time.
On an individual level, these women were part of the “talented tenth” wanting to ensure a solid future for their children — and to change the world. Collectively, the women pushed America forward even at the expense of their own burgeoning careers; Mary Jackson, achieving the coveted level of GS-12 Aeronautical Engineer as a black woman, didn’t do enough to help the advancement of others, she felt. So at age 58, she took a demotion to GS-11 to become the head of the Federal Women’s Program, committed to helping all women advance — a way, she felt, to naturally bridge racial differences.
While there has been scattered acknowledgement of this history — Katherine Johnson was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama last year, this collective story has, until now, indeed been that of “hidden figures.”
I think of how these women’s work touched even our tiny corner of northern Minnesota: my father, a Korean immigrant, helping my brother with his junior high science fair project — a scale recreation of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Apparently the Apollo 11 astronauts had been much less sure that they would succeed in getting to the moon. However one person, Katherine Johnson, had confidence: she knew her numbers putting them there were irrevocably right.
More from A Year in Reading 2016
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Don’t miss: A Year in Reading 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005
The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz: I wrestled a bit with putting this one on because he’s getting much respect from all over the place. But it’s well-deserved. This book sprawls, it brawls, it doesn’t apologize, it enlightens and delights. A welcome return from a major talent.
Halfway House by Katharine Noel: Remember not wanting to put a book down? Sometimes I forget the simple pleasure of a book that is so beautifully crafted, so alive, that I simply can’t do anything else until I’m done reading it. This first novel reminded me of what a great feeling that is. I loved it so much that I emailed the author – that’s when I know it’s love.
Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman: A really, really, really sexy book that is also an impressive work of literature. If you’ve ever been young and desperate to get your hands on the object of your desire (and lucky enough to find that he or she can’t keep his or her hands off of you either), you’ll vibe to this love story.
The Soul Thief by Charles Baxter. Full disclosure: I am lucky enough to count Charlie Baxter as a friend, which is how I came by an ARC of this novel, to be published by Pantheon in February 2008. But just ’cause he’s my bud doesn’t mean I don’t know a hell of a book when I read one. Both a meditation on identity and on the nature of love, The Soul Thief is sexy, funny, romantic (without being sentimental) and strange (in the best of ways). It’s both a return to Baxter’s deepest preoccupations as a writer and an exhilarating departure from them. We already know he’s one of our best fiction writers. Don’t miss this one when it comes out.
Surprising for her omission of "Man Gone Down" by Michael Thomas, probably my favorite novel of the year and one of the New York Times editors' 10 Best Books of 2007. Maybe she doesn't want to appear too biased because she mentioned it in her NY Times editorial last July.
In last week's review of Faint Praise by Gail Pool, James Wolcott quotes Pool on the positive influence that book reviewers can have: "Their commentary influences not only literary standards but also cultural attitudes, helping to shape what we think about many issues and whether we think about certain issues at all."
Man Gone Down received no publicity and was published only in paperback by Grove, so I think the NY Times editors made a good call in giving this book some well-deserved attention.
Ooh, I can't wait for that new Charles Baxter!
Man Gone Down is an extremely fine novel but it wasn't one of my *very* favorites that I read in 2007. As I made clear in my initial comments, I used my level of immediate personal excitement in making this very idiosyncratic short list. This is not the "best" of anything.
I'm a little disturbed by the use of the word "surprising" about its absence from my list for two reasons: first, because the piece I wrote for the NYTBR was a reported essay, not an editorial, in which I spoke to Morgan Entrekin, an editor from Grove (not Michael's editor) and made no particular mention of Man Gone Down except as a book they had published this year that was prominently reviewed in the NYTBR (which, as I pointed out, hadn't prominently reviewed a work of fiction by a black man in some time)
Two: I hope, hope, hope this isn't true and it may be a bit of the racial discomfort/paranoia that comes with being a black person in America but I really hope that the commenter isn't surprised I didn't mention Thomas because he and I are the same race. This crossed my mind because…well, why isn't it "surprising" that none of the other posters (none of whom are black) mentioned it. All of our lists are idiosyncratic and highly personal. It would really sadden me if race is expected, by anyone, to be part of my criteria. It certainly isn't part of the critieria if you're not black.
Regardless of what "Steve" intended with his comment, there is no paranoia in Martha's tentative response to his words. The fact remains that writers of color have been, and still are, marginalized and isolated into our own special sections of this literary world we work within and outside of. The mainstream voice of the dominant white male has begun to lose its edge in this diversifying world, and what can white writers do now but step into the world people of color inhabit, and how can they truly inhabit what isn't their world but in the one way they can, by creating and controlling the very forums we are allowed to speak in and through. Dave Eggers co-opted the story of a Sudanese man and called it an "autobiography" and failed to let this man's voice, his African voice, live through his own story. The fact that 100% of proceeds went to a non-profit seems to have dulled any real resistance to what Eggers actually has done in taking this story and this man's history and creating a "composite" and slapping the gimmicky "autobiography" title on the front and then letting his own imagination dictate what we know of this Sudanese man's story. Ask any African whether it is an African story and you will hear at best, confusion, and most likely a 'no', and therein lies the truth of what happened to this man's story.
Martha, your hesitation to see what this comment by Steve represents is commendable, but we write in a world that cannot seem to see us outside of race. This is why you will have readings given by so-called progressive hosts that pair African-American writers together when it would be more daring, more in tune with the world we all interact and live in, if different races and varied voices were allowed to live and breathe and expand in the same space.
I was once asked to take part in a reading organized by a writer who prided himself on his progressive politics. I found out he'd paired me with another African-American writer. (And it wasn't even Black History Month) I was unable to take part, it turned out, so declined the invitation. This host could not think outside the racially confining box he'd established for the night and asked ANOTHER African-American writer to read with the already scheduled headlining African-American writer. That second writer also respectfully declined. We will continue to be marginalized until we refuse to let our voices and words be co-opted and pigeonholed by the very same people who feel they're doing us a favor by giving us a forum. The fact is that after all these hip, gimmicky literary works have run their course, people, a la Eggers, will realize that they need to find a story to tell, that they've relied on slick mental somersaults and called it literature and they will look to us and our stories to give their words weight and heart, and my hope is that we will deny them this right to our stories and we will continue to fight for the right to speak and read alongside writers who balance and challenge and create a dialogue with our words, regardless of color.
Thanks Anonymous, for your support. I'm glad I said something. I appreciate your comments as well.