Why a Booktrail?
ww2 onwards: The story of the black women who worked behind the scenes of NACA then NASA, to calculate flight paths for the first space explorations of the 1960s.
Hidden Figures
What you need to know before your trail
This is a story with so many layers. On one level it is the story of a remarkable group of women who became prominent in their field of maths in order to join and help the US Space program in the 1960s. It is also the story of American society and the Civil Rights Movement which was in full swing, trying to correct the horrors of segregation and the lack of freedom and rights of black people. Together it is the story of a group of women who bucked the trend, wanted to work and be someone, do something, and play their part while all the world could do was to judge them by the colour of their skin.
Travel Guide
Virginia 1960s
Virginia in the 19060s was typical of the landscape across America. Black people did not have the same rights as white ones and segregation separated more than people – it signalled the chasm and split in every level of society. The Civil Rights movement started in 1958 and years of struggle followed.
NACA to NASA
NACA which became NASA in 1958 employed many black women who were good at maths (teaching being the only option open to them at the time) to work for the US Space Program . The US had started to employ more people since it joined the 2WW in 1941 and these people were required to perform and work out calculations for all types of plane engineering aerodynamics.
The Langely Space Center
“.a campus of perfectly straight parallel streets lined from one end to the other by unremarkable two- storey redbrick buildings.Only the giant hypersonic wind tunnel complex – a one hundred foot ridged silver sphere presiding over four sixty- foot smooth silver globes – offered visual evidence of the remarkable work occurring on an otherwise ordinary-looking campus.
Emancipation Oak
In 1863, the Virginia Peninsula’s black community gathered under the oak to hear the first Southern reading of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, leading to its nickname as the Emancipation Oak.
The Kennedy Space Center
Perhaps the most famous site and the most visited tourist attraction for those interested in space travel and exploration.
Booktrailer Review
Susan @thebooktrailer
Remarkable. That’s the best review I can give this story to be honest. I’d never heard of these women nor of the work they and others like them did. Why don’t we read about this at school or why is it not better known? Well now with this book and the movie coming out, I hope that changes as people like this should be on the front pages of the history books not banished to the side lines if they appear at all.
I’d read a few stories of people forgotten or tainted by history – Alan Turning, Henrietta Lacks….such remarkable people and because of the colour of their skin or their sexuality they’re brushed aside and ignored? Apart from the racial issues and the portrayal of the Civil Rights movement ongoing at the time, the work which went on Langley and NASA was also remarkable and looking back when you think of what it would lead to…
I am in awe of these women and can’t wait to see the movie. Oscar nominated and quite rightly so.
Booktrail Boarding Pass: Hidden Figures
Author/Guide: Margot Lee Shetterly Destination: Langley, Virginia, Cape Canaveral Departure Time: 2WW onwards
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