The hidden history of Nasa’s black female scientists
▻https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/05/hidden-figures-black-female-scientists-african-americans-margot-lee-she
I discovered one 1945 personnel document describing a beehive of mathematical activity in an office in a new building on Langley’s west side, staffed by 25 black women coaxing numbers out of calculators on a 24-hour schedule, overseen by three black shift supervisors who reported to two white head computers. I can put names to almost 50 black women who worked as computers, mathematicians, engineers or scientists at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory from 1943 through 1980, and my intuition is that 20 more names can be shaken loose from the archives with more research.
Mathematician Mary Jackson at Langley Research Centre in Hampton, Virginia, 1977. Photograph: Bob Nye/Nasa/Getty Images
