Just as islands—isolated places with unique, rich biodiversity—have relevance for the ecosystems everywhere, so does studying seemingly isolated or overlooked people and events from the past turn up unexpected connections and insights to modern life.
Hidden Figures is a nonfiction account of the people who worked at Langley, but it's also a book with an argument, as outlined in this quote. Studying “overlooked” people and events is worthwhile because, even though they might not seem very important, they can give us insights into seemingly unrelated areas. The comparison to biodiversity on islands places Hidden Figures' mission within the canon of scientific research.
With only a handful of girls winning the title ‘mathematician’—a professional designation that put them on equal footing with entry-level male employees—the fact that most computers were designated as lower-paid ‘subprofessionals’ provided a boost to the laboratory’s bottom line.
This quote illustrates two things: first, the difficulty women had being promoted at Langley, as they started in different positions than men and weren't on a track that historically had promotions—their highest-level title was a man's entry point; and second, how hiring women during wartime was more cost-effective than hiring men. Women like Dorothy Vaughan were excellent mathematicians that supported Langley's research at a fraction of the cost.
The Good Lord himself might have squirmed in his seat if Mrs. Vaughan had caught Him out in her class without having done His algebra homework.
Dorothy Vaughan was a math teacher before she moved to Newport News to work at Langley. She worked at an all-black school in Farmville, Prince Edward County—the county that would later shut schools rather than desegregate—and there was almost no budget or oversight. That didn't stop Vaughan from being a firm teacher with high expectations, which this quote communicates with humor.
For many men, a computer was a piece of living hardware, an appliance that inhaled one set of figures and exhaled another. Once a girl finished a particular job, the calculations were whisked away into the shadowy kingdom of the engineers.
Before computers were assigned to specific research units, both West and East Computers didn't get to know exactly what their long, complicated calculations were for. Once that labor was done, the figures disappeared back into the engineers' hands, and computers usually wouldn't get acknowledgment on reports or even an understanding of what they'd just worked on. In this quote, Shetterly emphasizes how the engineers perceived the human computers, comparing them to machines ("hardware," "appliance") and downplaying the effort of doing math the engineers themselves didn't want to do ("inhaled" and "exhaled"—easy as breathing).
Being willing to stand up to the pressure of an opinionated, impatient engineer who put his feet up on the desk and waited while you did the work, who wanted his numbers done right and done yesterday, to spot the bug in his logic and tell him in no uncertain terms that he was the one who was wrong—that was...what marked you as someone who should move ahead.
When Mary Jackson finds an error in some calculations, she informs a high-ranking engineer, John Becker, who tells her she's wrong; unlike some computers, and unlike many black women living in Jim Crow Virginia, Mary Jackson doesn't back down. In the end, she's proven right, and she earns the engineers' respect. (It's worth remembering that this example alone wasn't how she earned their respect—she, and the other computers who became integral in the engineers' research, earned their standing with hard work, reliability, and enthusiasm for their jobs and their country.)
A stunned Mary Jackson wondered: was this what she and the rest of the black children had been denied all these years? This rundown, antiquated place? She had just assumed that if whites had worked so hard to deny her admission to the school, it must have been a wonderland. But this? Why not combine the resources to build a beautiful school for both black and white students?
To become an engineer at Langley, Jackson has to get special permission to attend night courses at a local white high school. She's surprised by what she walks into: an old, subpar building. The South's dedication to segregation meant they had to maintain two school systems, both of which suffered as a result, as both white and black students didn't get as much funding as they could have. Shetterly uses questions in her description of the school to immerse the reader in Jackson's perspective, aligning us with her surprise as if we're walking into the "rundown, antiquated place" alongside her.
In forcing the United States to compete for the allegiance of yellow and brown and black countries throwing off the shackles of colonialism, the Soviets influenced something much closer to Earth, and ultimately more difficult than putting a satellite, or even a human, into space: weakening Jim Crow’s grip on America.
In Hidden Figures, it's clear that many things influence the course of history, and nothing happens in a vacuum. During the Cold War, the USSR and America each tried to make allies among other nations, and America's inability to support its own yellow, brown, and black people meant that almost every country in the world could look at the news and see that America didn't actually support people like them. Why would any world leader with dark skin side with America, when that leader wouldn't be allowed to freely ride a bus on American soil? Loosening Jim Crow laws becomes a national concern, as domestic policy hugely weakens world standing in the race against the Soviets.
So many ways to screw the pooch, and just one staggeringly complex, scrupulously modeled, endlessly rehearsed, indefatigably tested way to succeed.
Shetterly illustrates the difficulty of Johnson's and others' job of putting Americans safely into space and bringing them home. She does this using colloquial, jokey language for how easy it would be to mess up ("screw the pooch"), which contrasts with the four parallel adverb/adjective descriptors required to succeed: staggeringly, scrupulously, endlessly, and indefatigably all emphasize how tough it is to accomplish, especially with a human life at risk if that one way to succeed isn't followed.
Many years later, Katherine Johnson would say it was just luck that of all the computers being sent to engineering groups, she was the one sent to the Flight Research Division... But simple luck is the random birthright of the hapless. When seasoned by the subtleties of accident, harmony, favor, wisdom, and inevitability, luck takes on the cast of serendipity. Serendipity happens when a well-trained mind looking for one thing encounters something else: the unexpected. It comes from being in a position to seize opportunity from the happy marriage of time, place, and chance. It was serendipity that called her in the countdown to John Glenn’s flight.
In narration, Shetterly argues against Katherine Johnson's humble perspective that her career path was essentially luck. Shetterly instead claims that it's serendipity, which is finding something good or valuable without looking for it—similar to luck, but not "hapless." The three sentences that describe serendipity build suspense, giving power to the final sentence, using the momentum to create excitement around John Glenn's flight.
As Christine read the Little Rock coverage, so did the rest of the country—and the world. In Europe, and in the capitals of Asia and Africa, people devoured the particulars of the Little Rock crisis. Photos…undermined the United States’ standing in the postwar competition for allies. No matter how hard the United States tried, despite the best efforts of its diplomatic corps and its propaganda machine, it seemed impossible to divert the eyes of the world from the ugliness unfolding in Little Rock and all of its implications for the legitimacy of American democracy.
Christine Darden (still Christine Mann during this quote) comes to Langley around 20 years after Dorothy Vaughan, and she's still in high school during her first perspective chapter. She, like many others, is wowed by Sputnik and engaged with the protests in Little Rock as schools integrate. Using Christine's perspective connects the reader to those events—if Shetterly just described them, Hidden Figures would read more like a textbook or newspaper, less like a narrative.
America's racism in domestic matters reflects poorly on their claims to democracy abroad, and the Little Rock coverage makes that very clear. Pressure to appear strong and fair on a global scale is an enormous factor in desegregation. Attention to terms like the "diplomatic corps" and "propaganda machine" makes it clear that the decision to grant human rights to people of color was influenced by America's perception of its own image, not simply because it is the right thing to do.
