Book Cover Descripton:
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.
My Thoughts:
The movie for Hidden Figures is really good and that’s what got me to read the book because the book always has more than the movie, right? Well I have mixed feelings about the book itself. The first half I literally slogged through finding a lot of it a bit dry. It was very much an information dump and dense and I felt I didn’t really get to know the characters other than they were mathematicians and computers for Langley Aeronautics and the NACA the agency which preceded NASA. Just when they would introduce a black woman character, her personal story was lost for me in the information of the civil rights movement at the time and how NACA and Langley were handling it and lots of technical info about aeronautics and engineering. While I know that goes hand in hand with their stories and one can't be without the other, I would have liked to get more on the women on a personal level and could have done without some of the aeronautic technical stuff. There was also lots and lots of different people mentioned without really going into any of them except who they were in regards to the agencies or how they were related to the women.
The second half of the book was more to my liking and really picked up for me as it dealt with NASA and the bid to get to the moon which I’ve always been interested in and have read tons about. The book got more personal with one of the major woman who helped accomplish that. The book actually ends about 3/4 of the way through with the rest being “notes” and “bibliography” and “index” so it’s not as long as appears from the size of the book. It was well researched that is for sure. Kudos to the author for that. It must have been very difficult sorting through all of it and deciding what to include. It is about time these women's stories are told as it played a major part in aeronautics, the Apollo program, civil rights, woman's rights and equality, and flight as we know it today. It really is shameful that it has taken this long to get their stories told. With all the reading and biographies and autobiographies I have done over the years I did not know this story so all in all I am very glad that I did push through and finish this book to the end. And standing ovation to all the woman who were brilliant and courageous enough to follow their dreams through that history, who carved a path for the rest of women who wanted to pursue science and engineering and who sacrificed their own advancement in order to give other women a leg up.
I rated it 7.5/10
4 comments:
Because we saw the movie when it came out, I probably won't read the book. Usually if there's a book, I'll read it first but our library doesn't seem to have it! I LOVED the movie....we all did!!
I really appreciate this review, as I told you, because this book is on my "to read" stack. Thanks for your honesty. What you said reminds me of how I felt about the book Fly Girls which is about the early women aviators like Amelia Earhart. It was very slow moving for me. Lots of airplane crashes. Hope you have e good Sunday and I will see you next week!
I loved this movie. But I had heard, as you said, that the book was a little hard to read in some places, maybe a little dull in others. I appreciated getting your thoughts and finding confirmation. That's a shame, because these women's stories deserve to be told. I'm so glad they made the movie and concentrated on the characters more there.
What's a shame is that stories like this and the one about code breakers (Code Girls) aren't better written. It's almost like they didn't get skilled editing.
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