Печатные книги

Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race is a deeply researched work of narrative nonfiction by Margot Lee Shetterly that recovers a long-forgotten chapter of American scientific history. Beginning in the 1940s at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA, later NASA) in Langley, Virginia, the book chronicles the lives of African-American women—including Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson—who worked as 'human computers,' performing complex calculations by hand that enabled the nation's earliest aeronautical research and, ultimately, the space program. Working within the segregated West Computing Unit, these women overcame pervasive racial and gender discrimination, unequal pay, and limited advancement opportunities to make indispensable contributions to projects ranging from World War II-era fighter planes to John Glenn's historic orbital flight and the Apollo moon missions. Shetterly, whose father worked at Langley, grounds the story in meticulous archival research and personal context, exploring how these women navigated Jim Crow segregation while raising families and pursuing excellence in fields that tried to exclude them. The book was adapted into the acclaimed 2016 film and stands as a powerful testament to the indispensable role of Black women in American science, engineering, and the race to reach the stars.