Hidden Figures No More: A Book Review of Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race

Abstract

hen you think of the “figures” 3, 1.3, and 0.6, what comes to mind? One probably would not realize that these figures represent the average percentages of Black women in the United States who earned their bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees, respectively, in mathematics between the years of 2003–2012 (National Science Foundation, 2015). With such low figures, it is no wonder why the notion of Black women in mathematics is practically nonexistent. Thus, discovering and reading Margot Lee Shetterly’s (2016) non-fiction book Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race (i.e., Hidden Figures) was a welcoming revelation. Finally, Black women mathematicians, often ignored and invisible, are now the protagonists of a true story. Throughout the pages of Hidden Figures, Shetterly takes readers into the personal and professional lives of four Black women mathematicians: Dorothy Vaughn, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden. These women, individually and collectively, continuously broke a variety of gender, racial, and social barriers during their time working for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.