Another of Atlanta’s suburbs, Monroe was used to recreate many of the neighborhood scenes where Katherine, Dorothy, and Mary spend time outside of work. Hampton is also the hometown of Margot Lee Shetterly, who wrote the book “Hidden Figures” on which the movie is based. Read full review. Growing up in Hampton, Virginia, in the 1970s, Shetterly lived just miles away from Langley. The few West Computers whose names have been remembered, have become nearly mythical figures—a side-effect of the few African-American names celebrated in mainstream history, Shetterly argues. Sheri Linden Dec 10, 2016. Hidden Figures tells the true story of the history-making triumphs of three female African American NASA mathematicians: Katherine G. Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson. She hopes to find the many names that have been sifted out over the years and document their respective life’s work. The True Story of 'Hidden Figures' and the Women Who Crunched the Numbers for NASA While telling the story of three unknown space heroes, Hidden Figures also … California Do Not Sell My Info “That way is not necessarily the norm”. Although the movie was not actually filmed at Cape Canaveral (it took five separate locations in Georgia to recreate the entire campus), the Kennedy Space Center played an integral part in the actual history behind “Hidden Figures.”. John F. Kennedy was the President of the United States from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. Advertising Notice Terms of Use Travel + Leisure may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. The book and movie don’t mark the end of Shetterly’s work She continues to collect these names, hoping to eventually make the list available online. Jimmy Emerson, DVM via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0), The Locations Behind the True Story of 'Hidden Figures'. “Hidden Figures” tells their stories with some of the year’s best writing, directing and acting. The Story of NASA’s Real “Hidden Figures” African-American women working behind the scenes as “human computers” were vital to the Space Race By Elizabeth Howell , … (Inside Science) -- Math plays a starring role in the movie "Hidden Figures," which is nominated for three Oscars, including Best Picture, at this weekend's Academy Awards. Eventually their stellar work allowed some to leave the computing pool for specific projects—Christine Darden worked to advance supersonic flight, Katherine Johnson calculated the trajectories for the Mercury and Apollo missions. The sign disappeared. For those inspired by “Hidden Figures” and eager to visit the actual locations which inspired and appeared in the film, here are six locations where you can delve deeper into the story. When they set off to film the wind tunnel scenes, they turned to the facilities at Lockheed Martin. The West Computers were at the heart of the center’s advancements. The True Story of “Hidden Figures,” the Forgotten Women Who Helped Win the Space Race (Smithsonian Magazine) Hidden Figures: Margot Lee Shetterly’s book about NASA’s black women mathematicians and engineers is timely and eye-opening (Scientific American) Official Movie Home Page; Trailers and Cast Interviews It’s possible to visit the space center today for guided tours—although you can’t enter the actual working parts. Travel + Leisure is part of the Travel + Leisure Group. More about Margot Lee Shetterly. “It was a lot of connecting the dots,” she says. Ushered into the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory in 1935 to shoulder the burden of number crunching, they acted as human computers, freeing the engineers of hand calculations in the decades before the digital age. Privacy Statement Travel + Leisure is a registered trademark of Meredith Corporation Travel + Leisure Group All Rights Reserved, registered in the United States and other countries. “History is the sum total of what all of us do on a daily basis,” says Shetterly. Offers may be subject to change without notice. The neat thing about the location of the Action Figures is that Rockstar actually created a chart to reveal the location of each of the figures. or The film compresses the sequence of real events to set the story around 1961, when Glenn's first mission took place. The stories of Dorothy Vaughan, Katherine Johnson, and Mary Jackson were given the Hollywood treatment in a film adaptation of “Hidden Figures,” starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monae. Directed by Theodore Melfi. In Hidden Figures, Kennedy signs an Executive Order to ensure equal opportunity for all job applicants regardless of race, color, creed, or national origin. It was these small battles and daily minutiae that Shetterly strove to capture in her book. 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Copyright 2020 Meredith Corporation. “I get emails all the time from people whose grandmothers or mothers worked there,” she says. “Those guys have all told their stories.” Now it’s the women’s turn. Continue She scoured telephone directories, local newspapers, employee newsletters and the NASA archives to add to her growing list of names. As seen in the movie Hidden Figures, NASA has a long-standing cultural commitment to excellence that is largely driven by data, including data about our people. This full map of Los Santos reveals the locations of every Action Figure hidden around the map. Margot Lee Shetterly’s book Hidden Figures tells the true-life story of the black female mathematicians, “human computers,” who faced degrading Jim Crow laws while contributing significantly to America’s historic space achievements. Though the pressing needs of war were great, racial discrimination remained strong and few jobs existed for African-Americans, regardless of gender. Credit: Many of these “computers” are finally getting their due, but conspicuously missing from this story of female achievement are the efforts contributed by courageous, African-American women. “That was incredible courage,” says Shetterly. One particularly brazen computer, Miriam Mann, took responding to the affront on as a her own personal vendetta. Plus, check out more of Our Favorite Courageous Women Biographies. Even more problematic was that the careers of the West Computers were often more fleeting than those of the white men. Unlike the male engineers, few of these women were acknowledged in academic publications or for their work on various projects. Hidden Figures is the true story of three African-American mathematicians and the key role they played at NASA. When the sign returned, she removed it again. Outside of Monroe, filmmakers shot the scenes of the trio commuting to work on Fairplay Road and Sandy Creek Road, where there was nothing but greenery for miles around. Keep up-to-date on: © 2020 Smithsonian Magazine. Get the best of Smithsonian magazine by email. “We think of capital “H” history as being these huge figures—George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and Martin Luther King.” Even so, she explains, “you go to bed at night, you wake up the next morning, and then yesterday is history. It’s a great story. Last year, a 40,000-square-foot space at the research center was named the Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility in honor of the instrumental mathematician. In post-production interviews, the team remarked on how easy it was to find buildings from the 1960s still intact and available for shooting. Highlights of shooting include the town’s Courthouse and South Broad Street, which was chosen for their periodically-correct 1960s buildings. The official visitors center at Langley is the Virginia Air & Space Center. Working at NASA Langley.”, Surrounded by the West Computers and other academics, it took decades for Shetterly to realize the magnitude of the women’s work. 17th Annual Photo Contest Finalists Announced. “Because the facts are truly spectacular.”. There are a grand total of 100 to find. Nominated for three Academy Awards and two Golden Globes, “Hidden Figures” is the standout film of the year. A young Katherine Coleman (Lidya Jewett) is waiting, naming the geometric shapes in a stained glass window, while her parents talk to a school official.The official wants to sent Katherine to a school for gifted students -- she's an advanced student and a genius at math. Not only were the women rarely provided the same opportunities and titles as their male counterparts, but the West Computers lived with constant reminders that they were second-class citizens. Give a Gift. Hidden Meanings Behind the Movie, "Hidden Figures" (Spoilers) Reviewed by Joy Ramos Davis. It’s an unabashed crowd-pleaser with a heavy history lesson undertow. Many came from parts of the country sympathetic to the nascent Civil Rights Movement, says Shetterly, and backed the progressive ideals of expanded freedoms for black citizens and women. Shetterly started working on the book in 2010. The agency was dissolved in 1958, to be replaced by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as the space race gained speed. Her father worked at Langley as well, starting in 1964 as an engineering intern and becoming a well-respected climate scientist. Maya Wei-Haas is the assistant editor for science and innovation at Smithsonian.com. “We've had astronauts, we’ve had engineers—John Glenn, Gene Kranz, Chris Kraft,” she says. Recently the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the first landing of astronauts on the Moon. The spark of curiosity ignited, Shetterly began researching these women. Hidden Figures is their story. Next door to Dobbins Air Reserve Base is the Clay National Guard Center, which filming took over as a hangar and press conference center. Hidden Figures, starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monáe –Review by Ashley Linne. The film takes us back to the 1960s and the birth of NASA. Overview. It is a period piece set in 1961 and based on a true story. They worked through equations that described every function of the plane, running the numbers often with no sense of the greater mission of the project. The True Story Behind Hidden Figures – and the Real Women Who Helped Launch the First U.S. Astronaut into Orbit this link is to an external site that may or may not meet accessibility guidelines. But it’s so much more than just a feel-good history film. “And those were their jobs. Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Who Helped Win the Space Race is a 2016 nonfiction book written by Margot Lee Shetterly. Smithsonian Institution. more info. Start listening to T+L's brand new podcast, Let's Go Together! With the threat of 100,000 people swarming to the Capitol, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, preventing racial discrimination in hiring for federal and war-related work. Cookie Policy “It wasn't until my husband, who was not from Hampton, was listening to my dad talk about some of these women and the things that they have done that I realized,” she says. But eventually Mann won. They contributed to the ever-changing design of a menagerie of wartime flying machines, making them faster, safer, more aerodynamic. This order also cleared the way for the black computers, slide rule in hand, to make their way into NACA history. Human Computers - The Story of Hidden Figures and NASA — by Lisa Richards, Educational Outreach Writer. John Glenn underwent tests for his space mission at the center and plans for the entire mission were laid there. The Human Computer Project. Sharp and successful, the female population at Langley skyrocketed. The historically black college in Atlanta stood in for the exteriors of the NASA Center. That was until 1941 when A. Philip Randolph, pioneering civil rights activist, proposed a march on Washington, D.C., to draw attention to the continued injustices of racial discrimination. A reclining woman, hidden for almost sixty years in the municipality of Egg. This movie combines two of my favorite things: strong women and space. Co-writer/director Theodore Melfi (adapting Margot Lee Shetterly's book with co-writer Allison Schroeder) has a light touch not often found in dramas like this, which makes the material all the more effective. 70. The phenomenal true story of the black female mathematicians at NASA whose calculations helped fuel some of America’s greatest achievements in space. NASA/Donaldson Collection/Getty Images, Credit: Synopsis. “These women were both ordinary and they were extraordinary,” says Margot Lee Shetterly. This film is rated PG. The book takes place from the 1930s through the 1960s when some viewed women as inferior to men. East Point is a suburb to the southwest of Atlanta (bordering Hartsfield-Jackson airport) where filmmakers went to shoot the scenes of Katherine’s home. “This was still a time when people are lynched, when you could be pulled off the bus for sitting in the wrong seat. One 1992 study estimated the total topped several hundred but other estimates, including Shetterly’s own intuition, says that number is in the thousands. [She] had worked at Langley from July 1951 through August 1957.”. The esteemed mathematician was featured in the 2016 film "Hidden Figures," which told the story of a group of African-American women whose contributions were integral to NASA's initial space missions. It is a period piece set in 1961 and based on a true story. Shetterly grew up in Hampton, Virginia, where her father worked at Langley Research Center, on which the book is centered. The white computers could live in Anne Wythe Hall, a dormitory that helped alleviate the shortage of housing, but the black computers were left to their own devices. © 2016 Twentieth Century Fox Film/Hopper Stone, Credit: Today, NASA strives to make sure their legacy of inclusion and excellence lives on. The biographical text follows the lives of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and … “They were just part of a vibrant community of people, and everybody had their jobs,” she says. She also chased down stray memos, obituaries, wedding announcements and more for any hint at the richness of these women’s lives. Exactly how many women computers worked at NACA (and later NASA) over the years is still unknown. Plot Summary Hidden Figures is based in the 60s when women and coloured people were given the `treatment’ in America. As a child, Shetterly knew these brilliant mathematicians as her girl scout troop leaders, Sunday school teachers, next-door neighbors and as parents of schoolmates. The movie follows the story of three women involved in the race to propel humankind into space… The book's film adaptation, starring Octavia Spencer and Taraji P. Henson, is now open in theaters. Synopsis: Called "Computers with Skirts," mathematicians Katherine Johnson, Mary Johnson, and Dorothy Vaughan were hired at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia during the space race. These small actions in some ways are more important or certainly as important as the individual actions by these towering figures.”. Hidden Figures is the story of three black women who made important contributions to the U.S. Space program before the “human computers” were replaced by digital computers. The three women were integral to NASA’s famous mission of sending John Glenn into Earth’s orbit in 1962—but received little of the recognition they deserved until their story was turned into a book and subsequent movie last year. Revealing the inspirational untold story of female African-American mathematicians working at NASA during the 1960s, the film Hidden Figures is based on a book by Margot Lee Shetterly. She hopes her work pays tribute to these women by bringing details of their life’s work to light. With Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monáe, Kevin Costner. Tickets: $50 for adults, $40 for kids at KennedySpaceCenter.com. In 1980, a Swisstopo cartographer traced the spider over an arachnid-shaped ice field on the Eiger mountain. The women fought many more of these seemingly small battles, against separate bathrooms and restricted access to meetings. “Not just mythology but the actual facts,” she says. this link is to an external site that may or may not meet accessibility guidelines. Called the West Computers, after the area to which they were relegated, they helped blaze a trail for mathematicians and engineers of all races and genders to follow. Hidden Figures has some cussing, but nothing derogatory toward another person. Big hair, big personalities, and big ideas - Hidden Figures is out in the US and it’s made a splash. Vote Now! [There were] very, very high stakes.”. Women were the solution. The greatest islands, cities, hotels, cruise lines, airports, and more — as voted by you. Not only was it one of the only tunnels available for filming, it was periodically accurate for what a wind tunnel at Langley would have looked like in the 1960s. Built in 1917, this research complex was the headquarters for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) which was intended to turn the floundering flying gadgets of the day into war machines.