Mary Jackson was hired at Langley to test model airplanes in wind tunnels. This required more math, more tests, and more computers. Now America and Russia were in competition to build the best airplanes.

After the United States won the war, Dorothy stayed on to create better aircraft. At Langley, whites and blacks worked in different buildings and had separate facilities. Today, we use computers to do the kinds of math needed, “but in the 1940s computers were actual people like Dorothy, Mary, Katherine, and Christine.”Ĭopyright Laura Freeman, 2018, courtesy of .Įven though Dorothy was a woman and an African-American in the segregated South, Dorothy did not think her dream of getting a job was impossible. Developing new airplanes required lots of tests at the Langley Laboratory in Virginia. “Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden were good at math… really good.” The United States was involved in World War II, and Dorothy wanted to help the war effort by working for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics to make planes faster, stronger, and safer. Hidden Figures: The True Story of Four Black Women and the Space Race Written by Margot Lee Shetterly | Illustrated by Laura Freeman Math 2.0 Day was established to bring together mathematicians, programmers, engineers, educators, and managers to raise awareness of the importance of math literacy at all levels of education. Math and technology are also employed by architects, scientists, researchers, and manufacturers.

Today’s holiday celebrates the merging of math and technology together as the foundation of most of the things we use every day, such as computers, phones, tablets and other electronics.

Hidden figures book