Hidden Figures Audiobook by Margot Lee Shetterly [Free Download by Trial]

Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly

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Summary

Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race Audiobook by Margot Lee Shetterly is a non-fiction book published in 2016. It depicts the little-known story of a group of highly skilled African-American women who contributed significantly to America becoming a front-runner in global space domain.

The book is about the personal lives and careers of four African-American women- Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Christine Darden. They were all mathematics graduates, expected to work as high-school teachers.

When the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, a research center in NASA, started accepting minority women, these group of women started working there. Dorothy Vaughan worked as the first human computer. Mary Jackson also excelled in her job at Langley. She moved upwards from working as a human computer to an aeronautical engineer. Katherine Johnson was the first widely accepted and renowned black woman in NASA. Prior to orbiting the earth in 1962, John Glen requested Johnson to work out the trajectories to ensure his safety. Few years later, Johnson rose to prominence and on the request of John Glenn again, calculated the trajectories for the Apollo 11 mission.

Review

Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race Audiobook by Margot Lee Shetterly is an utterly inspiring and gripping tale of a group of African-American women who rose to prominence in NASA. The fact that they did so during a time when the opportunities for the African-American women were very limited, makes their achievement even more extraordinary.

The author has beautifully portrayed the life journey of the four black women in the book. Their life stories have been detailed and the readers will get an insight into their lives and how they ended up being so successful. The readers will also be able to relate to them. The narrative is simple, factual and yet very powerful. This is a recommended read for people who want to follow the life journey of these inspiring women.