9780062472076
Play Sample

Hidden Figures audiobook

(82190 ratings)
33% Cheaper than Audible
Get for $0.00
  • $9.99 per book vs $14.95 at Audible
    Good for any title to download and keep
  • Listen at up to 4.5x speed
    Good for any title to download and keep
  • Fall asleep to your favorite books
    Set a sleep timer while you listen
  • Unlimited listening to our Classics.
    Listen to thousands of classics for no extra cost. Ever
Loading ...
Regular Price: 27.99 USD

Hidden Figures Audiobook Summary

The phenomenal true story of the black female mathematicians at NASA whose calculations helped fuel some of America’s greatest achievements in space. Soon to be a major motion picture starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monae, Kirsten Dunst, and Kevin Costner.

Before John Glenn orbited the earth, or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as “human computers” used pencils, slide rules and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space.

Among these problem-solvers were a group of exceptionally talented African American women, some of the brightest minds of their generation. Originally relegated to teaching math in the South’s segregated public schools, they were called into service during the labor shortages of World War II, when America’s aeronautics industry was in dire need of anyone who had the right stuff. Suddenly, these overlooked math whizzes had a shot at jobs worthy of their skills, and they answered Uncle Sam’s call, moving to Hampton, Virginia and the fascinating, high-energy world of the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory.

Even as Virginia’s Jim Crow laws required them to be segregated from their white counterparts, the women of Langley’s all-black “West Computing” group helped America achieve one of the things it desired most: a decisive victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and complete domination of the heavens.

Starting in World War II and moving through to the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement and the Space Race, Hidden Figures follows the interwoven accounts of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Christine Darden, four African American women who participated in some of NASA’s greatest successes. It chronicles their careers over nearly three decades they faced challenges, forged alliances and used their intellect to change their own lives, and their country’s future.

Other Top Audiobooks

Hidden Figures Audiobook Narrator

Robin Miles is the narrator of Hidden Figures audiobook that was written by Margot Lee Shetterly

Margot Lee Shetterly grew up in Hampton, Virginia, where she knew many of the women in her book Hidden Figures. She is an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow and the recipient of a Virginia Foundation for the Humanities grant for her research on women in computing. She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

About the Author(s) of Hidden Figures

Margot Lee Shetterly is the author of Hidden Figures

Subjects

The publisher of the Hidden Figures is HarperAudio. includes the following subjects: The BISAC Subject Code is African American Studies, Ethnic Studies, Social Science

Additional info

The publisher of the Hidden Figures is HarperAudio. The imprint is HarperAudio. It is supplied by HarperAudio. The ISBN-13 is 9780062472076.

Global Availability

This book is only available in the United States.

Goodreads Reviews

Lauren

February 09, 2017

The book was as amazing as the movie. I had occasion to meet the author who is the niece of one of these remarkable women. It is unbelievable that we did not know about the contributions of these women until now. This shows how history and historians are extremely selective and do not stray from the pre-established political narrative. I'm sure there are countless other untold stories about women and minorities. Thanks to Margot Shetterly for introducing us to these (s)heroes of rocket science(!) of all things!

Julie

February 09, 2017

Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly is a 2016 William Morrow publication. America is for Everybody!! It wouldn’t have mattered when or where I happened along this book, I would have loved it!! But, with so many core values at stake in our immediate future, with the contributions of the best and the brightest on the line, this story reminds us of why we need maths and science, and how much we can accomplish if we all work together as people, with a common goal in mind. The work of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden, at a time when women and minorities were not treated equally, nor given the credit they so obviously deserved, is a testament to what can happen if you forge through barriers, focus on your goals, and meet challenges with determination, grace and dignity. The excitement of the space program and the rapid advances of the time jumped off the page and hammered home the powerful impact these ladies had. It is also frustrating that their contributions were buried for so long. The segregation and humiliations they endured, while common for the time period, is no less outrageous, and still raised my ire at the absurdity of it.But, ultimately, the author gives us a special insight into what inspired these exceptional women, highlighted their many talents, their personal convictions, and led us on an exciting journey that paved the way for so many of the wonderful achievements of our country. The book is meticulously researched, well written, and achieves its ultimate goal. Mathematics and science are cool, and not just for guys, which is a misconception we still fight off today. No matter how late in coming, the accolades these women are now receiving is sure to promote a vigorous interest in these fields as the become a role model for future generations.It is more important than ever that we fight for science, that we continue to promote education for all, and remember those who came before us, who paved the way and made sacrifices so we can enjoy the way of life we have now. This is a fascinating book, rich in details, both historically and technically, some of which sailed over my head a little, but that only encouraged me to learn more. I highly recommend this book to everyone, no matter what genre you typically prefer reading. This book is a learning experience and an extremely interesting peak at the 'behind the scenes' beginnings of the space program, proving that every person’s role and contribution is important and makes a difference. Best of all, it’s a true story!! I can’t wait to see the movie now. I’ve heard it was really good!5 stars!!

AMEERA

March 05, 2017

Wow , Wow , Wow , Wow , Wow , Wow Wow , Wow , Wow , Wow , Wow , WowTHIS BOOK HOLY SHIT * AMAZING *

Bionic Jean

December 05, 2022

I first heard of Katherine Johnson just a few months ago, when I was watching a Sci-Fi time travel series on television. “Timeless” was a lot of hokum, but fun, and interestingly, many of the historical figures in the stories were real, and portrayed as authentically as they could. So when I became aware of this particular black woman, a high-flying mathematician with the ability to think outside the box – and learned that she had played a great part in the space race – I investigated further.To my astonishment I found that there were more … and yet more. A whole department of black women, in fact, all with superlative mathematical abilities, usually holding master’s degrees, and all highly specialised in their fields. All had played an essential part in the aeronautics industry, and eventually the space race. They were human computers, long before the term was ever applied to machines. I cast my mind back to the 1960s. An image of walls of screens, banks of technical equipment and the experts talking to the astronauts flashed into my mind. And without fail, all those people shouting excitedly into the microphones or beavering away in the corner were male, and all white. Even the astronauts were all male, and all white, if they were American. Living in England we were just as caught up in the awe and enthusiasm for the space race as any other country. But the progress made by Russia (who incidentally had female astronauts at this time) was just as exciting for us as the progress made by the USA.When I discovered that there was a book called Hidden Figures: the Story of the African-American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race, all about these women who seemed to have been erased from history, it became a must-read. What a clever title: “Hidden Figures”! A pun on figures; a double meaning of “numbers”, and also the word for an important person in history – and triple if one considers the association with the female form. Like it or not, the word “figure” in terms of vital statistics (there’s another one!) is rarely applied to the male of the species. Almost immediately, it seemed, a film came out too. I saw the film “Hidden Figures”, and what a triumph it was. Some of the events depicted seemed so far-fetched, and jaw-droppingly bigoted. But this was in a country, and an era, when segregation was the law, I reminded myself. It was probably largely factual, but more of a “feel-good” film which glossed over a lot of the detail.So then I read the original book, Hidden Figures: The Story of the African-American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race which had been published in 2016. I was hoping to gain more background and insight into the scientific and engineering discoveries, as well as the history of civil rights. I wanted facts and figures – and I certainly found them. The amount of information presented was almost overwhelming. Usually in a review of a nonfiction book I will attempt to provide an overview, and perhaps précis parts of it, since there are less likely to be “spoilers”. But with this book I found it very hard to identify the focus.The author herself comments on this:“For better or for worse, there is history, there is the book and then there’s the movie. Timelines had to be conflated and [there were] composite characters, and for most people [who have seen the movie] have already taken that as the literal fact. ... You might get the indication in the movie that these were the only people doing those jobs, when in reality we know they worked in teams, and those teams had other teams. There were sections, branches, divisions, and they all went up to a director. There were so many people required to make this happen. ... It would be great for people to understand that there were so many more people. Even though Katherine Johnson, in this role, was a hero, there were so many others that were required to do other kinds of tests and checks to make [Glenn's] mission come to fruition. But I understand you can’t make a movie with 300 characters. It is simply not possible.”The early chapters seem to mainly follow Dorothy Vaughan, and I enjoyed reading the story of her life. But the narrative switched around so much. Interspersed with technical information about aeronautics, was historical information about how American politics was shaping views and legislation on segregation. The characters were changing too. Was I following her story or someone else’s? Or was I learning how the Research Centre at Langley, which was eventually to become the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Centre (NASA), developed. The truth was, Margot Lee Shetterly was attempting to cover all these bases. I was heartily glad I had seen the film first (and it’s not often that is true for me, as I generally feel that books have far more substance).The film follows three women, Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson. A fair amount of dramatic license is used, since these three women were not working together, nor even following career paths at the same time. The book clarifies the facts about them, but also of many other women’s lives and career paths – dozens more. This is not an exaggeration. It is not helped by the fact that women may have more than one surname through their lives, if they change their name on marriage, and possibly again when widowed. Dotting around between them, darting backwards and forwards in different decades, is very confusing. The narrative is roughly chronological, but proceeds in a zigzag fashion, according to which woman is featured at the time. Margot Lee Shetterly may be describing the progress made in one aspect of engineering in great detail. Or she will describe the break-up of one department and moving around of the staff. Or she may be focusing on the situation as regards segregation in the different States, which had a bearing on the intake of the Langley Research Centre. The book’s history is followed logically, but trying to follow the life of one of the women involved, then another, then another, Dorothy Hoover, Dorothy Vaughan, Amry Jackson, Kathryn Peddrew, Ophelia Taylor, Sue Wilder, Christine Darden and many many more, proves practically impossible. There seem to be several different books here. They would all be interesting, but I feel it needs simplifying in some way for ease of reading. “In the early stages of researching my book, I shared details of what I had found with experts on the history of the space agency. To a person, they encouraged what they viewed as a valuable addition to the body of knowledge, though some questioned the magnitude of the story.“How many women are we talking about? Five or six?”I had known more than that number just growing up in Hampton, but even I was surprised at how the numbers kept adding up.”“a 1994 study, estimated that Langley had employed “several hundred” women as human computers. On the tail end of the research for Hidden Figures, I can now see how that number might top 1,000.”Surely the warning bells should have rung at this point. Define your task. What are you writing – a survey? A history? A compendium of human statistics? A report? A story? Perhaps the author should have stayed with her first idea, starting in 1935, when a few women were hired by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), to be their first computer pool at the Langley campus. The unusual decision to select only females, and furthermore, only from the segregated black community, has been explained by NASA’s historian:“The women were meticulous and accurate ... and they didn’t have to pay them very much.”Yet even so it had caused an uproar. The men in the laboratory could not believe that a female mind could calculate such rigorous mathematics, or handle the expensive advanced comptometers (or calculating machines). But the women who were hired were top-notch mathematicians, either already holding master’s degrees or destined to gain one. What a basis for a riveting story, describing the trajectory of those first five black women who went to work at Langley’s segregated west side in May 1943: the women later known as the “West Computers”! Dorothy Vaughan was one of the earliest; a natural leader, she soon became the spokeswoman for the West Computers. By 1948 she had become NACA’s first black supervisor, and later, an expert FORTRAN programmer.The story of these “West Computer”’s lives would have made a fascinating tale in itself. One of the high points comes with astronaut John Glenn’s 1962 trip around the globe. Katherine Johnson’s main task in the lead-up to this, and during the mission itself, was to double-check and then reverse engineer the newly-installed IBM 7090’s trajectory calculations. John Glenn did not completely trust the computer and asked the head engineers to:“get the girl to check the numbers ... If she says the numbers are good ... I’m ready to go.”Hollywood of course demanded that this scene occur at a dramatically tense moment in the film. Nevertheless, it is based on a true occurrence. The words were said, and the events are just “tightened up” a bit. Other scenes, perhaps largely invented to illustrate changing attitudes, include one cheer-rousing sequence when the head of the Space Task Group, Al Harrison, destroys the “colored ladies room” bathroom sign. Did it actually happen? Perhaps not. But many thousands of similar episodes did.The film streamlined it all nicely. By selecting just three women, and missing out much of the science, it made for a very smooth storyline. Often with the book I felt I was just reading a lot of facts and figures, yet in between there would be interesting anecdotal material, expressed in a lucid and readable way. This was Margot Lee Shetterly’s first book, and she can write very well. We are rooting for the women as they overcome discrimination, and feel strong indignation as they were kept in the background and suffered gross insults. It was so startling to me, as an English reader. I never knew there were specialist “Negro Colleges” until recently. Sadly, even in living memory, the UK also used to be prejudiced in favour of white people, and there was also a (strongly contested) idea that black children underachieved academically. But the schools and colleges were always multiracial. It was unquestioned. Therefore for English readers there is a sense of shock every time the fact of racial segregation in a country so similar to our own, and so recently, rears its ugly head. We cannot escape the appalling drama of it all. But I become lost in the vastness of America, only having a vague sense of where these geographical locations are, never mind the institutions which are being described. When I also have time switches back and forth, and as the author herself admits a “cast” of over 300 characters, and a fairly detailed history of scientific developments, areas where I only have a cursory knowledge of present trends, I am lost. Victorian novels with casts of hundreds hold no terrors for me, but even careful reading did not really help here. I had no framework; no “hook” such as a story, to hang the facts on, neither could I remember these people very easily, except in terms of the film.Margot Lee Shetterly remembered visiting her father’s workplace: “Women occupied many of the cubicles; they answered phones and sat in front of typewriters, but they also made hieroglyphic marks on transparent slides and conferred with my father and other men in the office on the stacks of documents that littered their desks. That so many of them were African American, many of them my grandmother’s age, struck me as simply a part of the natural order of things: growing up in Hampton, the face of science was brown like mine.”“As a child … I knew so many African Americans working in science, maths and engineering that I thought that’s just what black folks did.”Hidden Figures: The Story of the African-American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race is a startling story on many levels, showing how black females have always comprised a significant part of the mathematical and engineering workforce at NASA, defying both the double whammy of being female and being black:“As late as 1970, just 1% of all American engineers were black, a number that doubled to a whopping 2% by 1984. Still, the federal government was the most reliable employer of African Americans in the sciences and technology; in 1984, 8.4% of Nasa’s engineers were black.”“Even as a professional in an integrated world, I had been the only black woman in enough drawing rooms and boardrooms to have an inkling of the chutzpah it took for an African American woman in a segregated southern workplace to tell her bosses she was sure her calculations would put a man on the moon.”I am thoroughly glad that Margot Lee Shetterly devoted so much time and care to researching and telling this story. However, a good author knows what to select, and what to reject, and does not just stick all her research in somewhere, regardless. The confused structure of this book means reading flow is extremely patchy. “I’m sensitive to the cognitive dissonance conjured by the phrase ‘black female mathematicians at Nasa’”. Oh yes! How I would love to say the book is amazing; the facts certainly are. I cannot in my heart give this an average rating. But in all fairness I cannot rate it as higher than 4 stars, and I feel that even this is on the generous side. The film is fictionalised, as the author clearly said, whereas the book is scrupulously factual. But the book is just too complicated. I know which of them I am likely to revisit.Extra Quotations:“There was Dorothy Hoover, working for Robert T Jones in 1946 and publishing theoretical research on his famed triangle-shaped delta wings in 1951. There was Dorothy Vaughan, working with the white “East Computers” to write a textbook on algebraic methods for the mechanical calculating machines that were their constant companions.There was Mary Jackson, defending her analysis against John Becker, one of the world’s top aerodynamicists. There was Katherine Johnson, describing the orbital trajectory of John Glenn’s flight, the maths in her trailblazing 1959 report as elegant, precise and grand as a symphony. There was Marge Hannah, the white computer who served as the black women’s first boss, co-authoring a report with Sam Katzoff, who became the laboratory’s chief scientist. There was Doris Cohen, setting the bar for them all with her first research report – the NACA’s first female author – back in 1941.My investigation became more like an obsession; I would walk any trail if it meant finding a trace of one of the computers at its end. I was determined to prove their existence and their talent in a way that meant they would never again be lost to history.”

Kai

June 30, 2017

“Even as a professional in an integrated world, I had been the only black woman in enough drawing rooms and boardrooms to have an inkling of the chutzpah it took for an African American woman in a segregated southern workplace to tell her bosses she was sure her calculations would put a man on the Moon.”I don't even read nonfiction if it doesn't involve making-of Harry Potter books (which I still consider fiction in a way). So this was a good change for once.I'm not sure when I first heard of this story. I'm not even 100% sure if I discovered the book before I heard about the film adaption, but I think I did.All in all this book was highly informative, though I think I would have enjoyed it more if I was more interested in science, space and aerodynamics. My understanding for these topics is lacking, which is the reason why I often skimmed some overly technical paragraphs.However, the life stories this book depicts are awe inspiring and moving, and this is what I'm here for. Strong and educated women of every race and heritage, jumping over (metaphorical) fences, taking a stand, breaking down stereotypes, making a career, proving that they have the brains it takes to work in one of the most prestigious scientific facilities in the world (and everywhere else as well). All of that, while so many hindrances were put in their ways, because of their gender, because of their race. Because of prejudice, ignorance and hate.This book shows - and reminds us - that there are people who take opportunities and master them with grace, people who hold doors open for the less fortunate and give them a chance to shine, people who value bravery and kindess more than anything else.This is what made this book worth reading.I'm so excited for the film, I've been excited for months, and can't wait to finally see it. There's a high probability of goosebumps and tears.Find more of my books on Instagram

Candi

February 21, 2017

"In July 1969, a hundred or so black women crowded into a room, their attention commanded by the sounds and grainy images issuing forth from a small black-and-white television. The flickering light of the TV illuminated the women’s faces, the history of their country written in the great diversity of their features and hair and skin color, which ranged from near-ivory to almost-ebony, hues of beige and coffee and cocoa and topaz filling in between. Some of the women were approaching their golden years, the passage of time and experience etched in their faces and bearing. Others were in full bloom of youth, their eyes like diamonds, reflecting a bright future."Hidden Figures is a remarkable account of a small number of intelligent, hard-working, driven and admirable African-American women who made significant contributions to the Space Race and to the fields of math, science and engineering. At a time when many parts of the United States still practiced segregation and racial prejudices were still widespread, their story is even more extraordinary. What a day it must have been for those women standing in that room in 1969 as the culmination of their dedication and perseverance was about to peak as the first man made his way to the moon! This book is thoroughly researched and introduces us to four of these gifted women and their stories as they took the plunge into careers as mathematicians - or ‘computers’, as they were called before the age of information technology and digital electronics. Author Margot Lee Shetterly also provides us with many details of the civil rights movement, school segregation and eventual integration, and the aeronautic industry. Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Christine Darden faced obstacles and discrimination in the workplace, as they lived in a country where being a white male provided the best probability of equitable pay and chance of advancement. However, their brilliant minds did not go unnoticed and they garnered the respect from their coworkers and supervisors that they undeniably deserved. Their fighting spirits led them to opportunities that were previously unimaginable. And yet they still faced the ugly reality of “colored only” bathrooms and cafeteria tables in the workplace. It is extraordinary to think that while these women worked at a place as technologically progressive as Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory in Virginia, that this same state was steeped with the injustice imposed by the Jim Crow laws. The government fought against integrating schools, even to the point of closing down schools that attempted to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling in the case of Brown v. Board of Education. Some schools offered incentives to black families that agreed to enroll their children in the black districts. "Virginia, a state with one of the highest concentrations of scientific talent in the world, led the nation in denying education to its youth."I feel I should mention just a couple of minor quibbles I had which kept this from being a 5-star book for me. First, I had hoped to feel more of an emotional or personal connection to these four awesome ladies. This piece was missing perhaps because we didn’t really get to learn as much about how they felt, but rather more about what they did. Second, the narrative jumped around quite a bit – both in time and between individuals. I think a more linear story with sections devoted to the individual women would have worked better for me. Nevertheless, it is a truly inspirational story that I think everyone should discover – whether through this book or by watching the movie (which I have yet to do myself). I think the best experience would include both. "I want to be an engineer like my mother." - Levi Jackson to his mom, Mary Jackson – what a proud mom moment those words must have provided back in 1960!

Matthew

June 14, 2017

How far we have come in the last 100 years! Both scientifically and as people. I know in many ways we still have a long way to go, but this book shows how much has changed for the better through the persistance of those unlikely to be given a chance.Less than 80 years ago, in many places, people of different colors still couldn't share bathrooms, tables in cafeterias, etc. Women were only given base level positions and pay because that was just how it was. Ask a man leading a department why the less qualified person got the job, he would say legitimately, with a straight-face, and without thinking anything was wrong, "why, it is because the more qualified person is a black woman - everyone knows you can give jobs like this to a black woman. Black people are janitors and women are secretaries. Thinking otherwise is crazy!" It is so hard to believe! Luckily, despite some areas and businesses where thoughts like this may still be found, generally this feeling has changed.Hidden Figures tells the story of several key players who helped change the mentality to believing that everyone can succeed if they put their mind to it no matter their color or sex. The back drop is post-WWII in Langley, Virgina where scientists and engineers were working to improve flight and take us into space. While at first the feeling was that only white men could lead the charge, several strong, intelligent, and determined black women showed that they had what it takes to work on an equal level based on skills and accomplishments instead of their physical appearance.If you like science, American history, stories about Civil Rights, this is a must read. There is a bit of a drag at a couple of points as it gets deep into science and mathematics, but I think that serves to show the amazing things these women were accomplishing.

☘Misericordia☘

July 22, 2019

A fascinating subject. An inspiring story. Peppered through with facts and fiction and more facts. Of course, some of the things must have been embellished (or not! or yes?), still, the inspiration is there!All the 'segregation' and 'women can't do this or that job' is such damn bullshit! That seemingly sensible and not senile people managed to actually believe in it will probably never stop trumping me. I just can't wrap my mind around it.The departmental policy's probably a bit skewed? I've no idea how it actually was but it feels to be that way. Foe example:Q:Katherine and Al Hamer had already started thinking about what it would take to plot a course to Mars; their colleagues Marge Hannah and John Young would look even farther into the cosmos, dreaming up a “grand tour” of the outer planets. (c) I'm pretty sure this is just unfortunate phrasing which makes it sound like there were 2 (4?) people doing the 'thinking'. There must have been many more, we're just making these one visible, since they are the subject of the book.Still, this is not making the book any worse, it's a really difficult task to pinpoint how large groups of people work. And anyway, the readers probably wouldn't have appreciated the thing: just how interesting can it get listening to dull day-to-day departmental meetings? I guess, not too interesting to anyone but an efficiency consultant. I also find that 1 of the girls was, well, not too African American (she was of fair complexion and everything) isn't taking anything from the story. Just imagine being a fair African American: it would definitely be an issue, still, from all sides. This is not a fun position to be in, maths or no maths.The heroes were independent and well-rounded and idealistic which got balanced by a plethora of researched details and non-fiction style. More's the power to the book, had it not been that way, I probably wouldn't have even believed a word from this book.Q:Even if the tale had begun and ended with the first five black women who went to work at Langley’s segregated west side in May 1943—the women later known as the “West Computers”—I still would have committed myself to recording the facts and circumstances of their lives. Just as islands—isolated places with unique, rich biodiversity—have relevance for the ecosystems everywhere, so does studying seemingly isolated or overlooked people and events from the past turn up unexpected connections and insights to modern life. The idea that black women had been recruited to work as mathematicians at the NASA installation in the South during the days of segregation defies our expectations and challenges much of what we think we know about American history. It’s a great story, and that alone makes it worth telling.(c) Totally great. Q:There was something in her bearing that transcended her soft voice and diminutive stature. Her eyes dominated her lovely, caramel-hued face—almond-shaped, wide-set, intense eyes that seemed to see everything. Education topped her list of ideals; it was the surest hedge against a world that would require more of her children than white children, and attempt to give them less in return. (c)Q:No one knew better than Katherine Johnson that luck favored the prepared. (c)

aPriL does feral sometimes

February 18, 2019

I did not expect to become tearful upon finishing a history book, especially one about mathematicians and engineers, but I did.Many things had to happen before women were considered to do the work of engineers and mathematicians by the government of the United States: Parents who believed the natural mathematics talent of their daughters was worthy of their support; local schools that had enough resources and talented teachers to provide a quality education and scholarships; and finally, employers willing to hire 1. women, 2. women who were mathematicians, but especially 3. Black women, 4. Black women who were mathematicians. In 1941, these elements were all in place (incredibly, Black colleges and academics had been heroically building an educated base of Black-Americans despite Jim Crow laws). Except for that last one of employers willing to hire women of any race as mathematicians.Then World War II happened. It vacuumed up men and sent them all out into the world with a gun and marching orders. So. Employers finally unlocked the door which had been closed against employing women to work in engineering by a new key - desperation.‘Hidden Figures: the American Dream and the Untold Story of Black Women Mathematicians’ is glorious. The book is an excellent history of NASA, and an even better history of some of the Black women who quietly went about their work as mathematicians and engineers without recognition or appropriate pay or titles despite having the same college degrees and work expectations (many hitting glass ceilings quickly) when hired at the same time as the men. The book also includes a short history of the civil rights movement from the 1940’s to the 1970’s. This linkage is appropriate because it all happened in lockstep; the women, many of whom were college educated, working with exotic (to me) maths which were building airplanes, rockets, and eventually, helping men walk on the moon, the women working with math often for ten-hour days, still had to live outside of the grounds of Langley because of laws designed for slaves restricting where they could live, eat, or travel. Women who were plotting launches had to sit at the back of the bus. Heaven help them if they needed a restroom and none were available that had the sign ‘for colored’. Golf courses and hotel conferences and restaurants where white male engineers and their bosses relaxed and discussed work problems forbid access to Black people. Everyone went, “oh well”, until the civil rights movement began.Before NASA was NASA it was Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory. In 1943, Melvin Butler, the personnel officer of the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory ,was desperate for mathematicians, as well as physicists, computers (this is what some mathematicians were called), laboratory assistants, helper trainees, stenographers and typists. America needed better and faster airplanes and jets to fight the Nazis and Japanese, and that meant engineers and scientists, not just technicians. The laboratory had begun with 500 employees, but soon had 1,500 men working at research on how to build better airplanes. It wasn’t enough. But the only possible pool of employees left, after all available men were hired, were females. Women. Sigh, said the men.These women worked hard and eventually helped to put Neil Armstrong’s foot into the dust on the moon, besides helping to win World War II and save the lives of uncountable Navy and Air Force pilots. They had babies, marriages and homes to take care of. They did it with secretary salaries and no promotions or any recognition by the world. Bite me.The book has an extensive Notes section, Bibliography and Index, as well as a Reading Guide.

Calista

May 01, 2018

An Amazing book. I saw the movie when it came out and I LOVED the movie. I was excited for the book. I like the book, but it's not a story. Margot Shetterly is writing a history. She is not writing a story - there is a difference. Margot is telling and not showing. She doesn't put us inside Katherine's perspective, she tells us about Katherine's perspective. She also gives histories of many of the people and she goes into many of the historical backgrounds that got us here starting with World War II. I mean it is fascinating. It really is, but don't expect some sweeping story. This really is a history and I learned so much from it I had no clue about. It's amazing.The movie takes all this history and goes in a makes a story from the middle part. Part of the plot in the movies was about the bathrooms. Well, all that happened in the 50s before the whole 60s get a man in space thing so the movie took many liberties to make a very engaging story, but it wasn't in the correct order. Katherine never used the African American bathroom; from the start she used the regular bathrooms.Isn't it interesting how bathrooms always seem to come up with minority issues at some point in their history before a class of people is excepted. Society can be so strange. I like how Margot drove home the point that as we fought the Nazi's and as we tried to be the leader in the world, our backward stance on treating people equal always stood in our way to lead. How could the rest of the people want what we had when 80% of the people in the world are people of color and the US just 50 years ago treated them like 2nd class citizens. Such a contradiction in our stance on freedom and so weird. I'm so glad this book is here for the ages and documents the important contributions that women and especially women of color have made to the history of our nation and getting us in space. Several of those women are the foundation of some of our math theory still to this day. They need statues. I think we need memorials to these women, but it will probably have to wait until we get a president who isn't racist himself.I'm so glad I read this. It was fantastic.

Kara

January 12, 2017

No, but seriously, did you expect anything less of a rating from me? This book is kickass. It is literally everything I have wanted in a science history book for a while.Hidden Figures details the lives and achievements of the Black women who worked first as computers, then as mathematicians and engineers, for NACA (the National Advisory Committee of Aeronautics) and its successor, NASA. Margot Lee Shetterly pulls back the curtain on an aspect of science history that has remained obscured and neglected. As she explains in the afterword, it’s not that these women and their roles in history were deliberately suppressed; instead, no one had really bothered to piece together their stories and tell the general public. Shetterly, in her first book, pulls together the threads of several women’s lives, creating a compelling book that doesn’t just tell us their story but actually tells the story of NACA/NASA, and the transformation of the American aeronautics industry from World War II to the moonshot.If you’re a woman, you don’t need me to mansplain to you why this book is important. In fact, you’re probably good just skipping the rest of this review and going out and buying a copy right now.If you’re a man, particularly a white man, and you’re having trouble comprehending why I’m gushing so unreservedly at this book, then let me point you to Kameron Hurley’s essay, “‘We Have Always Fought’: Challenging the ‘Women, Cattle and Slaves’ Narrative”:I had no idea what to say to this. I had been nurtured in the U.S. school system on a steady diet of the Great Men theory of history. History was full of Great Men. I had to take separate Women’s History courses just to learn about what women were doing while all the men were killing each other. It turned out many of them were governing countries and figuring out rather effective methods of birth control that had sweeping ramifications on the makeup of particular states, especially Greece and Rome.Half the world is full of women, but it’s rare to hear a narrative that doesn’t speak of women as the people who have things done to them instead of the people who do things. More often, women are talked about as a man’s daughter. A man’s wife.What Hurley says of women fighting is true for women in STEM. There have always been women in STEM. Unfortunately, it’s just so much easier to name prominent men in STEM than women, thanks to the way our historical narrative has been constructed. Sure, when pressed I can name a handful of women mathematicians off the top of my head—Ada Lovelace, obvs., Emmy Noether, Sofia Kovalevskaya, Sophie Germain. Even when I do this, however, all I’m doing is stretching the Great Man theory to accommodate another sex; in doing this, I erase the contributions of thousands of unnamed women who laboured and calculated and thought.Shetterly avoids succumbing to this temptation. True, she focuses more on some women than others, like Dorothy Vaughan and Katherine Goble Johnson—but she names and briefly explores the lives of many more. Although she relates biographical details, this is not a biography. It’s a history, a history of the early twentieth-century United States and how its technological prowess in air and space allowed it to become a global superpower. Oh, and by the way, that prowess was built on the computations of Black women. Or, as Shetterly observes at one memorable point, there is precious little in aeronautics and space history that women have not been involved in or somehow helped to build.Before we had electronic computers, we had human computers. People—by which I mean, women, because computing was seen as women’s work—sat at rows of desks and did the math required by engineers designing and prototyping aircraft for the war effort. We’re not talking about sums and differences on a calculator here; we’re talking about complicated algebraic operations the likes of which would dazzle you unless you happen to have an undergrad math degree—which most of these women did. Yes, women graduated from university math programs in the 1930s. And, like Dorothy Vaughan, they almost always went into teaching (especially if they were also Black), until the war came along and the demand for women in the workforce—and for computers.There were white women computers as well, and Shetterly names several of them and mentions their contributions at NACA. By focusing on West Computing and its Black computers, however, she can use this history to examine the paradox of racism in the American South during and after World War II. And this is where Hidden Figures transcends merely flipping the script on forgotten women to become a comprehensive and edifying history. I learned so much about discrimination, segregation, and the civil rights movement from this book!As a Canadian, of course, I didn’t learn an awful lot about the American civil rights movement (nor, sadly, do we learn much about our own country’s anti-Black policies). But I thought I knew the gist of it: Black and white people sent their children to separate schools, had separate bathrooms and water fountains and separate seating on buses and at movie theatres. I knew of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case. I didn’t know about the numerous other legal challenges involving higher education, nor was I aware that following Brown, Virginia was basically like, “Welp, we’ll just defund public education instead.” I had no idea that for five years a county in Virginia closed all of its public schools in an effort to stop integration. Smh. So wild.(It seems wild to me, sitting here and writing this from my relatively enlightened position in 2017. Yet I’m aware that I benefit from hindsight, and I spun off a rant about blindspots in the present day into a separate blog post.)Even in the history of civil rights, I think it’s easy to get caught up in how Black men fought for, advocated for, agitated for freedom from discrimination. Aside from a few token women, like Rosa Parks, mythologized for a single act of defiance, the movement is defined by masculine resistance. Shetterly shatters this conception, showing us how Black women resisted every single day: Miriam Mann’s quiet war to remove the “Colored” sign from the lunchroom table; Mary Jackson working with her son to build the most aerodynamic soap box derby racer; Katherine Johnson literally demanding that she be allowed to sit in on editorial meetings—this is a story where women are not just wives and mothers and cheerleaders of others but actors and makers of history in their own right.Similarly, Hidden Figures is the story of the States’ transition from wartime boom to post-war bustle. Shetterly captures the tension and patriotism ignited by the Soviet launch of Sputnik in 1957, and how it galvanized the States to transform NACA into NASA and begin aiming for space. If her exposition into the administrative intricacies of how this transformation happened gets a bit much at times, I cannot fault her dedication to such details. Despite such digressions, the book remains fascinating through and through.I can only hope the movie based on Hidden Figures is as good as this book. It’s past due for women like Vaughan and Johnson to get the recognition they deserve, and it’s time that we change the way we tell stories about the history of science and technology. Writers like Shetterly remind us that there is so much more to the story than a few Great Men having leaps of intuition or spearheading intense, improbable projects. Some “untold story” books fizzle, failing to deliver on their promises of a brand new perspective on an old story. Not so with Hidden Figures. This is one untold story that you need to hear.I saw the movie, and I blogged about it!

Frequently asked questions

Listening to audiobooks not only easy, it is also very convenient. You can listen to audiobooks on almost every device. From your laptop to your smart phone or even a smart speaker like Apple HomePod or even Alexa. Here’s how you can get started listening to audiobooks.

  • 1. Download your favorite audiobook app such as Speechify.
  • 2. Sign up for an account.
  • 3. Browse the library for the best audiobooks and select the first one for free
  • 4. Download the audiobook file to your device
  • 5. Open the Speechify audiobook app and select the audiobook you want to listen to.
  • 6. Adjust the playback speed and other settings to your preference.
  • 7. Press play and enjoy!

While you can listen to the bestsellers on almost any device, and preferences may vary, generally smart phones are offer the most convenience factor. You could be working out, grocery shopping, or even watching your dog in the dog park on a Saturday morning.
However, most audiobook apps work across multiple devices so you can pick up that riveting new Stephen King book you started at the dog park, back on your laptop when you get back home.

Speechify is one of the best apps for audiobooks. The pricing structure is the most competitive in the market and the app is easy to use. It features the best sellers and award winning authors. Listen to your favorite books or discover new ones and listen to real voice actors read to you. Getting started is easy, the first book is free.

Research showcasing the brain health benefits of reading on a regular basis is wide-ranging and undeniable. However, research comparing the benefits of reading vs listening is much more sparse. According to professor of psychology and author Dr. Kristen Willeumier, though, there is good reason to believe that the reading experience provided by audiobooks offers many of the same brain benefits as reading a physical book.

Audiobooks are recordings of books that are read aloud by a professional voice actor. The recordings are typically available for purchase and download in digital formats such as MP3, WMA, or AAC. They can also be streamed from online services like Speechify, Audible, AppleBooks, or Spotify.
You simply download the app onto your smart phone, create your account, and in Speechify, you can choose your first book, from our vast library of best-sellers and classics, to read for free.

Audiobooks, like real books can add up over time. Here’s where you can listen to audiobooks for free. Speechify let’s you read your first best seller for free. Apart from that, we have a vast selection of free audiobooks that you can enjoy. Get the same rich experience no matter if the book was free or not.

It depends. Yes, there are free audiobooks and paid audiobooks. Speechify offers a blend of both!

It varies. The easiest way depends on a few things. The app and service you use, which device, and platform. Speechify is the easiest way to listen to audiobooks. Downloading the app is quick. It is not a large app and does not eat up space on your iPhone or Android device.
Listening to audiobooks on your smart phone, with Speechify, is the easiest way to listen to audiobooks.

footer-waves