Mary Jackson

Mary Jackson (néeWinston;[1] April 9, 1921 – February 11, 2005) was an American mathematician and aerospace engineer at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), which in 1958 was succeeded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). She worked at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, for most of her career. She started as a computer at the segregated West Area Computing division in 1951. She took advanced engineering classes and, in 1958, became NASA’s first black female engineer.

After 34 years at NASA, Jackson had earned the most senior engineering title available. She realized she could not earn further promotions without becoming a supervisor. She accepted a demotion to become a manager of both the Federal Women’s Program, in the NASA Office of Equal Opportunity Programs and of the Affirmative Action Program. In this role, she worked to influence the hiring and promotion of women in NASA’s science, engineering, and mathematics careers.

Jackson’s story features in the 2016 non-fiction book Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Who Helped Win the Space Race. She is one of the three protagonists in Hidden Figures, the film adaptation released the same year.

Janelle Monáe as Mary Jackson in Hidden Figures:
Mary Jackson working at NASA Langley

In 2019, Jackson was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.[2] In 2021, the Washington, D.C. headquarters of NASA was renamed the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters.

“Mary Jackson (Engineer).” Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Jackson_(engineer). Accessed 28 Aug. 2022.

Links:

          Katherine Johnson

          Katherine Johnson (née Coleman; August 26, 1918 – February 24, 2020) was an American mathematician whose calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. crewed spaceflights.[1] 

          Embed from Getty Images

          During her 33-year career at NASA and its predecessor, she earned a reputation for mastering complex manual calculations and helped pioneer the use of computers to perform the tasks. The space agency noted her “historical role as one of the first African-American women to work as a NASA scientist”.[2]

          Johnson’s work included calculating trajectories, launch windows, and emergency return paths for Project Mercury spaceflights, including those for astronauts Alan Shepard, the first American in space, and John Glenn, the first American in orbit, and rendezvous paths for the Apollo Lunar Module and command module on flights to the Moon. Her calculations were also essential to the beginning of the Space Shuttle program, and she worked on plans for a mission to Mars. She was known as a “human computer” for her tremendous mathematical capability and ability to work with space trajectories with such little technology and recognition at the time.

          In 2015, President Barack Obama awarded Johnson the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2016, she was presented with the Silver Snoopy Award by NASA astronaut Leland D. Melvin and a NASA Group Achievement Award. She was portrayed by Taraji P. Henson as a lead character in the 2016 film Hidden Figures. In 2019, Johnson was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by the United States Congress.[3] In 2021, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.[4]

          “Katherine Johnson.” Wikipedia, en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Johnson. Accessed 27 Aug. 2022.

          Links:

          NASA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

          “We needed to be assertive as women in those days – assertive and aggressive – and the degree to which we had to be that way depended on where you were. I had to be.

          In the early days of NASA women were not allowed to put their names on the reports – no woman in my division had had her name on a report.

          I was working with Ted Skopinski and he wanted to leave and go to Houston … but Henry Pearson, our supervisor – he was not a fan of women – kept pushing him to finish the report we were working on.

          Finally, Ted told him, “Katherine should finish the report, she’s done most of the work anyway.”

          So Ted left Pearson with no choice; I finished the report and my name went on it, and that was the first time a woman in our division had her name on something.”

          – Katherine Johnson

          Warren, Wini (1999). Black Women Scientists in the United States. Indiana University Press. pp. 143. ISBN 978-0-253-33603-3.

          Biography ~ 3-minute video

          NASA Mathematician, Recipient of Nations Highest Civilian Honor

          Lucille Ball

          Lucille Désirée Ball (August 6, 1911 – April 26, 1989) was an American actress, comedienne, and producer. She was nominated for 13 Primetime Emmy Awards, winning five times,[1] and was the recipient of several other accolades, such as the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award and two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.[2][3] 

          She earned many honors, including the Women in Film Crystal Award,[4] an induction into the Television Hall of Fame, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Kennedy Center Honors,[5] and the Governors Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.[6]

          Embed from Getty Images

          Lucille Ball appears on radio programme ‘The Phil Baker Show’, 1938.
          (Photo by Gene Lester/Archive Photos/Getty Images)

          In 1962, she became the first woman to run a major television studio, Desilu Productions, which produced many popular television series, including Mission: Impossible and Star Trek.[11] 

          “Lucille Ball.” Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucille_Ball. Accessed 3 Sept. 2022.

          Lucille Ball Wearing Gondolier Hat
          Embed from Getty Images
          Lucille Ball
          Embed from Getty Images

          The Best of Lucille Ball:

          I Love Lucy Stomping Grapes:

          I Love Lucy Breakfast:

          I Love Lucy Job Switching:

          Biographical Films:

          Being the Ricardos (2021 film):

          Lucy and Desi (2022 film):

          Links:

          Dorothy Vaughan

          Dorothy Jean Johnson Vaughan (September 20, 1910 – November 10, 2008) was an American mathematician and human computer who worked for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and NASA, at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

          In 1949, she became acting supervisor of the West Area Computers, the first African-American woman to receive a promotion and supervise a group of staff at the center.

          From the movie Hidden Figures

          She later was promoted officially to the position of supervisor. During her 28-year career, Vaughan prepared for the introduction of computers in the early 1960s by teaching herself and her staff the programming language of Fortran. She later headed the programming section of the Analysis and Computation Division (ACD) at Langley.

          IBM System 360/195 computer

          Vaughan is one of the women featured in Margot Lee Shetterly‘s history Hidden Figures: The Story of the African-American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race (2016). It was adapted as a biographical film of the same name, also released in 2016.

          “Dorothy Vaughan.” Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Vaughan. Accessed 21 Aug. 2022.

          Bios:

          Dorothy Vaughan contributed to the Scout Launch project.
          Scout Launch Vehicle – NASA

          Links:

          Rachel Carson

          “Rachel Carson’s sensational book Silent Spring (1962) warned of the dangers to all natural systems from the misuse of chemical pesticides such as DDT, and questioned the scope and direction of modern science, initiated the contemporary environmental movement.

          In her books on the sea Carson wrote about geologic discoveries from submarine technology and underwater research — of how islands were formed, how currents change and merge, how temperature affects sea life, and how erosion impacts not just shore lines but salinity, fish populations, and tiny micro-organisms. Even in the 1950’s, Carson’s ecological vision of the oceans shows her embrace of a larger environmental ethic which could lead to the sustainability of nature’s interactive and interdependent systems. Climate change, rising sea-levels, melting Arctic glaciers, collapsing bird and animal populations, crumbling geological faults — all are part of Carson’s work.”

          “Rachel Carson, The Life and Legacy.” Rachel Carson’s Website, http://www.rachelcarson.org. Accessed 17 Dec. 2021.

          Rachel Carson Quote: Acceptance speech of the National Book Award for Nonfiction (1952)

          Rachel Carson

          If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry.

          Rachel Carson

          Rachel Carson on PBS:

          Frida Kahlo

          Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈfɾiða ˈkalo]; 6 July 1907 – 13 July 1954[1]) was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by the country’s popular culture, she employed a naïvefolk art style to explore questions of identity, postcolonialism, gender, class, and race in Mexican society.[2] Her paintings often had strong autobiographical elements and mixed realism with fantasy. In addition to belonging to the post-revolutionary Mexicayotl movement, which sought to define a Mexican identity, Kahlo has been described as a surrealist or magical realist.[3]

          “Frida Kahlo.” Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frida_Kahlo. Accessed 12 Dec. 2021.

          Frida Kahlo: The Woman Behind the Legend

          Frida Movie Trailer

          Frida Kahlo at her home in Coyoacan, Mexico

          Emmy Lou Packard. Photograph of Frida Kahlo at her home in Coyoacan, Mexico, 1941. Emmy Lou Packard Papers, 1900-1990. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

          Grace Hopper

          Grace Brewster Murray Hopper (née Murray; December 9, 1906 – January 1, 1992) was an American computer scientist and United States Navy rear admiral.[1] One of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, she was a pioneer of computer programming who invented one of the first linkers. Hopper was the first to devise the theory of machine-independent programming languages, and the FLOW-MATIC programming language she created using this theory was later extended to create COBOL, an early high-level programming language still in use today.

          Prior to joining the Navy, Hopper earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale University and was a professor of mathematics at Vassar College. Hopper attempted to enlist in the Navy during World War II but was rejected because she was 34 years old. She instead joined the Navy Reserves. Hopper began her computing career in 1944 when she worked on the Harvard Mark I team led by Howard H. Aiken. In 1949, she joined the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation and was part of the team that developed the UNIVAC I computer. At Eckert–Mauchly she managed the development of one of the first COBOL compilers. She believed that a programming language based on English was possible. Her compiler converted English terms into machine code understood by computers. By 1952, Hopper had finished her program linker (originally called a compiler), which was written for the A-0 System.[2][3][4][5] During her wartime service, she co-authored three papers based on her work on the Harvard Mark 1.

          In 1954, Eckert–Mauchly chose Hopper to lead their department for automatic programming, and she led the release of some of the first compiled languages like FLOW-MATIC. In 1959, she participated in the CODASYL consortium, which consulted Hopper to guide them in creating a machine-independent programming language. This led to the COBOL language, which was inspired by her idea of a language being based on English words.

          During her lifetime, Hopper was awarded 40 honorary degrees from universities across the world. A college at Yale University was renamed in her honor. In 1991, she received the National Medal of Technology. On November 22, 2016, she was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.[7]

          “Grace Hopper.” Wikipedia, en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper. Accessed 30 Apr. 2022.

          Grace Murray Hopper at the UNIVAC keyboard,
          c. 1960 Creative Commons Attribution

          While Grace Hopper was working on a Mark II Computer at Harvard University in 1947,[38] her associates discovered a moth that was stuck in a relay and impeding the operation of the computer.

          Upon extraction, the insect was affixed to a log sheet for that day with the notation, “First actual case of a bug being found”.

          Log book showing the “bug” found caught in a Mark II relay
          Courtesy of the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren, VA., 1988. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph.

          The remains of the moth can be found taped into the group’s log book at the Smithsonian Institution‘s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.[38]

          Who was Grace Hopper?

          Links:

          Josephine Baker

          Josephine Baker (born Freda Josephine McDonald; (3 June 1906 – 12 April 1975) was an American-born French entertainer, French Resistance agent, and civil rights activist. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted France. She was the first black woman to star in a major motion picture, the 1927 silent film Siren of the Tropics.

          During her early career, Baker was among the most celebrated performers to headline the revues of the Folies Bergère in Paris. Her performance in the revue Un vent de folie in 1927 caused a sensation in the city. Her costume, consisting of only a short skirt of artificial bananas and a beaded necklace, became an iconic image and a symbol both of the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties.

          She aided the French Resistance during World War II.[3] After the war, she was awarded the Resistance Medal by the French Committee of National Liberation, the Croix de Guerre by the French military, and was named a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur by General Charles de Gaulle.[4] Baker sang: “I have two loves, my country and Paris.”[5]

          Baker refused to perform for segregated audiences in the United States and is noted for her contributions to the civil rights movement. In 1968, she was offered unofficial leadership in the movement in the United States by Coretta Scott King, following Martin Luther King Jr.‘s assassination. After thinking it over, Baker declined the offer out of concern for the welfare of her children.[6][7]

          On 30 November 2021, she entered the Panthéon in Paris, the first black woman to receive one of the highest honors in France.[8] As her resting place is to remain in Monaco a cenotaph will be installed in vault 13 of the crypt in the Panthéon.[9]

          “Josephine Baker.” Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephine_Baker. Accessed 4 Feb. 2022.

          Featured Image Attribution: Studio Harcourt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

          A Spy in WW II:



          Joséphine Baker in French Air Force uniform in 1948
          Studio Harcourt, Paris, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
            The Famous Banana Skirt
            Creator: Walery, Polish-British, 1863-1929, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
            Embed from Getty Images

            Honored at the Pantheon:

            JipéDan – site Facebook, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

              Anaïs Nin

              Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell (February 21, 1903 – January 14, 1977) (/ˌænaɪˈiːs ˈniːn/,[1] French: [ana.is nin]), was a French-Cuban-American diarist, essayist, novelist and writer of short stories and erotica.

              Born to Cuban parents in France, Nin was the daughter of the composer Joaquín Nin and the classically trained singer Rosa Culmell. Nin spent her early years in Spain and Cuba, about sixteen years in Paris (1924–1940), and the remaining half of her life in the United States, where she became an established author.

              Nin wrote journals prolifically from age eleven until her death. Her journals, many of which were published during her lifetime, detail her private thoughts and personal relationships.

              Her journals also describe her marriages to Hugh Parker Guiler and Rupert Pole, in addition to her numerous affairs, including those with psychoanalyst Otto Rank and writer Henry Miller, both of whom profoundly influenced Nin and her writing.

              “Anaïs Nin.” Wikipedia, . Accessed 5 Mar. 2022.

              Anais Nin finds herself and others in Paris | The Erotic Adventures of Anais Nin

              The 1990 film Henry and June starred Maria de Medeiros as Anais Nin and Uma Therman as Henry Miller’s wife June was based on her unexpurgated diary from 1931 – 1932.

              Henry and June Film Trailer

              Ordinary life does not interest me.

              Anais Nin

              Links:

              Margaret “Mardy” Murie

              Margaret Thomas “Mardy” Murie (August 18, 1902 – October 19, 2003) was a naturalist, author, adventurer, and conservationist. Dubbed the “Grandmother of the Conservation Movement”[1] by both the Sierra Club[2] and the Wilderness Society,[3] she helped in the passage of the Wilderness Act, and was instrumental in creating the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She was the recipient of the Audubon Medal, the John Muir Award, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom—the highest civilian honor awarded by the United States.

              W“Margaret Murie.” Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Murie. Accessed 10 Dec. 2021.

              Margaret Murie’s Testimony before Congress

              Margaret Murie’s Testimony Before Congress

              The Artic Refuge Turns 50

              America’s Wildest Refuge – The Arctic Refuge Turns 50

              The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge:

              The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR or Arctic Refuge) is a national wildlife refuge in northeastern Alaska, United States on Gwich’in land. It consists of 19,286,722 acres (78,050.59 km2) in the Alaska North Slope region.[1] It is the largest national wildlife refuge in the country, slightly larger than the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge is administered from offices in Fairbanks. ANWR includes a large variety of species of plants and animals, such as polar bears, grizzly bears, black bears, moose, caribou, wolves, eagles, lynx, wolverine, marten, beaver and migratory birds, which rely on the refuge.

              “Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.” Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_National_Wildlife_Refuge. Accessed 12 Dec. 2021.

              Links:

              Mountain Range in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge