Published in 2016, Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly was a #1 New York Times bestseller. The nonfiction book offers a story of American history that is often overlooked: the contributions of Black female workers. Hidden Figures follows the lives of three Black women who were hired as computers at Langley laboratory in Virginia: Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, and Katherine Johnson. The calculations of these women helped ensure pilots' safety during the Second World War in addition to the eventual Apollo 11 Moon mission.
As the book spans over three decades, the women's stories...