Dorothy Vaughan, 1910-2008

Dorothy-Vaughan-WWP

Her portrait as presented in her official biography on NASA's website. Photo credit - NASA

A mathematician and ‘human computer’, among the first African-Americans who worked and progressed at NASA, and the first African-American woman to supervise a group of staff at NASA’s Langley Research Center.



Born as Dorothy Johnson in Kansas City, Missouri. At 19, she earned a B.A. in mathematics from Wilberforce University, a black college in Ohio. Deciding to support her family during the Great Depression years, she did not proceed to higher studies in the university and worked as a math teacher. At the age of 22, she married Howard Vaughan.

When she was 33 years old, Vaughan started working as a mathematician and programmer at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA)’s West Area Computing Unit – a group of African-American female mathematicians that performed manually complex computations and analyzing data for aerospace engineers. The unit’s work was essential to the success of the early US Space Program. At that time, NACA was segregated, and Vaughan and her colleagues (among them were Katherine Johnson and Mary Jackson) had to use separate bathrooms and dining facilities.
 

At the age of 39, she got promoted to be the acting manager of the West Area Computers, and by that, became the first African-American supervisor at NACA. It took several more years until she was promoted to be the official manager. Seeing the future in computer machine, she became an expert in computer programming, teaching herself and her coworkers to program in Fortran to be prepared for the future use of computer machines. This was one of many actions to promote women in the organization.

After NACA was incorporated into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the segregation abolished, and Vaughan joined the new Analysis and Computation Division. She retired in 1971 after 28 years in NACANASA, well appreciated for her scientific contribution as well as for paving the way for African-Americans in the organization.
 

The African-American women behind NASA's rocket launches

A group of women at NASA called "human computers," many of them black, helped put a man on the moon. Their intellect was an essential part of America's ability to launch rockets into space. Jan Crawford shows us how they were relegated to a footnote in history -- until now.

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“I changed what I could, and what I couldn’t, I endured.”

“I changed what I could, and what I couldn’t, I endured.”

Fun Facts

  • In addition to her career, Vaughan raised her six children and was a member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, where she participated in missionary activities.
  • She is one of the main characters in Margot Lee Shetterly's book that inspired the 2014 movie ‘Hidden Figures’, which follows the African-American females’ story and contribution while working in segregation, in the ‘human computers department’ at NASA. Octavia Spencer played Vaughan’s character in the movie.

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The African-American women behind NASA's rocket launches

A group of women at NASA called "human computers," many of them black, helped put a man on the moon. Their intellect was an essential part of America's ability to launch rockets into space. Jan Crawford shows us how they were relegated to a footnote in history -- until now.
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Category: Science & Technology
Tags: African-American Women, Mathematician, and Scientist

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Ada Lovelace WWP
Science & Technology

Ada Lovelace, 1815-1852

A mathematician, recognized as the first computer programmer.

Augusta Ada King was born in London, England, the only legitimate child of the poet Lord Byron with his wife, the Baroness Anne Isabella Noel Byron. Five weeks after she was born, her parents separated, and she moved with her mother to her maternal grandparents in Kirkby Mallory. Lovelace did not connect with her father until he died when she was eight years old. Growing up, her mother insisted that she studied mathematics and science, believing it would prevent her from developing a moody and unpredictable temperament like her father’s. So, from an early age, she was educated by renowned figures, such as the social reformer William Frend, the physician William King, and the astronomer and mathematician Mary Somerville. Lovelace became fascinated with numbers and engineering, designing boats and flying machines. At 17, she got introduced to Charles Babbage, a mathematician that later became known as “the father of computers.” Soon he became her mentor, and she studied advanced mathematics and helped him with his research. In the same year, she was presented at Court and became a regular and popular at aristocrat events. Two years later, she married Willia King, and when he was nominated the Earl of Lovelace, she became the Countess of Lovelace. The couple had three children. After her wedding, she continued to develop with Babbage the Analytical Engine device, an early prototype of the modern computer. In 1842, 27 years old Lovelace was asked to translate an article by the Italian Engineer Luigi Menabrea about the Analytical Engine. Her translation included an appendix note, in which she elaborated on the machine’s potential, explaining that in addition to calculating numbers, it can also create art such as music and pictures. The appendix also included a theorized engine process of instruction’s reputation, a method that is known today as Looping. Back then, her work did not get much attention, but centuries after the publication, it became recognized as the first computer algorithm, and she received the long-lost acknowledgment as the first computer programmer. Throughout her life, Lovelace developed and theorized different potential uses of the Analytical Engine. Like the mathematical model of how the brain creates thoughts and the nerves create feelings, which she called “a calculus of the nervous system.” She died at the age of 36 from uterine cancer. Share:This post is also available in: Español Read more...
Alice Coachman WWP
Sports

Alice Coachman, 1923-2014

High jump athlete, the first African-American woman to win an Olympic gold medal.

Alice Coachman was born in Albany, Georgia. While in elementary school, her teacher and aunt noticed her athletic skills and encouraged her to practice sports despite her parents’ objections. As a girl in the segregated south, Coachman had no access to athletic training facilities or the opportunity to compete in organized sports events (due to color and gender). Determine to develop her natural talent, Coachman used everything available to her – running with no shoes in fields and dirt roads and making high jump crossbars out of rope and sticks. During high school, Coachman caught the attention of the boys’ track coach, who took her under his wings and coached her. Within a year, she was spotted by a recruiter from Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama, and at 15, she got a scholarship. Her unusual jumping style, combined western roll, and straight jumping techniques helped her win the national championships in the next nine years. In 1939, at the age of 16, she started her scholarship at the Tuskegee Preparatory School, which in addition to studying and practicing, required mending uniforms and cleaning the school’s sports facilities. During this period, she won high jumps companions and national championships in the 50-meter dash, 100-meter dash, and the 400-meter relay team. She also won three conference championships as a guard on the women’s basketball team. At 23, Coachman received her degree in dressmaking and continued her education at Albany State College, where she studied Home Economics and science. In her late teens and early 20s, the years that were supposed to be the pick of her career, the Olympic Games were canceled because of WW2. Her first global stage appearance was made possible at the 1948 Olympic Games in London. On her Olympic tryouts, Coachman qualified to the US team with a high jump of 5 feet 4 inches, breaking the previous record by ¾ inch. At the Olympics high jump finals, she reached first place with a leap of 5 feet and 6⅛ inches on her first try, becoming the first black woman to win the gold medal and the only American woman to win a gold medal at the 1948 Games. On her return to the US, Coachman became a celebrity, she met President Truman and former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and various parades were held in her honor. Following the Olympic Games, 24 years old Coachman retired from her athlete career, with 34 national titles under her belt. She finished her degree at Albany State College and became a teacher and track-and-field instructor. In 1952, at the age of 29, she made history again when she signed as Coca-Cola Company’s spokesperson, becoming the first African-American woman to endorse an international product. In 1994, at 71, she established the Alice Coachman Track and Field Foundation. This non-profit organization supports young athletes in starting their careers and helps Olympic veterans adjust to life after retainment. Coachman died at the age of 90 of cardiac arrest. Share:This post is also available in: Español Read more...
Alice-Dunbar-Nelson-WWP
Literature & Poetry

Alice Dunbar Nelson, 1875-1935

A poet, journalist, playwright, and political activist. Associated with the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.

Alice Ruth Moore was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, the daughter of a Creole seaman and a former enslaved black seamstress. After graduating high school at 14, she attended a teacher-training program at Straight University, and at 17, she began teaching at an Elementary school in New Orleans. She became involved with activism at the Phyllis Wheatley Club and wrote for the Woman’s Era Club newspaper – the first newspaper created for and by African American women. In 1895, she published her first collection of poems, essays, and short stories titled “Violets and Other Tales.” That same year she moved to NYC, where she helped establish the White Rose Mission – a settlement house for colored girls. Furthering her education, she took courses at the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University. Her writings for the Woman’s Era newspaper caught the attention of the poet and journalist Paul Laurence Dunbar, and in 1898, after two years of correspondence, she moved to live with him in Washington, DC, and they got married. Their relationship fertile their writing but was also disruptive and abusive. He raped her before they got married, and after three years of violent behavior, she left him and moved to Wilmington, Delaware. There, Dunbar taught at various institutes, including Howard High School, the Hampton Institute, and the State College for Colored Students. She never stopped studying, and at 32, she received her M.S degree from Cornell University. In 1913, Dunbar worked as the co-editor and writer for the A.M.E. Review – the African Methodist Episcopal Church’s newspaper. She met poet and civil rights activist Robert J. Nelson, and they got married in 1916. Although she was always involved in political activism, supporting the women’s rights movement and working toward the empowerment of women of color, it was only in 1918 that Dunbar-Nelson was appointed to an official role in the movement as a representative of the Woman’s Committee of the Council of Defense. In 1920, she became the co-editor of the progressive black newspaper, the “Wilmington Advocate.” In that same year, she published a literary anthology, aiming at black readers, titled “The Dunbar Speaker and Entertainer.” At 45, Dunbar-Nelson was a successful and popular writer, consistently publishing articles, columns, and essays in newspapers as well as in academic journals. Dunbar-Nelson became a speaker at various events, including the 1928 American Negro Labor Congress Forum in Philadelphia. After she moved with her husband to Philadelphia in 1932, her health declined, and two years later, she passed away at the age of 60. Dunbar-Nelson is a representative of the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Her writing is characterized by complex understandings of race, gender, and ethnicity. In her work, Dunbar-Nelson explored issues that she dealt with as a woman of color, especially her mixed-raced experiences, not belonging here or there. She wrote about her perspective of education opportunity, workplace environment, and social oppression, inspiring generations of black writers to come. Share:This post is also available in: Español Read more...
Alice Walker WWP
Literature & Poetry

Alice Walker, 1944

A novelist, poet, and social activist. The first African-American woman to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker was born in Eatonton, Georgia, the youngest of eight children of sharecroppers. At 8, she was injured in her eye after her brother played with a BB gun, causing her permanent blindness in one eye. The mark on her eye made her an easy target to her classmates, so she turned to poetry for comfort. Growing up in the segregated south, she attended an only black kids’ high school, from which she graduated valedictorian. Her high scores granted her a full scholarship to Spelman College, where she studied for two years before transferring to Sarah Lawrence College in NYC. In this period, Walker had an abortion which caused her suicidal thoughts. She wrote all about it in her poems. In 1965, at the age of 21, Walker moved to Jackson, Mississippi, and became active in the civil rights movement. She worked for the Legal Defense Fund of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and as a consultant in black history to the Friends of the Children of Mississippi Head Start program while serving as writer-in-residence in various academic institutes publishing essays and short stories. At 23, she married Melvyn Rosenman Leventhal, a Jewish civil rights attorney. At the time, interracial marriage was illegal in the south, and the couple had to travel to NYC to get married. On their return, they became the first legally married interracial couple in Mississippi since 1822, when the miscegenation laws passed. During their nine years of marriage, they suffered recurring harassment from the Ku Klux Klan. In 1970, at 26, Walker published her first novel, The Third Life of Grange Copeland, following the life of an abusive sharecropper husband and father. Three years later, she was appointed editor of Ms. Magazine, published her second poetry collection and her first collection of short stories. In 1976, Walker returned to NYC and published her second novel Meridian, about several civil rights activists in the south during the 1960s. In the late 1970s, she moved to California, where she wrote her best-known work, The Color Purple. Published in 1982, the novel explores the struggles of a black woman in the racist and patriarchal society of 1900s Georgia. The book was a best-seller, and in the following year, 39 years old Walker became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Later the novel was adapted into a film featuring Oprah Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg and a Broadway musical produced by Quincy Jones and Oprah Winfrey. In 1984, she co-founded the feminist publishing company Wild Tree Press. She deepened the world of some of her characters from The Color Purple in two of her novels, The Temple of My Familiar and Possessing the Secret of Joy, and created new characters that allowed her to delve into other social issues, such as female sexuality in By the Light of My Father’s Smile from 1998, and identity questions in Now Are the Time to Open Your Heart from 2005. Throughout the decades, Walker published seven novels, ten poetry collections, four short stories collections, four children’s books, and a dozen collections of essays and articles. In all of her work, Walker deals with the struggles of black people, especially women, and their experiences in sexist, racist, and violent surroundings. Often using Black vernacular, which highlights the hundreds of years of slavery and oppression, she had dealt with complex topics such as rape, isolation, bisexuality, and troubled relationships within the black community. Walker is a long-time social and political activist, promoting and fighting for various causes, from black and women’s rights to environmental issues, Palestinians’ fight for independence, and the elimination of female genital mutilation. Share:This post is also available in: Español Read more...
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