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Margot Shetterly is the author of Hidden Figures and the daughter of a climate research scientist who worked at Langley Research Center. Growing up, Shetterly would visit her father often at his office at Langley, but she did not find it remarkable that so many black scientists—including black women—worked there. Shetterly was inspired to write Hidden Figures when she realized that the community of black professionals and intellectuals within which she grew up was a result of a unique intersection of war, technology, civil rights, and the persistent efforts of underrepresented scientists, particularly black women. Inspired by these women, who helped put a man on the moon, Shetterly sets about documenting their experiences as thoroughly as she can. Though only a few of the pioneering black female mathematicians who work at Langley are still alive, Shetterly manages to interview many people who knew them, and she spends years writing their story.
Margot Lee Shetterly Quotes in Hidden Figures
The Hidden Figures quotes below are all either spoken by Margot Lee Shetterly or refer to Margot Lee Shetterly. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Prologue
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Before a computer became an inanimate object, and before Mission Control landed in Houston; before Sputnik changed the course of history, and before the NACA became NASA; before the Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka established that separate was in fact not equal, and before the poetry of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s "I Have a Dream" speech rang out over the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Langley's West Computers were helping America dominate aeronautics, space research, and computer technology, carving out a place for themselves as female mathematicians who were also black, black mathematicians who were also female. For a group of bright and ambitious African American women, diligently prepared for a mathematical career and eager for a crack at the big leagues, Hampton, Virginia, must have felt like the center of the universe.
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Chapter 2
Quotes
Dorothy worked as a math teacher…. As a college graduate and a teacher, she stood near the top of what most Negro women could hope to achieve. Teachers were considered the "upper level of training and intelligence in the race” a ground force of educators who would not just impart book learning but live in the Negro community and "direct its thoughts and head its social movements.” Her in-laws were mainstays of the town's Negro elite. They owned a barbershop, a pool hall, and a service station. The family's activities were regular fodder for the social column in the Farmville section of the Norfolk journal and Guide, the leading Negro newspaper in the southeastern United States. Dorothy, her husband, Howard, and their four young children lived in a large, rambling Victorian house on South Main Street with Howard's parents and grandparents.
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Margot Lee Shetterly Quotes in Hidden Figures
The Hidden Figures quotes below are all either spoken by Margot Lee Shetterly or refer to Margot Lee Shetterly. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Prologue
Quotes
Before a computer became an inanimate object, and before Mission Control landed in Houston; before Sputnik changed the course of history, and before the NACA became NASA; before the Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka established that separate was in fact not equal, and before the poetry of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s "I Have a Dream" speech rang out over the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Langley's West Computers were helping America dominate aeronautics, space research, and computer technology, carving out a place for themselves as female mathematicians who were also black, black mathematicians who were also female. For a group of bright and ambitious African American women, diligently prepared for a mathematical career and eager for a crack at the big leagues, Hampton, Virginia, must have felt like the center of the universe.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2
Quotes
Dorothy worked as a math teacher…. As a college graduate and a teacher, she stood near the top of what most Negro women could hope to achieve. Teachers were considered the "upper level of training and intelligence in the race” a ground force of educators who would not just impart book learning but live in the Negro community and "direct its thoughts and head its social movements.” Her in-laws were mainstays of the town's Negro elite. They owned a barbershop, a pool hall, and a service station. The family's activities were regular fodder for the social column in the Farmville section of the Norfolk journal and Guide, the leading Negro newspaper in the southeastern United States. Dorothy, her husband, Howard, and their four young children lived in a large, rambling Victorian house on South Main Street with Howard's parents and grandparents.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
