![]() ![]() ![]() “They didn’t ask questions or take the task any further. "The women did what they were told to do,” she recalled. Johnson not only proved adept at her calculations, she displayed a curiosity and assertiveness that caught her superiors by surprise. Johnson applied, and the following year she was accepted for a position at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. In 1952, Johnson learned that the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was hiring African American women to serve as "computers " namely, people who performed and checked calculations for technological developments. The 'Computer'īeginning in the late 1930s, Johnson taught math and French at schools in Virginia and West Virginia. However, she found the environment less welcoming than it had been in Institute, and never completed her program there. The following year, Johnson became one of three students to desegregate West Virginia University's graduate school in Morgantown. At age 18, she graduated summa cum laude with degrees in mathematics and French. ![]() in mathematics, who was determined to prepare Johnson to become a research mathematician. Schieffelin Claytor, the third African American to earn a Ph.D. One particularly engaged professor was Dr. Johnson enrolled at West Virginia State College (now West Virginia State University) in Institute, West Virginia, where she encountered a hands-on faculty. Although her town didn’t offer classes for African Americans after that point, her father, Joshua, drove the family 120 miles to Institute, West Virginia, where they lived while she attended high school. A bright child with a gift for numbers, she breezed through her classes and completed the eighth grade by age 10. Johnson was born Katherine Coleman on August 26, 1918, in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. She passed away on February 24, 2020, at the age of 101. Johnson was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015 and saw her story brought to light through a book and a feature film the following year. She began working in aeronautics as a "computer" in 1952, and after the formation of NASA, she performed the calculations that sent astronauts into orbit in the early 1960s and to the moon in 1969. Johnson died on February 24, 2020.Katherine Johnson made the most of limited educational opportunities for African Americans, graduating from college at age 18. Johnson also worked on the space shuttle program. Johnson was also part of the team that calculated where and when the rocket would be launched that would send the first three men to the Moon. He asked to have Johnson double check the computer’s calculations. However, before he left the ground, he wanted to make sure the electronic computer had planned the flight correctly. In 1962 John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth. She authored or coauthored 26 research reports during her career. It was the first time a woman in her division received credit as an author of a research report. The year before she had coauthored a paper with an engineer. She calculated the flight path for the spacecraft that put the first U.S astronaut in space in 1961. That changed when NACA became NASA in 1958.Īt NASA Johnson was a member of the Space Task Group. They were forced to use separate bathrooms and dining facilities. The West Computers were segregated from white workers. They studied data from tests and provided mathematical computations that were essential to the success of the U.S. The West Computers, as they were known, were a group of African American women. In 1953 Johnson began work at the West Area Computing unit of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). ![]()
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