![]() ![]() How an archivist struck gold while sifting through class notes. Virginia Tucker, Langley’s head computer, ran laps up and down the East Coast searching for coeds with even a modicum of analytical or mechanical skill, hoping for matriculating college students to fill the hundreds of open positions for computers, scientific aides, model makers, laboratory assistants, and yes, even mathematicians. From “ UNCG shares unique connection to movie ‘Hidden Figures’ ” in UNCG Now (Jan. “In 1947, Tucker left civil service for a position as an aerodynamicist at Northrop Corporation, her legacy continued to pave the way for female mathematicians, including the three African-American women whose stories are told in the movie.’ ” … Between 19, four hundred Langley computers received training on Tucker’s watch.’ Shetterly uses words like Negro, Colored, and Indian in the narrative in order to stay true to the era and to convey societal norms in the United States. ![]() She had done so much to transform the position of computer from a proto-clerical job into one of the laboratory’s most valuable assets. The reductive language of the time appears throughout Hidden Figures, and it mirrors the reductive manner in which society views women of color. “ ‘Over the course of twelve years, Virginia Tucker had ascended from a subprofessional employee to the most powerful woman at the lab. ![]() “By the early 1940s, Tucker was the head computer…. According to Margot Lee Shetterly, author of the book that inspired the movie, what is now UNC Greensboro graduated one of the largest cohorts of women who went on to work as human computers. Tucker recruited heavily at institutions across the East Coast. “When World War II broke out, more women were recruited as computers to conduct wind tunnel testing and other critical research. The following is an excerpt from the forthcoming book Hidden Figures, a movie version of which will be released in January 2017 starring Taraji P. “Tucker was one of five women to join the first human computer pool at Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory in 1935. “Woman’s College alumna Virginia Tucker ’30 a trailblazer for the female mathematicians - known as ‘computers – highlighted in ‘Hidden Figures.’ ![]()
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