From 1935 to 1980, counting women of all backgrounds and races, there were more than 1,000 women doing this work for Nasa. At this time, women mathematicians were the rule, not the exception. The thing that was thrilling to me was that this wasn’t the story of a first, or an only, or even just a few. While these were exceptional women – I want to make that clear – they weren’t the exception. There’s more computing power in a toaster than what they had to send people into space. It’s amazing what these women were able to do with just data sheets. They were called ‘computers’ – this was a time when a ‘computer’ was a job title then rather than an object on your desk.

And they were doing all of this without calculators. They were on the pioneering edge of science and technology, which was thrilling for them. These women weren’t just doing something that no African-American women had done before, but something that no-one of any race or gender had done before. Our eyes are now sharp enough to see them the way they need to be seen. Now, with the distance of many decades and a different awareness, we are revaluating these women and their work. At this time, even if a woman was doing exactly the same thing as the engineers, who were predominantly men, she could be paid less and be given a lower job title. They were in a segregated office and their work was considered ‘women’s work’, meaning that it was valued less. During the space race and the Cold War there was a very real fear of espionage, people were looking for Soviets round every corner.īut I think the bigger reason is that these women were unseen. One is that, very much like the British ladies at Bletchley Park, the work these women were doing was classified.

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