64 flooded “joyous tumult”: C. I. Wiliams, “City Greets Victory With Joyous Tumult,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, August 19, 1945.
65 “indescribable noise-making devices”: Ibid.
65 “It seems impossible to escape the conclusion”: “Hampton Roads Area Faces Drastic Cut in Employment,” Washington Post, October 21, 1945.
66 their white, Gentile-only employment policies: “Jobs Open for Whites Only,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, September 1, 1945.
66 “the most dangerous idea ever seriously considered”: Glenn Feldman, The Great Melding: War, the Dixiecrat Rebellion, and the Southern Model for America’s New Conservatism (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2015), 211.
66 “following the Communists’ lead”: Ibid., 299.
66 “the most urbane and genteel dictatorship in America”: John Gunther, Inside USA. (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1947), 705.
66 helped fellow Virginian Woodrow Wilson win the White House in 1912: Ronald L. Heinmann, “The Byrd Legacy: Integrity, Honesty, Lack of Imagination, Massive Resistance,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, August 25, 2013.
67 “war-devastated populations in Europe”: “Realtors Win Efforts for Post-war Riddance of Federal Housing Units,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, June 30, 1945.
67 “not permanent in its current location”: Ibid.
67 room and board to a returning military man: Hammond interview, June 30, 2014.
67 hosting a party for nearly twenty people: K. Elizabeth Paige, “Newsome Park Echoes,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, September 30, 1944.
CHAPTER 8: THOSE WHO MOVE FORWARD
69 at least eight people in Smyth County: Katherine Johnson, personal interview, March 13, 2011.
69 careful to keep her teaching certificate current: Ibid.
69 “If you can play the piano”: Ibid.
69 were ordered to move to the back: “Katherine Johnson, National Visionary,” National Visionary Leadership Project, http://www.visionaryproject.org/johnsonkatherine/.
70 evicted the black passengers: Ibid.
70 Katherine earned $50 a month: Johnson interview, March 13, 2011.
70 less money than the school’s white janitor: Mark St. John Erickson, “No Easy Journey,” Daily Press, May 1, 2004.
70 when a $110-a-month job offer: Johnson interview, March 13, 2011.
70 “and no one is better than you”: Johnson interview, December 27, 2010.
71 how many board feet a tree would yield: “What Matters—Katherine Johnson: NASA Pioneer and ‘Computer,’ ” WHRO Television Broadcast, February 25, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8gJqKyIGhE.
71 skipped ahead from second grade to fifth:
71 they’d find their pupil in the classroom next door:
71 Joseph and Rose Kennedy: Conte, The History of the Greenbrier, 113.
71 Bing Crosby, the duke of Windsor: Ibid., 148–49.
72 segmented its serving class: Robert S. Comte, personal interview, September 12, 2012.
72 “Tu m’entends tout, n’est-ce pas?” Johnson interview, December 27, 2010.
72 The Greenbrier’s Parisian chef: Ibid.
72 taught him Roman numerals: Ibid.
73 served as the college’s dean: Lorenzo J. Greene and Arvarh E. Strickland, Selling Black History for Carter G. Woodson: A Diary (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1996), 194.
73 Civilian Aide in the War Department: “College and School News,” The Crisis, January 1944; “James C. Evans Dies,” Washington Post, April 17, 1988.
73 and a mean game of tennis: Johnson interview, March 6, 2011.
73 flew so low over the house of the school’s president: Margaret Claytor Woodbury and Ruth C. Marsh, Virginia Kaleidoscope: The Claytor Family of Roanoke, and Some of Its Kinships, from First Families of Virginia and Their Former Slaves (Ruth C. Marsh, 1994), 202.
73 his drawling “country” accent: Ibid.
73 furiously scribbled mathematical formulas on the chalkboard: Ibid.
73 “You would make a good research mathematician”: Johnson interview, March 11, 2011.
73 received an offer to join the inaugural class: Hammond interview, June 30, 2014.
73 a significant advance in the field: “Pioneer African American Mathematicians,” University of Pennsylvania, http://www.archives.upenn.edu/histy/features/aframer/math.html.
74 “If young colored men receive scientific training”: W. E. B. Dubois, “The Negro Scientist,” The American Scholar 8, no. 3 (Summer 1939): 316.
74 “The [white] libraries”: Ibid.
74 “no opportunity to go to scientific meetings”: Jacqueline Giles-Girron, “Black Pioneers in Mathematics: Brown [sic], Granville, Cox, Claytor and Blackwell,” Focus: the Newsletter of the Mathematical Association of America 11, no. 1 (January–February 1991): 18.
74 just over a hundred women: Margaret Rossiter, Women Scientists in America: Before Affirmative Action 1940–1972 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), 137.
74 Irish and Jewish women with math degrees: David Alan Grier, When Computers Were Human (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), 208–9.
74 “But where will I find a job?” Johnson interview, December 27, 2010.
74 they got married, telling no one: Johnson interview, March 13, 2011.
74 waiting outside her classroom: Johnson interview, September 27, 2013.
75 walked away from an offer of $4 million: Albert P. Kalme, “Racial Desegregation and Integration and American Education: The Case History of West Virginia State College, 1891–1973,” PhD dissertation, University of Ottawa, 1973, 173.
75 “So I picked you”: Johnson interview, September 27, 2013.
75 presented her with a full set of math reference books: Ibid.
76 they were expecting their first child: Ibid.
CHAPTER 9: BREAKING BARRIERS
78 had it all figured out: Leonard Vaughan, personal interview, April 3, 2014.
78 Howard Vaughan’s sister-in-law: Hammond interview, April 2, 2014; Joanne Cavanaugh Simpson, “Sound Reasoning,” Johns Hopkins Magazine, September 2003.
78 “for members of the race”: “New Peninsula Beach Opens Memorial Day,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, May 27, 1944.
78 spent weeks organizing the menu: Harris interview.
78 roasting marshmallows over a fire: Ibid.
78 founded the resort in 1898: Mark St. John Erickson, “Remembering One of the South’s Premier Black Seaside Resorts,” Daily Press, August 21, 2013.
79 $2,000 a year: Vaughan Personnel File.
79 just $96: Martha J. Bailey and William J. Collins, “The Wage Gains of African-American Women in the 1940s,” Journal of Economic History 66, no. 3 (September 2006): 737–77.
79 took a walk around the block: Michelle Webb, personal interview, February 10, 2016.
79 headquarters of its Tactical Air Command: “Gen. Devers Takes Command of Fort Monroe, New AGF Base,” Washington Post, October 2, 1946.
80 “military-industrial complex”: Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Farewell Address,” January 17, 1961, https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=90&page=transcript.
80 more than three thousand employees: Hansen, Engineer in Charge, 413.
80 tendered their resignations: Golemba, “Human Computers,” 90.
81 top-ranked managers: Ibid., 90–91.
81 “excellent” ratings: Ibid.
81 had been appointed shift supervisors: Fitchett Personnel File.
81 had swelled to twenty-five women: Ibid.
81 often worked the 3:00 p.m.-to-11:00 p.m. shift: Golemba, “Human Computers,” 87.
81 “two spacious offices”: “Blanche Sponsler Called in . . . ,”Air Scoop, August 24, 1945.
81 vacancies at the laboratory: “Vacancies Open Here at Lab,” Air Scoop, August 9, 1946.