179 “Why can’t I go to the editorial meetings?”: Johnson interview, September 27, 2013.
179 “Girls don’t go to the meetings”: Ibid.
179 “Is there a law against it?” Ibid.
179 laws restricting her ability to apply for a credit card: Diana Pearl, “Rights Women Didn’t Used to Have,” Marie Claire.com, August 18, 2014, http://www.marieclaire.com/politics/news/a10569/things-women-couldnt-do-1920/.
180 “Women Scientists”: This 1959 Langley file photo was simply labeled “Women Scientists.” It was published in James Hansen’s 1995 book Spaceflight Revolution, p. 105, but without names. The NASA Cultural Resources website selected the photo for its July 2013 “Mystery Archive,” inviting visitors to help identify the women portrayed; see http://crgis.ndc.nasa.gov/historic/Mystery_Archives_2013.
180 Five out of the six women . . . worked in PARD: Langley Research Center Telephone Directory, 1959, LAC.
180 in 1948, fresh out of Randolph-Macon Women’s College: Dorothy B. Lee, interview with Rebecca Wright, JSC, November 10, 1999.
180 he invited her to become a permanent member of his branch: Ibid.
180 authored one report, coauthored seven more: Dorothy B. Lee, “Flight Performance of a 2.8 KS 8100 Cajun Solid-Propellant Rocket Motor,” Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, Janaury 21, 1957, NTRS.
180 “Do you believe”: Lee interview.
181 “inveterate wind tunnel jockeys”: Becker, The High Speed Frontier, 19.
181 “can’t-hack-it engineers”: Gloria R. Champine, personal interview, April 2, 2014.
181 “they were all the same”: Johnson interview, December 27, 2010.
182 “Let her go”: Johnson interview, September 27, 2013.
CHAPTER 18: WITH ALL DELIBERATE SPEED
183 from erudite and obscure to obvious and spectacular: Yanek Mieczkowski, Eisenhower’s Sputnik Moment: The Race for Space and World Prestige (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013), 235.
184 “a dull bunch of gray buildings”: Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox, Apollo (Burkittsville, MD: South Mountain Books, 2004), 322.
184 “So far as the future histories of this state”: Lenoir Chambers, “The Year Virginia Closed the Schools,” The Virginian-Pilot, January 1, 1959. The Virginian-Pilot was the only white newspaper in Virginia to take an editorial stand in favor of school desegregation.
184 A total of ten thousand of the shut-out students: Kristen Green, Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County: A Family, a Virginia Town, a Civil Rights Battle (New York: HarperCollins, 2015), 1347–49.
185 salutatorian of Carver High School’s class of 1958: “Peninsula Social Whirl,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, June 14, 1958.
186 drifting toward the social sidelines: Katherine Goble Moore, personal interview, February 7, 2015.
186 Mary Jackson had been one of his student teachers: James A. Johnson, personal interview, June 11, 2011.
186 “Ladies, he’s single”: Johnson interview, March 13, 2011.
187 arriving together at church: James A. Johnson.
189 “bootlegged”: Cox and Murray, Apollo, ch.1
189 “computing runs”: Ibid.
189 “a hell of a lot of fun”: Ibid.
189 thousands of woman-hours computing ballistics trajectory tables: LeAnn Erickson’s documentary Top Secret Rosies provides a detailed look at the University of Pennsylvania. See https://www.facebook.com/topsecretrosies.
190 “Let me do it”: Katherine Johnson, The History Makers.
192 “Katherine should finish the report”: Warren, Black Women Scientists in the United States, 143.
192 by a female author: Ted Skopinski and Katherine G. Johnson, “Determination of Azimuth Angle at Burnout for Placing a Satellite over a Selected Earth Position,” Langley Research Center, 1960.
CHAPTER 19: MODEL BEHAVIOR
193 The bar had been set the year before: “Congratulations . . .” Air Scoop, July 1, 1960.
193 “The car and driver together”: Soapbox Derby Rules 1960.
194 Levi and his competitors: “Hampton Youth Captures Area Derby Championship,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, July 2, 1960.
194 nine-hundred-foot racecourse: Ibid.
194 girls weren’t allowed to race: Paul Dickson, “The Soap Box Derby,” Smithsonian Magazine, May 1995. Girls did not compete in the derby until the 1970s.
194 one of fifty thousand boys: “Derby Day Is Your Day!” Boy’s Life, February 1960, 12.
195 “A Study of Air Flow in Scaled Dimensions”: “Science Fair Held at Y. H. Thomas Jr. High,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, March 31, 1962.
195 “Soapbox what?”: Janice Johnson interview.
197 Emma Jean was valedictorian: Golemba, “Human Computers,” 39.
197 produced several research reports: “Report Listing from December 1949–October 1981,” Unitary and Continuous-Flow Hypersonic Tunnels, LAC, http://crgis.ndc.nasa.gov/crgis/images/a/aa/1251-001.pdf.
197 National Council of Negro Women: “Girls’ Group Hears Talk by 2 Women Engineers,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, February 16, 1963.
197 “The Aspects of Engineering for Women”: Ibid.
198 one of the largest minority troops on the peninsula: “Girl Scout Pioneers Honored During Tribute in Hampton,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, November 6, 1985.
198 troop leader: Janice Johnson interview.
198 So Mary enlisted the help of Helen Mulcahy: Ibid.
198 take Janice trekking: Ibid.
199 an enthusiastic crowd of four thousand: “Hampton Youth Captures Area Derby Championship.”
199 clear, warm, just enough of a breeze: Newport News, Virginia, Historical Weather, Almanac.com, July 3, 1962.
199 Officials weighed and inspected each car: “Hampton Youth Captures Area Derby Championship.”
199 “a drop of oil on each wheel bearing”: Ibid.
199 seventeen miles per hour: Ibid.
200 the slimness of his machine: Ibid.
200 “I want to be an engineer like my mother”: “Hampton Youth Captures Area Derby Championship.”
200 a spot at the national All-American Soap box Derby: Ibid.
200 in front of seventy-five thousand fans: “Derby Day Is Your Day!”
200 “first colored boy in history”: “Hampton Youth Captures Area Derby Championship.”
200 the donations started rolling in: “Citizens Honor Local Soap Box Derby Champ,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, August 27, 1960.
CHAPTER 20: DEGREES OF FREEDOM
201 reliability tests on the Mercury capsule: Loyd S. Swenson Jr., James M. Grimwood, and Charles C. Alexander, This New Ocean: A History of Project Mercury (Washington, DC: NASA, 1989), 256.
201 three hundred had joined the demonstration: “The Greensboro Sit-In,” History.com, http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/the-greensboro-sit-in 201 “Dear Mom and Dad”: John “Rover” Jordan, “This Is Portsmouth,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, June 8, 1963.
202 offering her a job as a hostess: Dr. William R. Harvey, “Hampton University and Mrs. Rosa Parks,” Daily Press, February 23, 2013.
202 seven hundred: Arriana McLymore, “A Silenced History; Hampton’s Legacy of Student Protests,” Hampton Script, November 6, 2015.
202 until the owners shut down their establishments: “Hampton ‘Sit-down’: Students Seek Service; 5 & 10 Counter Closes,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, February 20, 1960.
202 five hundred students staged a peaceful protest: Jimmy Knight, “Hamptonians Vow: Jail Will Not Stop Student Protests,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, March 5, 1960.
202 “We want to be treated as American citizens”: Ibid.
202 walking door-to-door in black neighborhoods: Christine Darden, personal interview, April 30, 2012.
203 alive, breathless even: Hammond interview.
203 the astronauts were contributing to the students’ organizing activities: Ibid. Though I could never find documents to support this, many in Ann Vaughan Hammond’s circle of friends had heard the rumor; her memory of the rumor and of the enthusiasm it engendered among the students was vivid.