Samantha Cheng, Jessica Hung
Mr. Sanders, M. Ed
Modern World History
Annotated Bibliography
Primary Sources:
ABC News. 2015. Is Education A Waste Of Time For Married Women? (1961) |
Retrofocus. Video. [Link]
This is an interview created by ABC News (Australia) back in 1961 with 2
women, debating if education is a waste of time for married women. The ABC
News is a broadcasting company releasing news, analysis, interviews, and so
on, and even today, it remains a credible source for breaking news around the
world. The two women, Jean Inkster and Toni Thompson, were married
women in the past, and both believed that it was more suitable for women to
stay at home all day. Toni believed education was unnecessary since it had
nothing to do with the jobs for stay-at-home wives, while Jean argued that
education was needed because they would want their children to come to them
when they encountered academic problems. This informs my research of how
women themselves viewed the necessity and importance of education back
then. It also supports my topic of women’s general role in society as wives and
mothers, therefore created the norm of many women not receiving education
as it was considered to be unnecessary in a woman’s life.
"Black America: Human Computers With Margot Shetterly". 2018. Youtube. Accessed
December 3 2018. [Link]
The series of “Black America” is an in-depth conversation that discusses the
breakthroughs the African Americans had brought to America with African
American activists, leaders, artists, authors, etc. This series is hosted by Carol
Jenkins, an Emmy award-winning writer, producer, and media consultant.
Having the guarantee from her publicity, this series of interview with Margot
Shetterly is credible for our research on the African American human computers.
Margot Shetterly being the author of “Hidden Figures” shared how she
discovered this piece of hidden history about these ordinary, but important
women. If it wasn’t her father, who used to work at NASA Langley talked about
how amazing Margot’s teacher was when she worked in NASA, the story
wouldn’t be revealed, nor will their contributions be impressed by all the others.
This conversation between Margot Shetterly supports my topic, and adds on to
it by forming a compelling question; if it weren’t because of the coincidence,
will there still be a success for these women of being widely known by the
people, or even more, will their history even be discovered? If all the women
had passed away, the story of the group of African American women that
worked in NASA will be forever unknown by the public.
Chicago Humanities Festival. 2016. Margot Lee Shetterly: The Black Women Who
Helped Win The Space Race. Video.
[Link] Accessed on 21
October 2018.
This is another interview with Margot Lee Shetterly about the African
American human computers that are in her nonfiction novel, Hidden Figures.
Some of the characters in the novel were once neighbors of Shetterly in her
childhood and are people she actually knows, like Katherine G. Johnson, and
the story happened during the Space Race, when the United States and the
Soviet Union were trying to send humans up in space. The Chicago Humanities
Festival is a foundation that organizes annually series of lectures and other
humanities for people to explore on, making it a relatively credible source. The
interview is purposed for people to know more about the story that was “hidden”
during the Space Race and how the novel is more than a nonfiction story, but
also a perspective of African American women towards the society back then.
This interview with Shetterly shared some of the sources Shetterly herself used
during her research for the book, which might become useful for my future
research. It also extends my knowledge that this topic is more than a reflection
on the inequality of the society, but also how the African American women
were fighting for women’s rights to be equal with men at work. This proposed
the question that why didn't most people know about this story of African
American human computers back when the United States triumphed in the
Space Race?
"Christine Darden". 2018. Youtube. Accessed October 21 2018.
[Link]
This is an interview with Christine Darden by intern Sarah McLennan, which
highlights Christine Darden’s career and the challenges she had to face. She
informed that, before she went to Langley, the African American human
computers were being segregated and were known as the “West Computers”.
Discrimination among race wasn’t the major problem Christine Darden had to
face, but the inequality between male and female. Having a PHD in
engineering, she was forced into the section of mathematicians while the men
who had the same degree were able to have subjects which they could work on
their own being an engineer. Having a great desire to work in NASA as an
engineer, Christine went and spoke directly to the manager of Langley and
asked for the opportunity to work as an engineer. This experience further on
supports my topic by proving that the human computers had to speak up for
what they wanted, and further on earned their respect. With the information
given by this source, I was able to come up with a compelling question about
why the women had less opportunities than the men while having great
contribution?
cunytv75. 2016. Black America: Human Computers With Margot Shetterly. Video.
https:// [Link]/watch?v=O17GeH4m4WQ.
This is an online interview with Margot Lee Shetterly, author of Hidden Figures,
about the black human computers, many of them who were once Shetterly’s
neighbors, and of how they were “invisible” after their great accomplishments
of sending rockets into space. The CUNY TV is a noncommercial television
station of the City University of New York, and is the largest public television
station in the United States that provides various programs from mathematics to
history, making this interview a credible primary source for my topic. The year
of which this source is created is the exact year of when this nonfiction book is
published. The purpose is mainly to inform many other people or the world
about these remarkable figures behind the triumph of Space Race, but were
never truly recognized. This interview informs my topic of how closely related
the author Margot Lee Shetterly was to the black human computers, and how
even as neighbors, she had never really heard of the greatness of these women’s
work because they were never acknowledged back then. This supports my
understanding because as a closely related personage, Shetterly thought these
women were only some normal mothers in her life since they went to work like
many others, while the work they actually contributed to was unbelievable, but
still not recognized. It leads to the compelling question that is this nonfiction
novel of Shetterly the major pathway that helped spread the stunning
contributions of black women computers to the world?
"Dr. Christine Darden - NASA Engineer & Mathematician". 2018. Youtube. Accessed
October 21 2018. [Link]
This source is a video which recorded Dr. Christine Darden’s speech about her
story with employees at the Department during the African American Heritage
celebration. In the speech, Christine Darden talked about her experience in
school and during work; how she discovered her interest in working with
numbers and further on applied for Langley as a mathematician, and how she
and the other women spoke up for what they wanted in face of discrimination
and gender inequality. Dr. Christine Darden had great interest in engineering
and she wanted to be able to write paper and have conferences, sharing her work
with all the other professionals. However, only engineers were able to do so,
and more significantly, all the engineers in Langley were men. Her courage of
speaking up for what she wanted supports my current topic about women human
computers fighting for chances to show their ability in mathematics and
engineering while facing discrimination. According to Dr. Christine Darden’s
experience, it raises the curiosity in why were the engineers; which were all
male, the only ones who were allowed to write paper and have their name being
known by others while other workers who contributed greatly to the projects
were not allowed?
"Katherine Johnson Interview: NASA's Human Computer". 2018.
[Link]. Accessed November 18 2018.
[Link]
This interview with Katherine Johnson was made by the TV show “What
Matters” with Cathy Lewis, a show and host which regularly focuses on the
current most effective people and events. This show informs audiences who are
interested in specific areas such as religion, economics, STEM, and the social
status. They bring in authorities who are specialized in these areas and have
discussions, providing the audiences a further understanding of the topic. This
interview with Katherine Johnson provides evidence and supports my current
research of my topic on the African American human computers in NASA.
From the conversation with Katherine, it shows that her great success wasn’t
only her because of her persistency in working hard and being accurate, but it
was also because of the support she got from her friends and family. She was
able to go to college due to her father’s persistency, but having to know that her
father only had six years of school, and gets me to wonder how hard was it for
African Americans to attend college and how much of them were really able to
do so?
MAKERS. 2016. Here's What You Need To Know About The Real Women Behind The
'Hidden Figures' Movie. Video. [Link]
hidden-figures-movie.
This is an online interview with Katherine G. Johnson, one of the most
significant African American human computers that helped the United States
win the Space Race, that talks about her career back in NASA. This interview
is created almost 60 years after the start of the Space Race, recording the past
of Katherine Johnson from her own point of view. From one of the most
important people back in the program, Katherine Johnson informs us about the
life she had in NASA and what her job was mainly about. This source extends
and supports my topic by stating that women back then weren't allowed to
participate in certain meetings even though there was no law about it and even
if they put in great contribution. This leads to the question that was sexism also
present back in the past.
“Meet the ‘Hidden Figures’ mathematician who helped send Americans into space”.
2017. [Link]. Accessed October 5 2018.
[Link]
katherine-johnson-20170109-story.
Los Angeles Times being a leading source of news makes the source reliable by
providing the author’s specialties, information, and all the other articles written
by this author. Amina Khan provides an interview with Katherine Johnson,
specifically about her work in the racially segregated West Computing group at
NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia. The interview informs us how it
felt like working with the people in NASA while under such environment, and
it extends the thought of how affective these African American human
computers actually are in pushing the boundaries of what it meant to be a
mathematician, scientist, or engineer. This source incited new valuable focusing
points for our topic.
PeopleTV. 2016. NASA Mathematician Katherine Johnson Makes People's List Of 25
Women Changing The World | People. Video.
[Link]
This source is an interview with Katherine Johnson and her daughters about
the award she achieved and how the world got to know about her marvelous
contributions to the space programs. The interview was made when Katherine
Johnson was 98 years old, the year after she received the Presidential Medal
of Freedom for what she did back in NASA. This interview informs me that
Katherine Johnson never expected herself receiving awards directly from the
President Obama and her daughters were surprised when they saw their mother
on the newspaper because they never thought what seemed to be a normal job
to them was spread throughout the world. It leads to the question that what was
the reason of why Mrs. Katherine Johnson didn't expect her works being
acknowledged by the world.
Smith, Samantha. 2016. 1950S And 60S Gender Roles. Video.
[Link] v=CJyXTC5XFn8.
This is an interview with Carolyn Gatty and Letty Cottin Pogrebin, founder of
the MS. Magazine, about women’s roles back in the 1950s and 60s. The
publisher of this video, Samantha Smith, is a qualified writer and reporter who
has published articles on reliable sites such as the WashingtonPost and the New
York Times. The online interview is mainly directed to all people, especially
the ones who want to know more about typical women’s role in the past. It
informs my research on the expected roles for women in the society and some
common jobs acquired by women if they weren't housewives. This supports
my understanding of why women entering STEM fields, competing, and
working with men, was considered as an abnormal behavior, since women
were believed to be stay-at-home-mothers who took care of the children and
housewives. Did women in 1950s and 60s see the roles given to them by the
society a norm?
"The Gender Equality Interview Series: Mary Jackson, Chief Officer, Professional
Resources At Blakes". 2017. Global Compact Network Canada. Accessed
October 5 2018. [Link] -
blakes/.
The Global Compact Network is a network which spearheads the movement
for Sustainable Development Goals. It holds events which helps improve
business companies. Part of their events are to interview professionals or
people who have impact. In this interview with Mary Jackson; an African
American human computer who once worked in NASA, based on her personal
experience of once working in an environment full of bias towards African
Americans and women, she gave her perspective towards how to improve
gender equality within the office. This source supports the part of gender
equality in my topic, which was an issue which made it uneasy for the women
to earn their respect from their work.
"What Matters - Katherine Johnson: NASA Pioneer And "Computer"". 2018. Youtube.
Accessed October 14 2018. [Link]
This is one of the interviews broadcasted by HearSay with Cathy Lewis, a
locally produced public affairs radio call-in program. The anchor has some
specialized knowledge on the history of Katherine Johnson both from her own
research, but also from her previous interviews with Johnson, which proves
the source’s credibility. This interview mostly focuses on how Katherine
worked in NASA, and her perspectives on the differences between past and
present working environment in NASA and children education. (especially
girls) This source informs me that, the success and triumph the women were
able to have wasn’t simply because the work they were required to do, but also
because they fought for opportunities to work on more projects and had greater
contributions. According to what Katherine Johnson said in the interview, this
source slightly challenges my current understanding of my topic about the
segregation in NASA. Although Katherine states that she knows it is there,
however she did not really feel it, or in another way, care about it. This shows
that there is a possibility were segregation within NASA did not affect the
women significantly, which I may have to find more evidence which supports
my thought on how segregation had affected on the women’s daily life and
career.
Secondary Sources:
" [Black Engineers Of The Year Award Winners] On JSTOR ". 2018. [Link].
Accessed October 13 2018. [Link]
This source is a journal article kept in JSTOR, talking about remarkable black
engineers who had great success in their career and that should be awarded.
Among all the African American engineers, I focused on Christine M. Darden,
and African American human computer who was mentioned by Katherine
Johnson in an interview, stating that she was one of the significant women who
worked with her in Langley during the space race. This article included a lot
of quotes from Christine M. Darden, which I believe makes this part of the
article a summary of an interview with her, informing about her career, and the
uneasy parts in both her daily life and career which once made her wanting to
quit. From theses information, I am able to support my topic, which the society
and ability to live was an obstacle which the women had to face while working.
Drake, Nadia. 2018. "Historic Pictures Show The Hidden Women Of The Space Race".
[Link]://[Link]/2016/12
/hidden-figures-nasa-computers-women-katherine-johnson-space-science/.
National Geographic is considered a reliable source because it’s known of
providing articles about scientific research and articles, and facts around the
world. The author, Nadia Drake, can also be considered credible because she
has many published scientific works on multiple website relating to science.
This source extends my knowledge on some of the most significant figures
related to my topic, Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson.
It doesn't only provide information about these people, but also briefly
mentioned some parts of the Space Race between the USSR and the United
States, leading to the question of what is the background about this Space Race?
GAUCHAT, GORDON, MAURA KELLY, and MICHAEL WALLACE.
"OCCUPATIONAL
GENDER SEGREGATION, GLOBALIZATION, AND GENDER
EARNINGS INEQUALITY IN U.S. METROPOLITAN AREAS."
Gender and Society 26, no. 5(2012): 718-47.
[Link]
This is an article published by the Sage Publications, Inc. This company is an
international, leading publishing company founded in 1965, which publishes
more than 900 journals and 800 books each year of wide-ranged subjects. This
article studies gender inequality from four different aspects: occupational
segregation, labor market structure, globalization, and lobar market
restructuring. Study shows that occupational gender segregation, which is the
concentration of groups of workers (African American, women, etc.) in
different jobs, is associated with wage gaps. Women in segregated occupations
pay higher penalty, while men benefit from them. This informs me of the
possible reasons relating to gender inequality in the United States. It also
supports my topic of the phenomenon in American society back in the 1960s
when women in jobs were treated with highly unequal payments and working
environment compare with men.
"Hidden Figures Movie Vs The True Story Of Katherine Johnson, NASA". 2018.
[Link].
[Link]
This website extends my current knowledge about this topic by providing facts
about the actual environment the human computers once worked under. This
source is mostly a comparison between a movie and the actual story the movie
is based on since our topic is relatively related to the story. Although there is
no author of this website, every piece of fact is supported by sources such as
NASA and actual interviews, making it more reliable. While many of the
African American human computers were incredibly intellectually talented,
like Katherine Johnson, graduated from West Virginia State College at 18, this
creates a new question — why was it nearly impossible for them to achieve
higher positions under such serious and intense environment.
"Human Computers - Nasacrgis". 2018. [Link]. Accessed October 5 2018.
[Link]
This source being the official site of NASA, has the credibility of its history.
Having the support from NASA’s historic preservationist, specific names and
events were revealed, and which gives us more information about our topic,
evidence to support our claim, and more focuses which may extend our
research. This site also provides primary sources in different forms, including
photos, films, and interviews. By the information provided, we noticed that
there were quite a few other significant women which are still not widely
known by the public.
Jonathan Eberhart. "Space Race Pace Quickens." The Science News-Letter 87, no. 25
(1965): 387-98. doi:10.2307/3948639.
This is an article that was from the Science News Letter written in 1965,
writing about the effects that were caused by the Space Race, and how did the
Space Race become so important for the Americans during that time. Having
to be published by the “Society for Science and the Public”, it has the
credibility and has been proven by scholars before it was even published. This
article talks about how the Space Race quickened and the economic benefits
the success in the Space Race brought for the Americans, especially for the
space-related companies. These few segments of the article support my idea of
how important was the Space Race for the Americans at that time, and as well
made me think of this question; by looking at the significance and importance
of the Space Race, could we determine how essential were the contributions
of the human computers to the America society, economy, and government?
Koren, Marina. 2018. "Elementary School Ditches Andrew Jackson For Mary Jackson,
The First Black Female NASA Engineer". The Atlantic.
[Link]
andrew-jackson/552803/.
This is an online article on The Atlantic about Mary Jackson, the first African
American female engineer at NASA. The author Marina Koren is a writer at
The Atlantic and The Atlantic publishes a wide range of articles in fields of
politics, education, technology and so on. This article informs me of the
triumphant reward established for Mary Jackson that an elementary school in
Utah is named after Mary Jackson. It mostly emphasizes on Jackson’s
contribution on education for young African American students, about
grabbing career opportunities, not until it’s too late. The event of Jackson
taking college night courses at a segregated high school after successfully
petitioning approval supports my knowledge of how uneasy it was for the
African Americans to receive education that they wanted and needed. It leads
to the question that when the African American female human computers
worked at NASA, did they know they were making history of helping the
United States win the Space Race?
Light, Jennifer S. "When Computers Were Women." Technology and Culture 40, no. 3
(1999): 455-83. [Link] Accessed on 21
October 2018.
This is a peered-reviewed article about the entry of women to more
occupations during wartime during the 19th and 20th century and specifically
women being computers. This article is originally published by The Johns
Hopkins University Press and the Society for the History of Technology. Being
one of the largest printing services in the United States, The Johns Hopkins
University Press published articles by scholarly publishers, and the Society for
the History of Technology is known for its dedication to historical studies of
technology, making this article a reliable source. This source informs me of
why women started to enter into careers rather just a simply housewife, which
relates to my topic about African American women who were mathematicians,
engineers, and researchers at NASA. It supports my topic of how working
women were “invisible” during their work, for example not being able to
author any of the papers that they contributed to. Why weren't women
employed for these occupations when it wasn’t during wartime?
Riegle-Crumb, Catherine, and Barbara King. "Questioning a White Male Advantage in
STEM: Examining Disparities in College Major by Gender and
Race/Ethnicity." Educational Researcher 39, no. 9 (2010): 656-64.
[Link]
This source questions and explains the common phenomenon of while-males
being the dominant group in STEM Fields. The publisher, the American
Educational Research Association is a prominent international organization
that focuses on the goal of improving scholarly education by promoting
practical research results, making it a relatively credible source to rely on. It
informs my topic by stating that this phenomenon is not only a thought on
women’s incapability in STEM fields from men, but also a belief among girls
as they perceive themselves as less proficient than boys in math and science.
The article also supports my topic that African American females hold
disadvantages in front of white males while competing for jobs in fields of
science and math is because African American communities were less
academically prepared than white males due to the education they received.
Which then proposes the question was the education of African Americans
generally worse than the Whites?
Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M. Williams. “Sex Differences in Math-Intensive Fields.”
Current
Directions in Psychological Science Vol. 19, No. 5 (OCTOBER 2010), pp.
275-279
[Link]
This is an article published by Sage Publications and Association for
Psychological Science. Both being organizations which focus on social and
psychological science, this source is credible, being about the most focused
topics of this two organizations. By talking about whether sex discrimination
and sex differences in special and mathematical abilities explains the
underrepresentation of women in careers in the STEM field, this source
provides me evidence explaining why STEM careers tend to be male-tensioned.
In modern studies, the data tends to show that although women have
comparable abilities in math and science with male, it is their own choice
which led to the lack of women workers in fields which require math. However,
this is due to the society which discrimination and underestimation towards
women are less than the past, where the human computers had to face. In the
past, the lack of women employees in STEM careers were due to the lack of
education, and the pressure which was added on them by others while talking
about the ability to deal with math problems. This leads to the question of what
caused the discrimination and underestimation of women’s ability in dealing
with math?
TATU, ROBIN. "ON THE SHELF: NASA'S SECRET ACES." ASEE Prism 26, no. 7
(2017): 40. [Link]
This source is an article on the published work of Margot Lee Shetterley,
Hidden Figures, about how these Black human computers put in great
contribution to the Space Race, but not being recognized. The reviewer Dr.
Robin Tatu is a faculty member at the Langley School, having a B.A. degree
at Brown University, making him a credible reviewer for this article. It informs
me of the strict requirements needed for these human computers to obtain the
positions they wants, and how hard it was for them to even reach these
requirements, for example, a required degree in certain fields, but it was
already challenge because many schools had these programs specifically only
for white people. This article supports my topic since it shows that racism was
present in the society back in the Space Race and many colleges only for white
people, causing some of the extremely talented African Americans not being
able to reach the educational requirements for certain positions. This makes us
wander that was being educationally inferior the main factor that limited the
African American human computers to equally compete for positions with
other white people?
Walinsky, Lauren. 2018. "Christine Darden Is One Of NASA’S ‘Hidden Figures’ – GW
Alumni News". [Link]. Accessed October 14 2018.
[Link]
figures/.
GW Alumni News is a news website which is supported by the George
Washington University. The news article is a brief summary of a speech given
by Dr. Christine Darden at the George Washington University Lehman
Auditorium. The article contains various quotes said by Christine Darden,
mainly about her work and experiences in NASA, working as a mathematician
to an engineer. She mainly talks about the challenges and discriminations she
has faced, which is gender inequality. People seemed to question the women’s
answers more than the ones given by the men. Having to be frustrated by the
questioning of her answers, she then left the pool of mathematicians and
became an engineer, which her answers were being more respected, which
supports my topic on the women earning respect by their great work. From the
experience of Dr. Christine Darden, it makes me come up with the question of
what was the main thing that made these women so uneasy in their own career?
2018. Washington Post. Accessed October 7 2018.
[Link]
of-the-black-women-who-helped-land-a-man-on-the-
moon/2016/09/12/95f2d356-7504-11e6-8149-
b8d05321db62_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f0ca954fe6f4
This article being published by The Washington Post has the reliability since
the background information of the editor is provided, and information in this
article is being supported by primary sources and people who have close
contact with the human computers. This source informs how the history of the
human computers in NASA was suddenly revealed after being unknown for so
many years. It also supports my current understand of my topic which no one
actually payed any attention to the female computers who were the ones which
actually contributed the most to the space programs.
Conclusion: After America’s victory on the Space Race, most people only
remembered John Glenn as the first American to orbit Earth instead of the great
engineers behind this program. Especially the African American human computers,
they were never truly publicly celebrated until Katherine Johnson received the
Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama and the publication of the novel
and movie Hidden Figures. The delayed acknowledgment for these women was the
consequence, but also the confirmation of bias on the African American race and the
female gender.