Born in Hampton, Virginia, mathematician and aeronautical engineer Mary Jackson is an unsung hero of social justice and the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. Jackson excelled academically, graduating from high school with honors and then earning a dual degree in Mathematics and Physics from Hampton University. She had several jobs before working for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA, currently known as NASA) but it was not until she worked for them as a “human computer” that she had the chance to truly let her talents shine. At NACA, computers like Jackson calculated the answers to long, complex equations by hand. These very equations are the ones that advanced the United States’ position in the Space Race and enabled Neil Armstrong to safely land on the moon. …show more content…
NACA promoted her from Computer to Aeronautical Engineer. NASA recognizes Mary Jackson as their first black engineer and says that she “may have been the only black female aeronautical engineer in the field” during her time working there. As an engineer, Jackson analyzed data from wind tunnel simulations and NACA aircrafts. She put in an unbelievable amount of effort reach this prestigious position at the company, but after working for a while as an engineer, Jackson decided it was time to pursue a higher calling and got involved in social advocacy. She demoted herself to an administrative position at NACA and then got involved in Equal Employment Opportunity, Affirmative Action, and women’s programs in order to help minorities and women be more successful in their occupations. As if Jackson had not already done enough good in the world, after retirement, she got involved in multiple organizations for the empowerment of women and
Chief Joseph and Helen Hunt Jackson are two very important people who both share strong yet different perspectives toward the treachery of the U.S. Government along with the unfair treatment of Indians around the 1800’s. Chief Joseph was born in 1840 in the Wallowa valley of Oregon, and belonged to the Nez Percé tribe, which was made up of some 400 indians. The Government had made many valid promises among the tribes, just to come back and break these words with more conflict and war. All Chief Joseph was in search for was for the chaos among the whites and indians to be replaced with peace, brotherhood, and equality. Stated in the text, “We ask that the same law shall work alike on all men.” In other words, Chief Joseph believed that people
The Jacksonian Era, in the 1820’s and 1830’s, was a very critical period in American history. Many historians have different views on whether the Jacksonian Democrats, Andrew Jackson’s followers and supporters, were guardians of the United States Constitution, political democracy, individual liberty and the equality of economic opportunity. Although Jacksonian Democrats view themselves as guardians of all these, they were wrong about most of it. The Jacksonian Democrats did a good job protecting and expanding political democracy and protecting equalty of economic opportunity, but failed to be guardians of the constitution as well as individual liberty.
Anne Moody had thought about joining the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), but she never did until she found out one of her roommates at Tougaloo college was the secretary. Her roommate asked, “why don’t you become a member” (248), so Anne did. Once she went to a meeting, she became actively involved. She was always participating in various freedom marches, would go out into the community to get black people to register to vote. She always seemed to be working on getting support from the black community, sometimes to the point of exhaustion. Son after she joined the NAACP, she met a girl that was the secretary to the ...
Bessie Coleman was the first African American pilot, & it wasn’t exactly a piece of cake. Back then in the United States African Americans were treated like dirt, which is the reason why every flying school Bessie Coleman tried to enroll in rejected her enrollment. However, that did not stop her from her dream of flying. She saved up enough money to travel to France & enroll in a flying school there, & she got in. In 1921, she earned her international Pilot’s license. In 1923, she got into a plane crash & broke her leg & three legs, & a year later she was flying again, only to die in another crash in 1926. The article taught me that life is full of ups & downs, don’t lose
Mary Eliza Mahoney was born May 7, 1845 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Smith, J, & Phelps, S, 1992) Mary Mahoney was the first African American professional nurse. She spent over 40 years as a private duty nurses going to sick people’s homes nursing them back to health. She was such a wonderful private duty nurse that after joining a nursing directory, Mary was called upon time after time by the families that hired her all over the country near and faraway. Mary Mahoney was a member of the Nurses Associated Alumnae of the United States and Canada now known as the American Nurses Association (ANA) since 1896. (Webster, Raymond B, 1999) She was also one of the first members of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN) which was a minority nursing organizations that was focused on equality for African-American nurses comparable to that of non minority nurses. Mary was named chaplain of the organization and was later named a lifetime member. After her death on January 4, 1926 from breast cancer the National Association of Colored Graduates Nurses named an award in honor of Mary Eliza Mahoney, after the NACGN was disbanded in 1951 the American Nurses Association continued the Mary Eliza Mahoney award. (Webster, Raymond B, 1999)
demanded her voice to be heard. Because she believed every person had a right to be free, Harriet Tubman risked her life to save others.
" In 1983, astronaut and astrophysicist Sally Ride became the first American woman in space aboard the space shuttle Challenger."(Biography. (2018). Sally Ride. [online] Available at: https://www.biography.com/people/sally-ride-9458284 [Accessed 12 Feb. 2018].) After many years of hard work Sally proved it all payed off. This is a great example of how if you keep working towards no matter how big or how many obstacles that may be in your way you can overcome them and reach your goals. During her time in space Sally Ride had an important job. " Her job was to work the robotic arm. She used the arm to help put satellites into space."(NASA. (2018). Who Was Sally Ride? [online] Available at: https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/nasa-knows/who-was-sally-ride-k4.html [Accessed 12 Feb.
Military aviation was in no way spared from the deficit of labour and resources across the globe. In 1939, an American pilot named Jackie Cochran, famous for her competitive achievements breaking speed and altitude records, wrote a letter to Eleanor Roosevelt suggesting that women aviators could help out in the face of an emergency. By 1940, Britain’s Royal Air Force began using women as ferry pilots and in Russia, women were flying combat missions (Myers, 640).
Sarah Margaret Fuller, better known as Margaret Fuller, was considered one of the Great American authors that wrote during the transcendentalism period. Particularly, in her work titled Meditations written in 1833 we can see evidence of the characteristics, themes and style identified with the transcendentalism movement, Margaret Fuller then remains one of the most identifiable and iconic writers of her time.
Mae Jemison was the first African American to go to space. Not only was she the first African American she was also the first woman ever to travel to space. She graduated from Stanford University, the fourth best college in The United States of America. She joined the Peace Corps and worked as the medical officer in Sierra Leone and Liberia. These are just a few of her many accomplishments making her
Her intelligence allowed to skip through grades at a very young age. By 10 years old, she was already a high school freshman. By 18, she enrolled in West Virginia State College, where she found a mentor by the name of Professor W. W. Schieffel in Claytor. He was the third African American to earn a PhD in mathematics. When integration occurred in 1939, Dr. John W. Davis chose Katherine and two other students to get to the West Virginia University. After a while, she quit to start a family. She returned to teach and in 1952, she became interested in the West Area Computing Section at the NACA’s (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) later on called NASA (n. pag.).
It is only in the past few years that the notable accomplishments or assists by African-Americans in have been acknowledged as they have previously been unknown or credited to another person. Like many others, Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn, and Mary Jackson were not known to many even those who are knowledged in US space history. Until Katherine’s importance was realised, Katherine Johnson had not been given the permission to include her own name in reports she had written and had unwillingly only credited Paul Stafford, the head engineer of the Space Task Group at NASA. Additionally, though the soundtrack was quite limited, the performances were engaging and the cinematography was stunning.
“Charles is a short story written by Shirley Jackson that tells about a mischievous young boy named Laurie, who was beginning kindergarten. The literary work takes place in the 1950s between home and school. Laurie misbehaved because he was struggling to adjust to his new surroundings. He was a brother to a younger sibling who received the majority of attention from his parents. Consequentially, he was troublesome to the faculty. Therefore, he was able to share such stories about the school day’s events to lure his mother and father in interest. However, this caused a rise of disrespectful and inappropriate behavior.
In the movie Hidden Figures, based on a true story, the three main actors Taraji P. Henson (Katherine Johnson), Octavia Spencer (Dorothy Vaughan) & Janelle Monae (Mary Jackson) play the role of three intelligent African American women who served as the mathematical brains behind one of the greatest operations in history: sending an astronaut into orbit. These three women and many more alongside them were known as “human computers” as they calculated the launch of astronaut John Glenn into orbit and guaranteed his safe return back to Earth.
Ada Lovelace was the daughter of famous poet at the time, Lord George Gordon Byron, and mother Anne Isabelle Milbanke, known as “the princess of parallelograms,” a mathematician. A few weeks after Ada Lovelace was born, her parents split. Her father left England and never returned. Women received inferior education that that of a man, but Isabelle Milbanke was more than able to give her daughter a superior education where she focused more on mathematics and science (Bellis). When Ada was 17, she was introduced to Mary Somerville, a Scottish astronomer and mathematician who’s party she heard Charles Babbage’s idea of the Analytic Engine, a new calculating engine (Toole). Charles Babbage, known as the father of computer invented the different calculators. Babbage became a mentor to Ada and helped her study advance math along with Augustus de Morgan, who was a professor at the University of London (Ada Lovelace Biography Mathematician, Computer Programmer (1815–1852)). In 1842, Charles Babbage presented in a seminar in Turin, his new developments on a new engine. Menabrea, an Italian, wrote a summary article of Babbage’s developments and published the article i...