Mary Jackson
Mary Jackson was one of the computers who worked directly under supervisor Dorothy Vaughan. She joined NACA in 1951, after several career changes and earning a degree in Math and Physical Sciences.
After two years as a computer, she received an offer to work directly with one of NACA’s engineers, who designed super-high-speed wind tunnels. Female engineers were almost unheard of at the time — not to mention black female engineers!
But she faced a problem; to become a full-fledged engineer, she had to complete several graduate-level courses. At the time, these classes were only held in a segregated high school in the evenings. Jackson had to go through the city government to get special permission to attend these classes so she could serve as a NACA engineer.
She earned her degree and became an engineer in 1958. She worked in this role for almost two decades, co-authoring reports and conducting scientific research. By 1979, Jackson had reached the highest level of the engineering department, but she grew frustrated that she was not promoted beyond that to a managerial position. Instead of continuing her career as a scientist, Jackson switched careers yet again, this time to serve NASA as the Federal Women’s Program Manager. In this role she worked hard to make sure the government hired and promoted women and minorities.
Each of these three women played a unique role in promoting the equality of African American women in the workplace. Katherine Johnson showed her superiors how detailed and reliable a female mathematician can be. Dorothy Vaughan proved to the administrators at NACA that she, too, could lead large groups with skill. And Mary Jackson fought discrimination to earn advanced engineering degrees that few women and African Americans before her had received. These women — and the entire group of African American mathematicians at NACA — had a remarkable impact on the push for equality.
"The Women of Hidden Figures" by Jessica McBirney. Copyright © 2017 by CommonLit, Inc. This text is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
Unless otherwise noted, this content is licensed under theCC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license
Notes
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Tedious (adjective) : long and tiresome
the first United States human spaceflight
to separate or divide people along racial lines
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Question 4 of 5
Why did Jackson leave her job as an engineer?
She was not permitted to advance in her career.
She became more passionate about civil rights.
She was not taken seriously as a female engineer.
She grew tired of her work as an engineer at NACA.
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