A traveling exhibit on loan from the Hampton History Museum explores the history and personalities of the women featured in Hidden Figures, this year’s Campus Read. The exhibit will be on display during January in the Downtown Campus Library Atrium and will move to the second floor of Evansdale Library from Feb. 1-28 and to the Erickson Alumni Center Nutting Gallery March 1-April 28.
In 1935, five women came to Langley to form a computer pool to process all of the data coming in from wind tunnel and flight tests. It began as an experiment but became something much bigger as readers of the book learned. By 1942, the human computers had become essential to operations. Two of the three pioneers featured in the book—Dorothy Vaughan and Katherine Johnson (in photo) had connections to Morgantown. Vaughan grew up in Morgantown and attended Wilberforce University in 1925. WVU did not admit African Americans then. Johnson became the first African American woman to attend graduate school at WVU in 1939.