The Black Women of NASA

Guest Speaker Duchess Harris

A Program and Luncheon at The Woman's Club of Minneapolis

11:00 Program
12:00 Luncheon

This very special Woman's Club Tuesday Program is OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. Nonmembers are welcomed. Space is limited; please see below for reservation information.

Dozens of African American women worked for NASA as expert mathematicians from the 1940s to the 1960s and almost no one knows about it. Segregated within NASA facilities in Hampton, Va., well-educated Black women used slide rules and pencils to do the calculations for flights by astronauts John Glenn and Alan Shepherd. That this history is little known makes it ripe for research by American Studies Professor Duchess Harris, whose grandmother, Miriam Daniel Mann, was one of these extraordinary women. Duchess is the Chair of the American Studies Department at Macalester College, and co-authored Hidden Human Computers: The Black Women of NASA.