SYMHC Classics: Mary Winston Jackson

Summary

Podcast Summary: Stuff You Missed in History Class – SYMHC Classics: Mary Winston Jackson

Episode Release Date: July 26, 2025

Introduction

In this compelling episode of "Stuff You Missed in History Class," hosts Tracy B. Wilson and Holly Fry delve into the inspiring life and legacy of Mary Winston Jackson, the first Black woman engineer at NASA. Responding to a listener’s request, the duo re-releases this classic episode to shed light on Jackson’s pivotal role in NASA’s history and her unwavering commitment to fostering diversity and inclusion within the aerospace field.

Early Life and Education

Mary Winston Jackson was born Mary Winston on April 9, 1921, in Hampton, Virginia, near NASA’s Langley Research Center. Growing up in a large family, her parents, Ella and Frank Winston, emphasized the importance of education and instilled in all their children the values of good citizenship and academic excellence. Mary attended George P. Phoenix Training School on the campus of Hampton Institute (now Hampton University), where she graduated with highest honors.

Tracy highlights, “Mary graduated from Phoenix with highest honors and went on to college at the Hampton Institute. She expected that she would become a teacher, but she pushed herself to finish a double major in mathematics and physical science, even though that was a far more strenuous course of study than she would need to teach” [[20:09]].

Early Career and Personal Life

After graduating in 1942, Mary briefly taught at a segregated school in Maryland. Her plans took a turn when her father fell ill, prompting her to return to Hampton to assist with his care. However, restrictive hiring practices and nepotism rules prevented her from rejoining the teaching profession locally. Consequently, Mary secured a position as a secretary at the King Street USO, where she met her future husband, Levi Jackson, a serviceman from Alabama. They married in 1944 and had two children.

Beyond her professional endeavors, Mary was deeply involved in her community and the Bethel AME Church. She also led a Girl Scout troop for approximately three decades, mentoring young girls and actively working to integrate black and white Girl Scout councils in Virginia [[22:25]].

Transition to NACA and NASA

In 1951, seeking to re-enter the workforce, Mary applied for both a clerical position with the army and a computing position at Langley’s NACA. She initially accepted the army role but soon transitioned to Langley, joining as one of the West Area Computers on April 5, 1951, at age 26 [[24:00]]. At that time, Langley, like many institutions, was still racially segregated despite Executive Order 8802, which prohibited employment discrimination in defense industries.

Mary’s entry into Langley marked the beginning of significant changes. The West Area Computing Group, composed entirely of Black women, was led by Dorothy Vaughn, the first Black supervisor at Langley [[24:12]]. Mary faced the dual challenges of performing critical wartime calculations while navigating the pervasive racism and segregation laws of Virginia.

Challenges and Overcoming Barriers

Mary Jackson encountered blatant discrimination, such as being denied access to suitable restroom facilities when assigned to a predominantly white department. Her frustration culminated in a pivotal moment when she challenged a colleague’s dismissive behavior, leading to her collaboration with Kazmiera Czarnacki in the supersonic pressure tunnel. Her meticulous work earned her recognition and paved the way for her entry into the engineer training program [[25:22]].

In 1958, after completing the necessary coursework at the University of Virginia, Mary was promoted to engineer, making her the first Black woman engineer at NACA and NASA. This achievement was monumental, breaking racial and gender barriers in a highly specialized and previously exclusive field [[27:49]].

Contributions and Mentorship

As an engineer, Mary co-authored multiple technical publications and specialized in the behavior of air around supersonic aircraft. Her expertise was instrumental during a transformative period for NASA during the space race. Beyond her technical contributions, Mary was a passionate mentor, advocating for women and minorities to pursue engineering careers. She established support networks and actively worked to ensure that talented individuals received the training and opportunities needed to advance [[32:42]].

Mary’s efforts extended beyond her immediate professional environment. She continued her community involvement through the Girl Scouts and conducted workshops in high schools, emphasizing that engineering was accessible to all, regardless of race or gender [[35:46]].

Legacy and Recognition

Mary Jackson retired from NASA in 1985 after a distinguished career marked by perseverance and significant contributions to aerospace engineering and equal opportunity initiatives. Her legacy is celebrated through various honors, including the renaming of Jackson Elementary School in Salt Lake City in her honor and the posthumous recognition through the Hidden Figures Congressional Gold Medal Act, which aimed to honor her alongside other trailblazing women at NASA [[36:09]].

Tracy concludes, “Mary Jackson was more than just an engineer; she was a mentor, a community leader, and a pioneer who paved the way for future generations of underrepresented scientists and engineers” [[37:17]].

Conclusion

This episode of "Stuff You Missed in History Class" not only highlights Mary Winston Jackson’s extraordinary achievements but also underscores the broader struggles and triumphs of Black women in STEM fields during a transformative era in American history. Through their detailed exploration, Tracy and Holly honor Jackson’s enduring impact on NASA and her role in advancing diversity and inclusion within the aerospace industry.

---

Notable Quotes:

• Tracy B. Wilson [[05:09]]: “Mary Jackson really hasn't gotten as much recognition as some of the other women who are featured in Hidden Figures... she changed the whole direction of her career to do this.”

• Holly Fry [[24:47]]: “This was a year of big changes at Langley, and we're gonna get to those after we first pause for another sponsor break.”

• Tracy B. Wilson [[37:45]]: “Things like this book introduces 10 new characters in a paragraph and then just never follows up on them again. Those weren't characters, honey, they were people.”

References:

• Transcript timestamps are included in double brackets throughout the summary to indicate the source of quoted material.

Additional Resources:

Listeners interested in learning more about Mary Winston Jackson and the other women featured in "Hidden Figures" are encouraged to read Margot Lee Shetterly's book and explore further historical accounts of the women who played crucial roles in NASA’s early years.

Transcript

[Tracy B. Wilson]

This is an iHeart podcast.

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[Tracy B. Wilson]

Happy Saturday. We got a message from a listener recently who was hoping for an episode on a woman aeronautical engineer. You'll hear that email on a forthcoming episode of the show because we recorded some stuff out of order, but we wanted to go ahead and re release something that was relevant to that request, which is Mary Winston Jackson, first Black woman to be hired as an engineer at NASA before it was known as NASA.

[Holly Fry]

At the end of the episode, we.

[Robert]

Talked about the Hidden Figures Congressional Gold.

[Holly Fry]

Medal act, which at that point had.

[Robert]

Been introduced in Congress but had not become law. It was signed into law on November.

[Holly Fry]

8, 2019, and the ceremony took place.

[Robert]

In September of 2024. The ceremony honored Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn, Mary Jackson and Dr. Christine Darden, whose family members accepted medals on their behalf. It also honored all the other women who served at NASA and its precursor NACA, as computers, mathematicians and engineers between the 1930s and the 1970s.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

This episode originally came out on February 11, 2019. Enjoy.

[Holly Fry]

Welcome to Stuff youf Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy B. Wilson.

[Holly Fry]

And I'm Holly Fry.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Folks who have seen the movie Hidden Figures or read Margot Lee Shetterly's book by the same title will probably recognize the name Mary Jackson. She was the first black woman to become an engineer at NASA, and she's been on my list for an episode for a while. We have a collection about women in STEM fields, but we haven't talked specifically about a woman engineer. And she really hasn't gotten as much recognition as some of the other women who are featured in Hidden Figures, such as Katherine Johnson, who calculated the trajectory for the United States for first human space flight and celebrated her 100th birthday in August of 2018. But I didn't realize until I got into this episode just how much Mary Jackson also worked to clear the way for other underrepresented people at NASA. I mean, she changed the whole direction of her career to do this, and in particular, she did a lot to try to make more room for black women in the ranks of NASA engineers. That made me even more excited to talk about her today.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah, she's pretty great. And Mary Jackson started working as a computer at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, or the naca, years before it was absorbed into NASA. So before we get to her specifically, we have to back up and talk a little bit about human computers. If it sounds weird for you to say someone worked as a computer, that is what they were called, human computers. And how Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, now known as Langley Research center, and came to have a segregated pool of human computers in the 1940s.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

There were surely people doing this kind of work in other parts of the world as well. But our focus today is really on Europe and North America. In English, the word computer to mean a person who makes calculations or computation goes all the way back to the early 17th century. Many of these early computers were men. They were apprentices and assistants who were doing this work as part of their education and training to become, say, an astronomer or an engineer. But women have played a really important part too, especially the wives and sisters and daughters of astronomers and physicists and other scientists, some of whom were scientists in their own right. These women did calculations to support the research of their male family members, often without ever getting the credit for it.

[Holly Fry]

One example is mathematician and astronomer Nicole Reine Lepot, whose husband, Jean Andrew, was France's royal clockmaker. She worked with astronomer Joseph Lalande and mathematician Alexis Clairaud to calculate the return of Halley's Comet in 1758. Lalande later said, for six months we made calculations from dawn to dusk, sometimes even during the meals. The help given by Madame Le Pote was such that without her I would not have been able to complete such a colossal enterprise. But when Clairaut published their findings, which were far more accurate than previous predictions had been, he did not acknowledge Lupaute's work at all.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

The Harvard College Observatory started hiring women as assistants toward the end of the 19th century. They cared for glass plates that were used to record images of the night sky, and they analyzed and recorded the images from those plates, classifying the stars and compiling the data. Observatory director Edward Charles Pickering, in particular started hiring a whole group of women computers in 1881. They were nicknamed Pickering's Harem, which was not a particularly nice nickname, and nods to sort of a perception that one of the reasons that some of these departments were all women was because the men in charge wanted to be surrounded by young women. We don't talk about that as much and other reasons why there were women staffs of computers. But that was a thing that there was at least the perception was going on. One of the computers at the Harvard College Observatory was Annie Jump Cannon, who developed the method for classifying stars that is still used today.

[Holly Fry]

During World War II, hundreds of women worked as computers at the U.S. army's Ballistic Research Laboratory, doing the math for the firing tables for rockets and artillery. This included civilian women with degrees in math or science, as well as women from the Women's Army Corps.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Women worked as computers at the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos National Laboratory as well. Some were women with math or physics degrees who had been recruited for that work, and others were the wives of other Los Alamos Employees.

[Holly Fry]

Thanks to hidden figures. Today, the idea of a whole department of human computers is heavily associated with Langley and the space race. But within the naca, computing departments weren't unique to Langley. Other NACA facilities had them as well. They also significantly predate the space program. Langley created its first computing pool in 1935, hiring five women as computers. These women did their calculations by hand with the help of slide rules, mathematical tables, and mechanical calculators.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Before the computing pool was established, Langley's engineers and scientists had been performing all of their calculations themselves. And the idea was that moving the calculating work over to a dedicated department could free up those men to focus on the science and the engineering, while also making the process of computing faster and more accurate. That's also why all of those wartime departments were women, because the men were needed to go to combat roles.

[Holly Fry]

At first, many of the men who had previously done their own calculations resisted this idea and doubted whether women could do the necessary math. But the creation of the computing group had exactly the outcome the organization had been looking for. It was faster and more accurate. Plus, since women were being hired for the positions, they could be paid much less than the engineers and scientists whose work they were absorbing.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Of course, we are not endorsing that fact, but the administrators liked it.

[Robert]

There's a lot to unpack.

[Holly Fry]

It's unfortunate, but that was part of the logic train.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Yeah. Computing was also considered a sub professional position, while engineering was a professional one. So the top of the ranks for a computer was mathematician, and that was equivalent to an entry level position for a male engineer. So in other words, the top of the computing ranks lined up with the bottom of the engineering ranks.

[Holly Fry]

And that brings us to how this job occupied a complicated spot in the grand scheme of things. Often women computers were paid significantly more than they might have been in other work that was open to them. Think of things like teaching school. But at the same time, many of the women who were hired to be computers were overqualified for the job. And as we just talked about, they were handling work that had previously been done by men who were higher up in the org char. Because the computers were women and their jobs were seen as subordinate to those of male engineers, they also faced sexism in a way that they might not have in other industries.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

These disparities became even more pronounced when Langley started recruiting black women to work as computers. In July of 1941, Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802, which said, in part quote, there shall be no discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries and in government because of race, creed, color or national origin. This executive order followed extensive advocacy by A. Philip Randolph and other black labor and civil rights leaders, and it also established the Fair Employment Practices Committee to make sure that order was enforced.

[Holly Fry]

This executive order came as the United States was preparing for war. The previous May, the President had called for the US to build 50,000 aircraft. This was a dramatic increase in aircraft production, up from fewer than 100 airplanes a month.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Langley was where aircraft manufacturers were having their high performance aircraft tested and improved. Langley engineers would put aircraft through test flights and wind tunnels and evaluate their performance and suggest improvements and refinements on the design. The goal was to make aircraft safer, faster and more effective. So when the President made this call for more aircraft, that gave Langley a lot more work to do. And the NACA had to hire a lot more people across the facility to do it.

[Holly Fry]

The expansion was so huge and dramatic that it led to a housing crisis in the area around Langley, addressed in part by building a dormitory to house some of the women. A 372 unit dorm opened in the summer of 1943 with a house mother who locked everything up at 11pm at.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

First, a lot of these new hires were white candidates. But before long, there just weren't enough white candidates to fill all the jobs, many of which were intended to be temporary wartime positions and not long term careers. So after Executive Order 8802, the administration at the NACA started actively recruiting black candidates to fill these jobs. Langley had black employees before this point, but mostly doing things like janitorial work and groundskeeping and food service. This was the first time that Langley had recruited black employees for professional and sub professional roles.

[Holly Fry]

Although the executive order barred discrimination in hiring, Virginia, where Langley is located, was still racially segregated by law. So this newly hired group of black computers who started work in 1943 were placed in a segregated section known as the West Computing group, or just the West Group, in which black women reported to white supervisors. This also meant adding segregated restrooms in a segregated area of the lunchroom. Segregation was so strictly maintained that many of the white computers and lab employees didn't realize that the west group even existed.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

There was one computer named Miriam Mann who made it a point of repeatedly removing the colored computer sign that was used to mark the blacks only part of the cafeteria. She would just basically take it and put it in her purse and leave. And a few days later it would show back up on the table again. And all the computers were like, we know, we know. This is where you want us to sit? We know this is our designated area. You don't have to keep pointing it out to us. And her husband was like, miriam, they're gonna fire you. Miriam was kind of like, they're gonna have to, right? She kept doing it until they finally stopped putting the sign there.

[Holly Fry]

I'm like, that would be a firing well earned, in my opinion. We mentioned a few minutes ago how a woman might be better paid as a computer than she had been while working at another job while still being overqualified for that computing job. This was particularly true for black women. Many had done exceptionally well in their study of math and had advanced degrees, years of experience teaching math and science or both. Many, but certainly not all of the white computers did not. They might have a math degree, they but little to no experience beyond college.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Additionally, teaching was really one of the most prestigious jobs that was available to black women in the 1940s. Within their communities, black teachers were really regarded with a lot of respect and admiration. And the increase in pay between working as a teacher and working as a computer could be even more dramatic for black computers than it was for white ones. Black teachers overwhelmingly taught in segregated schools for black children, and they tended to have poorer facilities and much lower, lower pay than the schools for white children.

[Holly Fry]

But once they got to Langley, these women were just a computer. They were often looked down on by the engineers whose calculations they were carrying out. Although the women hired as computers typically enjoyed and excelled at math, other people perceived that work as tedious drudgery. It could almost feel like a simultaneous step up and a step down. And for many of the women, the fact that they were doing critical wartime work at a facility as prestigious as Langley as but still being segregated by their race was even more galling.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

It was a little bit later, but still into this same world that Mary Jackson stepped when she got hired to work at Langley. And we will get to her after a sponsor break.

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[Holly Fry]

Listen to your elders honey.

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[Tracy B. Wilson]

Mary Jackson was born Mary Winston on April 9, 1921 in Hampton, Virginia, not far away from Langley. She was from a large family and her parents, Ella and Frank Winston, were extremely focused on making sure all of their children got a good education and were really good citizens and role models.

[Holly Fry]

Mary attended high school at George P. Phoenix Training School, which was on the campus of Hampton Institute, which is now Hampton University. Hampton Institute has actually come up on the show before. Most recently, it is where Susan La Flesche Pacott continued her studies before going to medical school and becoming the first Native American woman in the US to.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Earn an MD Hampton Institute was founded in 1868 to teach trade and industrial skills to freed people, as well as to train them to become teachers. By the 1920s, it had become a college with numerous courses of study. The city of Hampton didn't provide education for black children beyond elementary school, so the Hampton Institute had established Phoenix Training School for that purpose.

[Holly Fry]

Mary graduated from Phoenix with highest honors and went on to college at the Hampton Institute. She expected that she would become a teacher, but she pushed herself to finish a double major in mathematics and physical science, even though that was a far more strenuous course of study than she would need to teach. She graduated in 1942 and was soon hired as a teacher at a segregated school for black students in Maryland.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

About a year later, Mary moved back home. Her father had become ill and she came back to help look after him. But she found that she couldn't get a teaching job back in Hampton. Two of her sisters were already teaching in Hampton, and there were nepotism rules that kept her from being able to join them. So she had to find a job somewhere else.

[Holly Fry]

She started out as the secretary at the King street uso, doing everything from keeping the books to acting as a hostess. The King Street USO was one of the many USO centers established to serve black members of the military. The USO had a policy of serving the entire military regardless of race. But a lot of places had segregated USO centers for reasons ranging from black service members requesting them to to Jim Crow laws requiring them.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Mary worked at the King Street USO until the end of World War II, and it was there that she met her husband, Levi Jackson, who was a serviceman from Alabama. They got married in 1944, and in 1946 they had their first child together, a son who was also named Levi.

[Holly Fry]

Throughout all this, Jackson was active with the Bethel AME Church, where she and her family had long been members. She also started serving as a leader for the church's Girl Scout troop, which she would do for about 30 years. She did not yet have a daughter. Her daughter Carolyn was born several years later. But she loved the Girl Scouts. She was a teacher, a mentor, and a big sister for the girls in the troop, many of whom were from working class and poor families with parents who did agricultural or domestic work.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

While she was working as the Girl Scout leader, Jackson started doing something that would also be a hallmark of her time at NASA and before that, the naca. She really wanted the girls that she worked with to see what was possible beyond what was familiar to or expected, expected of them. And she wanted to open as many doors for them as she could. So she arranged all kinds of field trips and projects aligned with all the various merit badges to really try to broaden their experience of the world and encourage them to set really ambitious goals for themselves. Later on, Jackson would also play a key role in integrating the black and white Girl Scout councils in the area into one integrated council in her part of Virginia.

[Holly Fry]

Jackson returned to work when Levi Jr. Turned 4. She applied for a clerical position with the army and a computing position at Langley. The offer from the army came first, and she worked there for a few months before being offered the computer job at Langley, where the army agreed her skills would be of better use. She started her job as one of the west area computers on April 5, 1951, at the age of 26.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

That was just a few months after Dorothy Vaughn became the head of the west area computers, having started out as one of the West Area's mathematicians. This made Vaughn the first black supervisor at Langley.

[Holly Fry]

This was almost three years after President Harry Truman had signed executive orders 9980 and 9981. That happened on July 26, 1948, and ordered the desegregation of the federal workforce and the US Armed forces. But segregation was still required by law in Virginia. That had not changed. So when Jackson started work at Langley, the West area computers were still, in the words of administrative officer Kemble Johnson, quote, composed entirely of negro women. The restroom and cafeteria facilities were also still segregated.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

It had, however, become a lot more common for the west area computers to be assigned out to other departments at Langley for periods of days to months to work on specific projects. This became more and more common as the white east area computers shrank in number as their members were promoted or permanently transferred into other departments.

[Holly Fry]

In 1953, after two years in the West Computing group, Mary Jackson was assigned to a project on Langley's east side, along with several white computers. Jackson didn't know the layout of the buildings on the east side at all. And when she asked her co workers from that side of the campus for directions to the restroom, they pointedly told her that they did not know where her restroom was.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Jackson was frustrated and angry, not just about the insult of her bathroom and the dismissive way that her colleagues had talked to her, but also about being a second class citizen at Langley because of her race, even though she was a computer and she had more experience than some of her colleagues did. Later that day, she ran into Kashmirz Czarnecki, who worked at Langley's supersonic pressure tunnel. He asked how she was doing, and she answered him honestly from a number of angles.

[Holly Fry]

It was socially unacceptable for a black person to unload their feelings on a white person, especially when it came to racism and discrimination. And it's not entirely clear whether Jackson had just gotten so fed up that she lost her temper or whether she had perceived Czarnacki, who had immigrated from Poland, as someone it was safe to be candid with. But either way, Czarnacki asked her why she didn't come work for him, and she agreed to. And this was before he learned that she had majored in both math and science.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

We don't want to apply that these racial disparities in who it's okay to like, vent feelings to. We like. We don't want to imply that those disparities are gone. But that was what was happening at the time. So Jackson really made a name for herself almost immediately in this, in this new department, when she completed some calculations for John Becker, who was the chief of the compressibility division and was multiple rungs up the ladder above Czernicki. Jackson's final numbers didn't look quite right, and Becker insisted that they were wrong, but Jackson insisted that they were right. It turned out that Jackson had done all the calculations flawlessly, but the data that Becker had given her to start with was wrong. This earned her an apology and praise not only for her skill, but also her confidence and her insight.

[Holly Fry]

Czarnecki soon suggested Jackson join the engineer training program. The NACA had very few women engineers at all and no black women engineers. The engineer training program required after work classes from the University of Virginia, which were held at Hampton High School, which was still whites only. So to take the needed courses to become an engineer, Jackson had to get a special dispensation from the city of Hampton to allow her to take the classes that she needed.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

She did. And in 1958, after she finished her courses, Mary Jackson was promoted to engineer. This made her the NACA's first black woman engineer and possibly the first Black woman working as an aeronautical engineer anywhere in the United States.

[Holly Fry]

1958 was a year of big changes at Langley, and we're gonna get to those after we first pause for another sponsor break.

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[Holly Fry]

Listen to your elders, honey.

[Robert]

You might know them from their viral videos, but now the old gays pull back the curtain on their brand new podcast, Silver Linings with the Old Gays, brought to you in partnership with iHeart's Ruby Studio and Veeve Healthcare. With over 300 years of experience between them, hosts Robert, Mick, Bill and Jesse serve four lifetimes of wisdom when it comes to love, sex, community and whatever else they've got on the gay agenda. Listen in to these fabulous friends swap stories exploring how queer life has evolved over the decades and the silver linings they've collected along the way. Each episode dives into hot topics, from safe sex and online dating to untangling Gen Z lingo, as well as insights on how music, art and fashion show up in queer culture. So check out Silver Linings, a show about how pride ages like fine wine. Available on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Wouldn't it be great to never buy gas again? EVs are as easy to charge as your phone, and they are a perfect addition to your everyday life. Most people are only driving about 40.

[Holly Fry]

Miles a day, and most EVs.

[Robert]

EVs can handle 200 to 400 miles of range on a charge. And there are hundreds of EV models available today, so there's something perfect for every lifestyle and budget. I drive an ev. I've had it for a couple of years. It's my favorite car I've ever owned. It is so fun to drive. The pickup is incredible. It's super agile and it is easy to maintain. The way forward is electric.

[Ryan Seacrest]

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[Tracy B. Wilson]

In 1958, the NACA and other similar organizations were merged together into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA. As part of that whole process, the West Area Computing Group, which at that point was the last segregated department in the organization, was finally formally disbanded. There were only nine employees of the West Computers by then, including Dorothy Vaughn, who had been running it for seven years.

[Holly Fry]

At that point, those remaining computers were moved to various engineering groups around Langley, and Vaughan was one of the ones who started working with the IBM computers that were gradually making human computers obsolete. Women who had been working with mathematical tables and mechanical calculators began working with punch cards instead. Mathematicians were gradually replaced by data analysts, and the teams working with the IBM computers were integrated in terms of both race and gender, although over time more and more of the data analysts were young men.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Mary Jackson co authored her first paper in 1958, as well as Effects of Nose Angle and Mach Number on Transition on Cones at Supersonic Speeds. She continued to work with Czarnacki at the supersonic pressure tunnel.

[Holly Fry]

In addition to her work as an engineer, Jackson informally mentored women and minorities, especially the ones who were hoping to get promoted into engineering roles. In a way, she was replicating and building on something that had always existed at the West Computing Group. Because they were segregated from the white staff, the West Computing Group had developed a deep network of support and resources among themselves. This gave them the tools to try to mitigate some of the racial discrimination that they faced on the job, something that black men who were scattered across the organization could struggle with. So as Jackson mentored people, she tried to maintain that support network, including connecting to the former West Group Computers who were now working in other parts of the organization.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

As the space race wound down and the US Aeronautics industry became less focused on the idea of supersonic transport, Langley went through numerous reorgs and reductions in force. Jackson continued to work in the supersonic pressure tunnel, specializing in how air behaves in proximity to supersonic aircraft. She took classes in the programming language FORTRAN to be able to work with the IBM computers as well.

[Holly Fry]

But eventually her career hit a glass ceiling. Staff at Langley were paid according to the civil service pay scale known as the GS scale, which ranks people in pay grades from 1 to 15. Jackson got up to GS 12, which was the top of the non management scale, for her role. There were very few women at langley in grade GS13 or above, and Jackson found that no matter how hard she worked, she just could not get to that next level.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

In 1979, Kazmiera Czarnacki retired and by that point Jackson had written or Co written 12 technical publications for NASA and its predecessor. But rather than continuing to struggle for another promotion that seemed like it would just never come, she decided to change directions. A position had opened up as Langley's Federal Women's Program Manager. This was a role that would let Jackson focus on what she had been doing informally as well as through the committees that she had been on at work. And it was also a demotion down to GS11, which she willingly accepted for the sake of helping other people.

[Holly Fry]

In 1981, she was offered the role of equal Opportunity Specialist and she went to Washington D.C. to train for it. She spent the last years of her career at NASA focused on making sure women and minorities had equal opportunities at Langley.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

In these roles, Jackson took a more formal approach to the mentoring that she had been doing while she was still an engineer. She realized that a lot of the people who seemed like they were being overlooked for promotions had basically the same degree and experience as their peers, but they might be missing one particular course or one specific skill. She started intentionally seeking out people who fit this pattern to encourage them to go take that one class they needed to close the gap. That she paid particular attention to women in the lower ranks of the organization who had the right skills and background otherwise to become an engineer.

[Holly Fry]

She also kept this focus outside of work, working as a Girl Scout leader and doing extensive lecturing and workshops at high schools in her area, demonstrating for students that neither engineering nor Langley was a world reserved only for white men. She said of this work, quote, sometimes they are not aware of the number of black scientists and don't even know of the career opportunities until it is too late.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Jackson retired from Langley in 1985. She kept up her volunteer, community and church work after retiring and she died on February 11th 11th, 2005 at the age of 83. She died in a retirement home in Hampton, Virginia and was survived by her children as well as grandchildren and great grandchildren.

[Holly Fry]

In 2018, the Salt Lake City Board of Education unanimously voted that Jackson Elementary School in Salt Lake City, previously named for President Andrew Jackson, would be renamed Mary W. Jackson Elementary School.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

That same year, the US Senate passed the Hidden Figures Congressional Gold Medal act, which would award the Congressional Gold Medal to Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn, Mary Jackson and Dr. Christine Darden. Darden was the first black person of any gender to be promoted to the Senior Executive Service at Langley. The House referred the bill to a committee in November of 2018. As of when we are recording this, which is the end of January 2019, there have not been further updates on it. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given what January was like in the government, that is true.

[Holly Fry]

Oh Mary, I love her so much.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

I do too. If you want to learn more about the computers and more about like life at Langley during all this time, really do go read Hidden Figures. You can also, if you like, go amuse yourself by reading the one star reviews of the book Hidden Figures by people who clearly thought they were signing up to read a novel.

[Robert]

Aw whoops.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Yeah, things like this book introduces 10 new characters in a paragraph and then just never follows up on them again. Those weren't characters, honey, they were people.

[Holly Fry]

People.

[Robert]

Oh bless their heart.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. If you'd like to send us a note, our email address is historypodcastheartradio.com and you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Ryan Seacrest]

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[Unknown]

This is Danielle Fishel from Pod Meets World. Okay moms, it's that time again. Back to school. And if you're anything like me, you want your kids to look great without spending a fortune. And that's why I've been hitting up JCPenney. They've got the trends your kids actually want to wear, from graphic tees and cool denim to shoes and backpacks, all at prices you'll feel really good about. And yes, I may have grabbed something for myself too, like the sleeveless Chevron crochet midi dress. It is so cute, so flattering and perfect for everything from weekend errands to brunch with friends. When I told my friends it was from JCPenney, they were floored. It just goes to show how much style and value you can find when you know where to look. JCPenney seriously makes it so easy to check off everything on your list and maybe treat yourself while you're at it. Whether you're shopping in store or online, it's one stop shopping for the whole family. So if you've been sleeping on JCPenney, now is the time to wake up. Shop back to school and [e-mail] yes JCPenney, this is an I Heart podcast.