Boundary Breakers of the Space Race

When most people think of innovations in flight, names like Neil Armstrong and the Wright Brothers pop into their heads. Margot Lee Shetterly’s book Hidden Figures teaches that contributors to aviation and aerospace engineering go far beyond these household names, and the East Baton Rouge Parish Library has plans to bring many of these crucial individuals to light as part of this Spring’s One Book One Community program. The Library has invited many of these “boundary breakers” — pioneers in the fields of space, flight, STEM, and more — to educate the Baton Rouge community about their personal experiences on the ground or in the air that contributed to some of the greatest feats in the history of engineering.

The programs get off the ground on Thursday, March 15 with African Americans in STEM at Eden Park. Founder and Curator of the Odell S. Williams Now & Then Museum of African American History Sadie Roberts-Joseph will present on the many often under-recognized contributions of African Americans to the fields of science and technology.

At 10 am on Saturday, March 24, the Jones Creek Regional branch will present Women Pioneers in the Military; while Greenwell Springs Regional hosts Ancient Hidden Figures through Music at 11 am.

British author Kate Moore, who wrote the New York Times bestseller Radium Girls about the American women who were poisoned with radium paint in their workplaces in the 1920s and their fight for justice, will present at the Main Library at Goodwood at 7pm on March 24.

Space Launch System Lead Metallic/Weld Engineer at the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans and Baton Rouge native Dr. Renee Horton will present on The World Behind Hidden Figures at the Main Library at Goodwood at 2pm on April 7.

A discussion of Gwendolyn Hudson Hooks’ book Tiny Stiches about the life of female medical innovator Vivien Thomas will take place at Greenwell Springs Regional at 6:30pm on Thursday, April 19.

Going out on a high note, the final program at 2pm on Saturday, April 22 at the Main Library is a History of Flight with former ABC Science Correspondent Jim Slade, and the (actor-portrayed) sister to the Wright Brothers, Katharine Wright.

Between Jim Slade’s time covering science-related news for ABC, the Mutual Broadcasting System, and the Westinghouse Broadcast Company, he was able to witness the first forty years of spaceflight first-hand. He says this experience has made him understand and appreciate the many “hidden figures” who were able to make these innovations possible.

“Apollo [11], which was one of the greatest engineering feats in history—I often compare it to building the Pyramids, in many ways—it took 400,000 people in the United States to do it,” said Slade. “It wasn’t just the astronauts who flew to the moon, they were the tip of the iceberg, but it was the support that they got, and the knowledge that was pulled in from all corners to make all of that work, is so impressive, and I’m so glad I got a chance to see how it worked.”

Slade says he’s looking forward to speaking to the Baton Rouge community, and that he always enjoys meeting new people and sharing his experience — particularly anecdotes about the many individuals who were instrumental to early space-flight.  “A lot of very interesting people were involved in that history, a lot of them you would consider just outright characters,” Slade said. “And a lot of them, in the early days, were entrepreneurs, they did it single-handedly. It wasn’t until we got into the period after World War II that it became such a tremendous community effort. That all unfolds in this program.”

For the full list of Boundary Breaker presentations, visit ReadOneBook.org.