While the East Computers had flowed out of their office and into the larger operations of the laboratory like a river, segregation kept the outmigration of West Computing to a trickle. When three West Computers made the leap in the late 1940s to Cascade Aerodynamics, a group that studied the aerodynamics of propellers, turbines, and other rotating bodies, it caused a commotion. Many white laboratory employees, particularly on the East Side, hadn’t even known that an all-black computing group existed. A conservative minority saw the mathematical race mixing as the twilight of their civilization. But the West Computers’ competence silenced most of the dissent; up close, it was difficult to object to good educations and mild middle-class manners, even if they came wrapped in brown skin.
It was inevitable that one of the black women would get a shot at a research job. Dorothy Hoover—West Computing’s other Dorothy, one of the three shift supervisors—had earned an undergraduate degree in math from Arkansas AM&N, a black college that had been active in the World War II ESMWT training programs. She knocked off a master’s degree in mathematics from Atlanta University, and then taught school in Arkansas, Georgia, and Tennessee before coming to Langley in 1943, where she was hired as a P-1 mathematician. Like Doris Cohen, Dorothy Hoover was exceptionally fluent in abstract mathematical concepts and complex equations, and Marge Hannah channeled the rigorous mathematical assignments that came to the group from R. T. Jones’ Stability Analysis Section to Hoover. The engineers provided Hoover with long equations defining the relationships between wing shape and aerodynamic performance and instructed her to substitute into them other equations, formulas, and variables. Only when the series of equations had been sufficiently reduced would she start the process of inputting values and coming up with numbers using the calculating machines.
The Stability Analysis fellows were as well known for their progressive politics as for their sharp minds. Many of them were Jewish, from the North. Jones, his wife, Doris Cohen, along with Sam Katzoff and Eastman Jacobs, who were two of the laboratory’s most respected analysts, and a white economics professor at Hampton Institute named Sam Rosenberg often convened at the home of Langley researcher Arthur Kantrowitz, where they spent evenings listening to classical music and discussing politics. They went to see movies at the Hampton Institute theater, comfortably mingling at the Negro school. More than most, they were open to breaking the color barrier by integrating a West Computer into their group. As a talented, possibly gifted mathematician with a similarly independent mind, Dorothy Hoover was a perfect fit for the section, and in 1946 R. T. Jones invited her to work directly for him.
With East Computing’s calculating added to existing workload, Dorothy Vaughan and the West Area Computers remained in high gear. The laboratory was still hiring black women into the pool faster than they were being sent out to other positions. Women who did get assigned to another section were usually staffed on temporary duty and eventually returned, keeping the two offices full, at least for the moment.
After the war, West Computing’s head, Margery Hannah, decided to accept an offer from the Full-Scale Research Division, an excellent assignment working for Sam Katzoff. Within three years, she would join the ranks of female authors, publishing a study with Katzoff attempting to measure the degree to which waves bouncing off wind tunnel walls interfered with the airflow over a model. Like sound waves in an auditorium or water slapping up against the sides of a swimming pool, the gusts in a wind tunnel ricochet off the enclosure, and test results had to account for discrepancies caused by the interference.
Marge’s upward move resulted in opportunity down the line: Blanche Sponsler stepped into Marge’s position as head of the group. Just two years younger than Dorothy, Blanche was a thirty-five-year-old newlywed in 1947. Originally from Pennsylvania, she bowled in Langley’s Duckpin bowling league and was a faithful member of the Bridge Club. She and her sister, the wife of a soldier stationed at Fort Monroe, entered the laboratory’s Duplicate Bridge tournament in 1947 and took second place. Also interested in a move west, Blanche requested a transfer to the Ames Laboratory. Her Langley supervisors wrote letters of recommendation—since coming to the lab in 1940, she had received strong reviews and steady promotions—but at the time there were no open positions, so she continued as head of the West Computing group.
Dorothy had worked with Blanche since 1943. They enjoyed a good professional relationship, and Blanche gave Dorothy strong performance ratings. Dorothy’s role as a shift supervisor raised her profile with engineers. Part consultants and part teachers, computing supervisors had to be top-notch computers themselves, capable of grasping the needs of the engineer and clearly explaining the requirements to her subordinates. She fielded the computers’ questions and needed a strong-enough command of the math to tutor the women through any weaknesses. Tapping the right girl for a particular job was a big part of the manager’s responsibility. All the women were proficient in basic computing tasks, but knowing who was a perfectionist with the computing machines and who could churn out perfect graphs on short order was key to processing the data most efficiently. A small elite, like Dorothy Hoover, were endowed with an aptitude for complex math so strong that it exceeded the ability of many of the engineers at the lab.
Dorothy Vaughan might have eventually lobbied to follow Margery Hannah and Dorothy Hoover into a job working directly for an engineering section. As a supervisor she came into contact with engineers from a variety of groups, some of whom came to the office insisting that she personally handle their jobs. In 1949, however, an unusual and tragic turn of events would bind Dorothy to the West Area computing office for the next decade.
At the end of 1947, Blanche had left the group in Dorothy’s command during a one-month illness. She returned to work, appearing none the worse for wear, but was out of work again on a leave of absence during July and August 1948. This time, too, she returned to the office, snapped back into her routine, and continued uneventfully for the next several months. But on the morning of January 26, 1949, a West Computer made an urgent call to Eldridge Derring, one of the lab’s administrators. For the last few days, she told Derring, Blanche had been acting strangely. Now, Blanche was in the office “behaving irrationally,” and she implored him to come to the Aircraft Loads Building to help the women deal with the situation. Derring, along with the lab’s health officer, James Tingle, and Rufus House, assistant to Langley director Henry Reid, hustled over to the building, where several West Computers were anxiously waiting in the lobby.
Together, they all went into one of the West Computing offices, where Blanche was standing in the middle of the room, preparing for a 10:00 a.m. meeting. She had covered the blackboard in the office with “meaningless words and symbols” and began to conduct the meeting in what she seemed to feel was normal fashion. However, she was completely unintelligible to the people in front of her. House approached Blanche to ask about the gibberish covering the board.