Wynona Monthly
February, 2023
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Dorothy Johnson Vaughan
Known as a “human computer,” Dorothy Johnson Vaughan was part of a team that did mathematical calculations to help launch satellites—and later humans—into space! The group used math to help engineers figure out how wind and gravity affects aircrafts. The accomplishments of Vaughan and other female African-American mathematicians was the focus of the book and movie Hidden Figures
George Washington Carver
Carver was a scientist and an inventor who found hundreds of uses for peanuts. He experimented with the legumes to make lotions, flour, soups, dyes, plastics, and gasoline—though not peanut butter! Carver was born an enslaved person in the 1860s in Missouri. In 1894 he became the first Black person to graduate from Iowa State College, where he studied botany and fungal diseases, and later earned a master’s degree in agriculture.
Mae C. Jemison
Before her 30th birthday, Mae C. Jemison had received two undergraduate degrees and a medical degree, served two years as a Peace Corps medical officer in West Africa, and was selected to join the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's astronaut training program. Her eight-day space flight aboard the space shuttle Endeavour in 1992 established Jemison as the United States' first female African-American space traveler.
