Early Life
Dorothy Vaughan was
born on September 20th, 1910 in Kansas City, Missouri. At seven, Dorothy's parents, Leonard and Anne Johnson, moved their family to Morgantown, West Virginia. In 1925, Dorothy graduated from Beechurst High School. Dorothy, then, was given a full-tuition scholarship. Four years later, at the mere age of 19, she received a B.A. in Mathematics from Wilberforce University in Ohio. Dorothy married Howard Vaughan three years later. |
Dorothy's Mathematics Career
In 1943,
the family moved to Newport News, Virginia, and Dorothy was hired as a mathematician at NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics), the predecessor company to NASA. Dorothy thought this would be a temporary job. Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order 8802 allowed for Dorothy to be hired with many other African-Americans as scientists and mathematicians. The president's executive order prohibited discrimination based on religion, ethnicity, and race. |
Later Life
Dorothy retired in 1971. She worked closely with Katherine G. Johnson and Mary Jackson on the launch of astronaut John Glenn into orbit. Dorothy, sadly, died on November 10th of 2008, at the age of 98.
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