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nasa

Who Was Mary W. Jackson?

On June 24, 2020, NASA announced the agency’s headquarters building in Washington, D.C., was to be named after Mary W. Jackson, the first African American female engineer at NASA.

Jackson’s story — along with those of her colleagues Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Christine Darden — was popularized with the release of the “Hidden Figures” movie, based on Margot Lee Shetterly’s book by the same name.

Today, as the accomplishments of these women are brought to light, we celebrate them as Modern Figures — hidden no longer. Despite their recent recognition, we cannot forget the challenges that women and BIPOC faced and continue to face in the STEM fields.

Background

Jackson showed talent for math and science at an early age. She was born in 1921 in Hampton, Virginia, and attended the all-Black George P. Phenix Training School where she graduated with honors. She graduated from Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) in 1942 with a bachelor of science degree in both mathematics and physical sciences.

Jackson worked several jobs before arriving at the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA), the precursor organization to NASA. She was a teacher, a receptionist, and a bookkeeper — in addition to becoming a mother — before accepting a position with the NACA Langley Aeronautical Laboratory’s segregated West Area Computers in 1951, where her supervisor was Dorothy Vaughan.

Accomplishments

After two years in West Computing, Jackson was offered a computing position to work in the 4-foot by 4-foot Supersonic Pressure Tunnel. She was also encouraged to enter a training program that would put her on track to become an engineer — however, she needed special permission from the City of Hampton to take classes in math and physics at then-segregated Hampton High School.

She completed the courses, earned the promotion, and in 1958 became NASA’s first African-American female engineer. That same year, she co-authored her first report, “Effects of Nose Angle and Mach Number on Transition on Cones at Supersonic Speeds.” By 1975, she had authored or co-authored 12 NACA and NASA technical publications — most focused on the behavior of the boundary layer of air around an airplane.

Legacy

Jackson eventually became frustrated with the lack of management opportunities for women in her field. In 1979, she left engineering to become NASA Langley’s Federal Women’s Program Manager to increase the hiring and promotion of NASA’s female mathematicians, engineers, and scientists.

Not only was she devoted to her career, Jackson was also committed to the advancement of her community. In the 1970s, she helped the students in the Hampton King Street Community Center build their own wind tunnel and run experiments. She and her husband Levi took in young professionals in need of guidance. She was also a Girl Scout troop leader for more than three decades.

Jackson retired from Langley in 1985. Never accepting the status quo, she dedicated her life to breaking barriers for minorities in her field. Her legacy reminds us that inclusion and diversity are needed to live up to NASA’s core values of teamwork and excellence.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

geekwithsandwich

seriously though it would be an enormous help if more people understood that autistic brains/bodies (and some other conditions too) very VERY frequently don’t process sensations and emotions in normal ways and INSTEAD replace them with bodily and emotional responses that are total nonsense in an NT context

like i have chronic pain, i have an always-on headache that used to be around a 2-3 on the pain scale and is now a 6-7 most days. but periodically i find that instead of actually feeling a level of pain i can rate, i have a series of puzzling physical sensations like nausea that miraculously get better when i take painkillers and go lie down in the dark. because they were actually pain signals. pain signals that got turned into something else at some point in my body. so i have days where i feel GREAT and pumped to do stuff and then i’m like WHY AM I NOT FUNCTIONING WELL and i go lie down in the dark for a while and it gets better?? because i was actually at an 8 which is Can’t Function levels for me, but 90% of that pain was invisible to me, turned into nausea and manic energy and weird sudden mood shifts instead of “pain”.

I don’t experience normal thirst signals most of the time, either. I get cravings for ice cream and lime popsicles and watermelon instead of being thirsty. I had to learn that “i suddenly desperately want ice cream” is my body’s way of saying “put some water in this bitch”.

I also get nausea instead of hunger signals a lot of the time. nausea is one of my body’s favorite go-to signals to send, in general, so it can mean almost anything. when my stomach turns i have to go through a checklist of possibilities to figure out what i’m actually feeling. this is a big reason i eat a lot of snacks. it’s step number 3 or 4 on my “why do i feel sick” list and happens at least once a day.

and anyway this shit is important for non autistic people to know because we can’t always tell you what we’re experiencing, but also sometimes we can get really upset and overwhelmed with trying to even understand what we’re feeling. doctors especially need to know this. how can i tell you what’s wrong with my body when my body doesn’t know how to use its own language for communicating what’s wrong? when it routinely sends me a mishmash of signals that are totally useless for figuring out the problem? it’s not impossible but it requires an understanding of just how different the place i’m coming from really is. you can’t get anywhere by treating me just like an NT patient.

but most people aren’t even aware that “body signals” are a real tangible thing that can be effected and “go wrong” when your brain and body are built weirdly. literally any process in your body can be broken, that should be obvious, but people are so oblivious to the things their body does automatically that they aren’t aware they exist, and therefore don’t know they can break. it’s really important to make people aware of these functions. there are so many disabilities that happen when a hidden function breaks and it’s impossible for abled people to grasp those disabilities without comprehending that that’s an actual thing their body does for them.

spoonie-living

Autistic and ND folks, this might make sense of a lot of experiences you’ve had, and can help put it into words in a way that can be shared with doctors, friends, and caregivers alike.

fearlessgenius

Survival of the richest.

Global capitalism in a nutshell. The World bank is supposed to help poor. So why is it bankrolling oligarchs?

ucflibrary

Why conform when you could be extraordinary?

To me, normality is a terrifying prospect. For some reason, the idea of normality has always felt synonymous with mediocrity, boredom, dissatisfaction. And neither of these writers traded in any of these things at all. I tried to write a book for people who have always found the prospect of normality scary, whatever their reason. For me, it started with not having an option to be so—I’m gay, non-binary, fat and a drag queen from a small town in the North of England—but when I’d finished my book I realized that being not normal had been the greatest gift I could have possibly received from society.

brooklynmuseum

Springtime in Brooklyn by Nancy Rosoff, Andrew W. Mellon Senior Curator, Arts of the Americas

As I look out my window at the falling rain, I know that these April showers will soon be followed by May’s flowers. The vibrant colors of budding trees and blossoming flowers give us hope that we will overcome the current crisis, and the world will be rejuvenated, stronger, and more unified. The following works from the Brooklyn Museum’s diverse collection celebrate the arrival of Spring and our hope for a healthy and more peaceful world.

Brightly colored plants and flowers made of faience once decorated the walls of the Great Palace of king Akhenaten at Amarna. Sun light and the disk of the sun itself became the focus of religious worship in the Amarna period (1353-13336 B.C.E.). The floral motifs of these tiles were meant to evoke rebirth of life brought about by the sun. See the artwork in our open collection.

While the Nile was revered as a life-giving place, the desert was also teeming with nature. Here one can see animals breeding in their desert environs. To the right, a feline is showing interest in another feline. At the lower left, a male antelope, mounting his mate, rears his head into the row above. At the lower right, the hindquarters of an antelope giving birth and the emerging head of her calf are partly preserved. The bovine calf at center left completes this depiction of the cycle of life. See the artwork in our open collection.

This detail from a Nasca mantle not only illustrates some of the plants and animals native to Peru’s South Coast, but it also conveys how the society’s spiritual beliefs are connected to agricultural seasons. The blossoming huarango tree seen here represents life and is shown growing out of a human trophy head on the back of a pampas cat. The trophy head symbolizes death but it is also a germinating seed from which life sprouts in a never-ending cycle of life, death, and rebirth. See the artwork in our open collection.

This late-seventeenth-century painting from viceregal Peru shows Saint Joseph standing hand-in-hand with the Christ Child in a field of blooming flora and enclosed within a border of bright carnations and lilies. Saint Joseph’s popularity flourished at this moment in the Spanish Americas as he embodied ideals of fatherhood, marriage, divinity, and masculinity. Here, he holds a stem of white lilies, which symbolize his holiness and purity. See the artwork in our open collection.

This sculpture would have served as a means for people to contact spiritual intermediaries for aid. Its raised arms are said to refer to prayers for rain, crucial to survive and thrive in arid the Mopti Region of Mali. See the artwork in our open collection.

The use of naturalistic floral motifs, such as carnations, tulips, and hyacinths, was a trademark of the design workshop of the Ottoman court in Istanbul in the mid-sixteenth century. This design principle was adopted in central and distant areas of the empire and applied to different media, such as manuscript illuminations made in Istanbul, textiles made in Bursa, and tiles made in Iznik and Damascus. This octagonal tile from Syria brings the beauty of spring indoors permanently. See the artwork in our open collection.

Vibrant greens and blues bring a spring woodland scene inside the Museum, creating an eternal verdant landscape. The effects of changing sunlight or a passing cloud can animate the glass used to depict the stream, tree trunks and leaves. Originally installed in the Universalist Church of Our Father at Classon and Atlantic Avenues in Brooklyn, the windows were purchased by the All Souls Universalist Church on Ocean Avenue and installed in 1945, before coming to the Brooklyn Museum a few years ago. Tiffany Studio was extremely skilled at creating panoramas that open onto lush, brilliantly colored vistas. See the artwork in our open collection.

This elaborately decorated cabinet brought ever-blooming flowers into the owner’s bedroom. Inspired by Japanese precedents, New York’s most important late-19th-century furniture manufacturing firm Herter Brothers employed different colored woods to create the densely packed, abstracted flowers and leaves on this luxurious, yet functional chest-of-drawers. See the artwork in our open collection.

In the Japanese tradition, cherry blossom season is a time for celebration: the world wakes up after a long winter and people head outside to gather under the pink-and-white canopies created by trees that seemed barren only a week or two earlier. This year the picnics were cancelled, but in nature the show goes on whether there’s an audience or not. See the artwork in our open collection.

In this painting, Gustave Caillebotte offers a glimpse of his private garden in Petit Gennevilliers, a small village on the Seine opposite Argenteuil. The apple blossoms are rendered in thick touches of paint, which contrast with the sketchy treatment of the path that leads toward the denser foliage beyond the tree. See the artwork in our open collection.

Nothing celebrates Spring more than this dazzling child’s cap with its delicate beadwork on vibrant rose-colored velvet. It was lovingly made by the mother or female relative of a little girl who would have worn it with pride during special occasions. See the artwork in our open collection.

A table set with bread and coffee in a blooming garden along a sun-dappled path conjures the pleasures of the warmer months to come. Robert Delaunay would become known later in his career for more abstract work, but in this early painting the 19 year old artist was still working under the influence of Impressionism. See the artwork in our open collection.

Redolent with the sweet scent of peonies, American Impressionist Ernest Lawson paints his flowerbeds in a dazzling display of jewel like tones in the Cos Cob art-colony located along the Connecticut shore. See the artwork in our open collection.

This Balinese cover features bright brocade rosettes in purple, blue, red, yellow, and green. The gilded gold overpaint features patra cina designs borrowed from Chinese floral patterns. Together, they create a glittering textile that is awash with color and floral motifs. See the artwork in our open collection.

One of the Brooklyn Museum’s most important Japanese paintings is a folding screen showing a group of urbanites walking together, followed by a musician and a servant with a big box. The only clue that they are heading to a cherry-blossom-viewing picnic comes from a woman who extends a branch of flowering cherry back toward a group of men. Attached to the branch is a long strip of paper of the type used traditionally in Japan for writing poems. What does the poem strip say? We don’t know, but it seems fair to guess that it serves as an invitation to romance. The screen reminds us that the spring tradition of partying beneath the cherry trees wasn’t solely about communing with nature. See the artwork in our open collection.

Inspired by Japanese folding screens or byōbu, Elizabeth Boott Duveneck’s five panels bring the natural world into the interior of the house depicting all four seasons from Autumn Foliage to Apple blossoms throughout the year. See the artwork in our open collection.

Beginning in the early 1930s, Consuelo Kanaga became one of few white photographers to make artistic portraits of Black Americans. This closely cropped and sharply focused image of a girl’s face with a flower was likely included in Group f.64’s inaugural exhibition in 1932, which announced a new realist direction in photography. Considered radical in its time, Frances with a Flower explores powerful ideas about beauty, gender, and race. See the artwork in our open collection.

Mary Wollstonecraft was a renowned women’s rights activist who authored “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” (1792), a classic of rationalist feminism that is considered the earliest and most important treatise, advocating for equality and education for women. Akin to the nature of Spring, Wollstonecraft’s life symbolized the fruition of a legacy—from which infinite linages of women continue to reap the fruits of her labor. See the artwork in our open collection.

With rose-patterned leggings and an elaborate floral armature/headdress, Nick Cave’s Soundsuit transforms the human body into a lush garden. Since the early 1990s, Cave has been fabricating inventive sculptures out of scavenged materials, which he often overlays with beadwork, stitching, and other embellishments. One of the first, crafted from twigs, was made to be worn and created a rustling sound, which led to the eventual name of such works: Soundsuits. Cave’s costumes draw from a variety of sources, including both African and Caribbean traditions of masquerade. See the artwork in our open collection.

Posted by Nancy Rosoff with contributions from the Curators and Curatorial Assistants of African, American, Ancient Egyptian, Arts of the Americas, Asian, Contemporary, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, and Islamic Art

Photos: Gary Alan Bukovnik (American, born 1947). Rhododendrum, 1980. Lithograph on paper. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the artist, 81.15.2. © Gary Alan Bukovnik(Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Tile with Floral Inlays, ca. 1352-1336 B.C.E. Faience. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Egypt Exploration Society, 35.2001. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Relief with Desert Scene, ca. 2472-2455 B.C.E. Limestone, pigment. Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 64.147. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Nazca. Mantle (“The Paracas Textile”), 100-300 C.E. Cotton, camelid fiber. Brooklyn Museum, John Thomas Underwood Memorial Fund, 38.12; Cuzco School. Saint Joseph and the Christ Child, late 17th-18th century. Oil on canvas. Brooklyn Museum, Museum Expedition 1941, Frank L. Babbott Fund, 41.1275.191 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Dogon. Nommo Figure with Raised Arms, 11th-15th century (possibly). Wood, organic sacrificial material. Brooklyn Museum, The Adolph and Esther D. Gottlieb Collection, 1989.51.39. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Octagonal Tile Depicting Peacock in Prunus Tree, 16th century. Ceramic; fritware, painted in black, cobalt blue, green, and manganese purple under a transparent glaze. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Jack A. Josephson, 1990.21. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Tiffany Studios (1902-1932). Dawn in the Woods in Springtime, 1905. Stained glass window. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of All Souls Bethlehem Church, 2014.17.1. Creative Commons-BY; Herter Brothers (American, 1865-1905). Chest-of-Drawers, ca. 1880. Ebonized cherry, other woods, modern marble top, brass. Brooklyn Museum, Modernism Benefit Fund, 1989.69. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Utagawa Hiroshige (Ando) (Japanese, 1797-1858). Suijin Shrine and Massaki on the Sumida River (Sumidagawa Suijin no Mori Massaki), No. 35 from One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, 8th month of 1856. Woodblock print. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Anna Ferris, 30.1478.35 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Gustave Caillebotte (French, 1848-1894). Apple Tree in Bloom (Pommier en fleurs), ca. 1885. Oil on canvas. Brooklyn Museum, Bequest of William K. Jacobs, Jr., 1992.107.2 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Woodlands. Child’s Cap, ca. 1890s. Velvet, cloth, beads. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Edward J. Guarino Collection in memory of Josephine M. Guarino, 2016.11.2. Creative Commons-BY; Robert Delaunay (French, 1885-1941). In the Garden (Dans le jardin), 1904. Oil on canvas. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Iris and B. Gerald Cantor, 86.28 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Ernest Lawson (American, 1873-1939). Garden Landscape, ca. 1915. Oil on canvas. Brooklyn Museum, Bequest of Laura L. Barnes, 67.24.10 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Cover, 19th or early 20th century. Silk, pigment. Brooklyn Museum, Dick S. Ramsay Fund, 45.183.110. Creative Commons-BY; Cherry Blossom Viewing Picnic, ca. 1624-1644. Ink, color and gold leaf on paper. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Frederic B. Pratt, 39.87. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Elizabeth Boott Duveneck (American, 1846-1888). Apple Blossoms, 1882. Oil on wood panel. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Joan Harmen Brown, Mr. and Mrs. William Slocum Davenport, Mrs. Lewis Francis, Samuel E. Haslett, William H. Herriman, Joseph Jefferson IV, Clifford L. Middleton, the New York City Police Department, Mrs. Charles D. Ruwe, Charles A. Schieren, the University Club, Mrs. Henry Wolf, Austin M. Wolf, and Hamilton A. Wolf, by exchange, Frank Sherman Benson Fund, Museum Collection Fund, Dick S. Ramsay Fund, Carll H. de Silver Fund, John B. Woodward Memorial Fund, and Designated Purchase Fund , 2005.54.3 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Consuelo Kanaga (American, 1894-1978). Frances with a Flower, early 1930s. Gelatin silver photograph. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Wallace B. Putnam from the Estate of Consuelo Kanaga, 82.65.10 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Judy Chicago (American, b. 1939). The Dinner Party (Mary Wollstonecraft place setting), 1974–79. Mixed media: ceramic, porcelain, textile. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation, 2002.10. © Judy Chicago. Photograph by Jook Leung Photography; Nick Cave (American, born 1959). Soundsuit, 2008. Mixed media. Brooklyn Museum, Mary Smith Dorward Fund, 2009.44a-b. © Nick Cave (Photo: Image courtesy of Robilant Voena)

othmeralia

In honor of Operating Room Nurses Day (November 14th), we turn our attention to nurse Mary V. Clymer (1861-1942), seen here assisting with a partial mastectomy depicted in Thomas Eakins’ The Agnew Clinic (or The Clinic of Dr. Agnew). Born in rural Mercer County, New Jersey, Clymer graduated from the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) Training School for Nurses in 1889 and worked as a private nurse until her marriage to George Bains Jr. in 1901. Following her retirement from nursing, Clymer remained committed to the profession, forming the Alumnae organization of the HUP Training School in 1893 and encouraging the school to create a post-graduate nursing course.

Notably, the depiction of Clymer, a trained nurse, in The Agnew Clinic is indicative of the promotion of antiseptic surgery and the emphasis on cleanliness, orderliness, and close observation of patients following Joseph Lister’s discoveries about sanitation and proper hygiene.

sovietpostcards

Russian Traditional Nursery Rhymes illustrated by Yury Vasnetsov (1984)

towlersnow-deactivated20210528

This seems like something everyone should know if they’re in the sciences and/or interested in reading scientific papers.

resmeae

WHAT

skadisprawl

Yeah, that’s a thing. If interlibrary loan costs money (it doesn’t usually), my instinctive response to folks who need an article for free is usually, “Have you tried emailing the author? Here, let me show you how to find their email address…”

I’ve even contacted authors directly a couple of times. They’re always super chill. When they hear I’m with a library, and trying to get a source for a student working on a paper, they usually follow up with “Would you also like three more articles I’ve published on the same topic, just in case?”

geekhyena

This

fijibrarian

Yup. Do it all the time.

nprfreshair

Childbirth Injury Led A New Mom To Start A Parenting Podcast ‘To Feel Less Alone’

Almost 10 years ago, journalist Hillary Frank was pregnant and planning to give birth without medication or surgery — but things didn’t go according to her plan.

Instead, Frank experienced a prolonged and difficult labor that left her with a traumatic injury — chronic pain from an episiotomy that didn’t heal as expected, and had to be redone. For months she was unable to walk, sit or easily hold or nurse her newborn daughter, and didn’t fully recover for three years. To make matters worse, beyond the physical injury, she felt she couldn’t talk openly about what had happened to her.

“There is a general sense in our society that it’s not proper to talk about these kinds of injuries,” Frank says. “If I had gotten injured that severely on any other part of my body, of course I would have been talking about it with my friends. … But because it was in a private part of my body I couldn’t.”

Gradually, Frank realized that other women had similar experiences. She decided to start the podcast The Longest Shortest Time to talk about childbirth, sex and the dilemmas of parenting young children. Frank says the best part about starting the podcast was connecting with other parents.

“I wanted to know that I wasn’t alone in struggling after having had a child,” she says. “What was remarkable to me was how much variety there is in that struggle, just how much diversity there is in that struggle. And that made me feel less alone.”

Frank’s new book is called Weird Parenting Wins.

Photo: Richard Frank/Penguin Random House

pietriarchy

corporate: we wont pay you a cent above min wage

also corporate: why are all the good employees quitting? why are we understaffed? we gotta fix the high turnover rate that happens god knows why. everyone on the floor go and work harder to compensate while we figure out this mystery thanks

passport-life

“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.”

— Maya Angelou