Memo from NACA Associate Director Floyd L. Thompson to all NACA Installations Regarding the Dissolution of the West Area Computers Unit
This document is a May 5, 1958, memo that formally disbanded the segregated West Area Computing Unit at Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory (which was part of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) and the reassignments for ten women to racially integrated branches.
The 2016 film Hidden Figures told the story of Dorothy Vaughan, as well as two women she worked alongside, at Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory (what would later become NASA’s Langley Research Center). For 33 years, Dorothy Vaughan worked at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory. In 1949, she was promoted to supervisor of the West Area Computing Unit, Langley’s segregated lab designed to adhere to Virginia’s Jim Crow laws. Black women were required to work separately from their white peers, eat in different dining areas, and only use specifically designated restrooms. On May 5, 1958, the West Area Computing Unit was disbanded and the women who made up the unit were integrated into existing program offices. Vaughan worked as a NASA programmer until her retirement in 1971.
Memo from NACA Associate Director Floyd L. Thompson to all NACA Installations Regarding the Dissolution of the West Area Computers Unit, dated May 5, 1958. National Archives Identifier: 81215360
View and download the Memo from NACA Associate Director Floyd L. Thompson to all NACA Installations Regarding the Dissolution of the West Area Computers Unit on the National Archives Catalog. You can explore more records held in the National Archives at Philadelphia through the National Archives Catalog or by visiting the National Archives at Philadelphia. This record is located within Record Group 255: Records of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Series: Subject Correspondence Files.