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Hidden Figures - Margot Lee Shetterly

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committee. Amelia Earhart nearly lost<br />

her raccoon coat to a wind tunnel’s giant<br />

turbine while touring the lab. Tycoon<br />

Howard Hughes made an appearance at<br />

the lab’s 1934 research conference, and<br />

Hollywood showed up at the airfield to<br />

shoot the 1938 movie Test Pilot, starring<br />

Clark Gable, Spencer Tracey, and Myrna<br />

Loy. The people the famous came to see<br />

—Eastman Jacobs, Max Munk, Robert<br />

Jones, Theodore Theodorsen—were the<br />

best minds in a thrilling new discipline.<br />

Even so, most locals were oblivious to<br />

how they and their colleagues spent their<br />

days; and to be frank, they found them<br />

more than a little peculiar. Their ways<br />

and accents often marked them as<br />

Californians, Europeans, Yankees, even,<br />

God forbid, “New York Jews.” They<br />

donned rumpled shirts with no ties and

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