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Race, Gender, and Space Exploration: A Chapter in the Social History of the Space Age

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2007

KIM MCQUAID
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Abstract

An era of space explorations and an era of expanded civil rights for racial minorities and women began simultaneously in the United States. But such important social changes are very rarely discussed in relation to each other. Four recent books on how the US astronaut program finally opened to women and minorities in 1978 address a key part of this connection, without discussing the struggles that compelled the ending of traditional race and gender exclusions. This essay examines the organizational and political dynamics of how civil rights in employment came to the US civilian space program in the decades after 1970.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , August 2007 , pp. 405 - 434
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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References

1 There are notable exceptions to every rule. Mark E. Byrnes, Politics and Space: Image Making by NASA (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994); James L. Kaufman, Selling Outer Space: Kennedy, the Media, and Funding for Project Apollo (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1994); and Roger L. Launius, “Public Opinion Polls and Perceptions of US Human Spaceflight,” Space Policy, Vol. 19, 3, August 2003, 163–75 are all good for opinion and images on astronautics. Jennifer Light, From Warfare to Welfare: Defense Intellectuals and Urban Problems in Cold War America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003) discusses “systems analysis” and cities. Kim McQuaid, “Selling the Space Age: NASA and Earth's Environment, 1958–1990,” Environment and History, Vol. 13, 2, May 2006, 127–63; and Peder Anker, “The Ecological Colonization of Space,” Environmental History, Vol. 10, 2, April, 2005 discuss environmentalism. Martha Ackmann, The Mercury Thirteen (New York: Random House, 2003); Bettyann Holtzmann Kevles, Almost Heaven: The Story of Women in Space (New York: Basic Books, 2003); Margaret Weitekamp, Right Stuff, Wrong Sex: America's First Women in Space Program (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004); and Davis J. Shayler and Ian B. Moule, Women in Space: Following Valentina (Amsterdam: Springer/Praxis, 2005) analyze female astronauts.

2 Affirmative action is very contested terrain. Hugh Davis Graham, among others, argues “regulatory capture” by bureaucrats and advocates. See e.g. his Civil Rights and the Presidency: Race and Gender in American Politics, 1960–1972 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). For the bottom-up, grass-roots side, see e.g. Nancy MacLean, Freedom Is Not Enough: The Opening of the American Workplace (New York: Russell Sage Foundation (with Harvard University Press), 2006).

3 For the importance of black women as “bridge leaders” see e.g. Paula Giddings, When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America (New York: Morrow, 1984) and Belinda Robnett, How Long?, How Long? African-American Women in the Struggle for Civil Rights (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).

4 ‘Racism, Sexism, and Space Ventures’, Washington Post editorial, 24 Nov. 1973; for “Nixonesque Purge” see Science, 23 Nov. 1973, 806.

5 “Racism, Sexism, and Space Ventures,” Washington Post, 24 Nov. 1973.

6 Ibid.

7 See James Doyle, Not above the Law: The Battles of Watergate Prosecutors Cox and Jaworski (New York: Morrow, 1977); and Elizabeth Drew, Washington Journal: The Events of 1973–1974 (New York: Random House, 1975).

8 Kim McQuaid, The Anxious Years: America in the Vietnam–Watergate Era (New York: Basic Books, 1989), 236–46; Gladys and Curt Lang, The Battle for Public Opinion: The President, the Press, and the Polls during Watergate (New York, Columbia University Press, 1982), 99–105.

9 Ruth Rosen, The World Split Open: How The Modern Women's Movement Changed America (New York, Viking, 2000); Dan T. Carter, From George Wallace to Newt Gingrich: Race in the Conservative Counter-Revolution, 1963–1994 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996); Thomas Byrne Edsall and Mary Edsall, Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics (New York: Norton, 1991).

10 Personal Notes #27, 18 July 1970, “Fiscal Year 1972 … Discussions,” 13–14, George M. Low Papers, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Archives, Troy, New York (hereafter Low/RPI); Howard E. McCurdy, Inside NASA: High Technology and Organizational Change in the US Space Program (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1993), esp. 124 ff; Mark E. Byrnes, Politics and Space: Image-Making by NASA (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994), esp. 115.

11 MacLean, passim.

12 George Low, corrected draft of forthcoming congressional testimony for EEO head Dr. Dudley McConnell, dated 10 Jan. 1974, Box 67, Low/RPI.

13 Herbert R. Northrup, The Negro in the Aerospace Industry (Industrial Research Unit, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1966), 17 ff, esp. 29.

14 100th Congress, second session, House of Representatives, Committee on Education and Labor, “A Report on Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action in the Southern California Aerospace Industry, June 1988,” (Washington, DC: GPO, 1988), esp. 46–52.

15 US Dept. of Education, Digest of Education Statistics–1997 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1999), 318–20; National Science Foundation, Science and Engineering Degrees by Race and Ethnicity [and Gender] of Recipients (Arlington, VA: NSF, 2000).

16 Sylvia Fries, NASA Engineers in the Age of Apollo (Washington, DC: NASA, 1991), 205; Donna Shirley, Managing Martians (New York: Broadway Books, 1998), 80; “Diversity in the Aerospace Workforce …,” Aviation Week and Space Technology (Market Supplement Section), 17 March 2003, 51.

17 For Griggs see Herman Belz, Equality Transformed: A Quarter Century of Affirmative Action (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1990), 52–54, 81–85.

18 Graham, Civil Rights and the Presidency, esp. 221.

19 Margaret W. Rossiter, Women Scientists in America: Before Affirmative Action, 1940–1972 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1994), 377–80; Becky Thompson, “Multicultural Feminism: Recasting the Chronology of Second Wave Feminism,” Feminist Studies, Vol. 28, 2 (Summer, 2002), 337 ff; Maren L. Carden, The New Feminist Movement (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1974), esp. 135, 141; Jo Freeman, The Politics of Women's Liberation: A Case Study of an Emerging Social Movement and its Relation to the Policy Process (New York: McKay, 1975), esp. 49–67. Freeman and Carden make clear differentiations between feminist generations.

20 Francis T. Hoban, Where Do You Go after You've Been to the Moon? (Malabar, FL: Krieger, 1997), 1 (final quotation); T. A. Heppenheimer, The Space Shuttle Decision: NASA's Search for a Reusable Space Vehicle (Washington, DC: NASA History Series, 1999), 170 ff.

21 James C. Fletcher, “Director of Equal Employment Opportunity,” memo dated 24 Aug. 1971, “EEO (Equal Employment Opportunity) Very Sensitive” file; George M. Low papers; alphabetical files, NHO (hereafter Low/NHO); Kevles, Almost Heaven, 204; Ruth Bates Harris, Harlem Princess: The Story of Harry Delaney's Daughter (New York: Vantage Press, 1991), 104.

22 Harris, 247–48. Two oral history transcripts of Harris's career exist. One is dated 16 March 1971, and the other undated but c. 1971. The transcripts are both in the Ralph Bunche Civil Rights Collection at the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center of Howard University, Washington, DC. Hereafter, the transcripts will be designated Harris (1971–1)” and “Harris (1971–2)”.

23 Constance Holden, “NASA: Sacking of Top Black Woman Stirs Concern for Equal Employment,” Science, 23 Nov. 1973, 804–7, esp. 804. The bureaucratic paper-trail is in US Senate, 93rd Congress, second session, Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on HUD, NASA and other Independent Agencies, “Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations … on H.R. 15572 [the NASA appropriation act], Part 1, pages 1–821” (Washington, DC: GPO, 1971), 6–33, esp. 26 and 33 (re: how Harris's job description was changed in August of 1971). (Hereafter Senate Appropriations Committee (1974).)

24 “EEO,” Personal Notes #108 (hereafter PN), 25 Nov. 1973, 2–3, File 5, Box 67, Low/RPI.

25 Carolyn Lewis, “Her Job: To Pass the Peacepipe,” Washington Post, 10 Oct. 1967, C-1, C-4; Paul Richard, “Ruth Harris is Named Head of Human Relations Council,” 21 May 1966, B-1; Harris (1971–1), 31, 36; Harris (1971–2), 20, 40; Harris, Harlem Princess, 142–220.

26 Harris, Harlem Princess, 183n ff; Washington Post coverage of Harris began in 1965 and was regular by the 1968–70 period. See Director, Equal Opportunity Programs to Mr. Harnett, 5 Feb. 1971, in Senate Appropriations Committee (1974), 20–21.

27 Harris, Harlem Princess, 249.

28 PN #108, 25 Nov. 1973, 3; Holden, 806.

29 “Meeting Record on 6–7 Feb. 1974: TSC Deputy Directors Council Meeting,” 2–4, 19, Box 67, Low/RPI; interviews with Ms. Shirley Molloy and Professor Stephen E. Wiberley, Troy, New York, Oct. 2004.

30 “The Groundling Who Won,” Time, 3 Jan. 1969, 13; Ernst Stuhlinger and Frederick I. Ordway, Wernher von Braun: Crusader for Space: A Biographical Memoir (Malabar, FL: Krieger Publishing Company, 1994), 300–03. Hoban, Where Do You Go, esp. 53, 57, 58–59, 155, 192; Hoban uses the phrase “catechism, not reformation” to describe Low's approach to people-centered change within NASA (192).

31 Harris, Harlem Princess, 257–58. Harris said von Braun pushed affirmative action “with courage and conviction.” No other NASA leader earned such praise in her memoir.

32 Transcript of “An Interview with Diane Graham,” 1, 4, Harambee program, WTOP TV, Washington, DC, 12 Nov. 1973, 9:00 a.m. (a transcript made for NASA), Low/NHO; Harris, Hogan and Lynn to James Fletcher, 20 Sept. 1973, George M. Low papers, alphabetical files, “EEO – Very Sensitive” folder, NHO (hereafter Low/NHO).

33 Robnett, How Long?, How Long?, esp. 19–20, 190 ff.

34 93rd Congress, second session, Senate, Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences, “Review of NASA's Equal Opportunity Program, 24 Jan. 1974,” 64–65 (hereafter Senate Space Committee Hearings (1974)). “EEO Statistics, 18 January 1974,” Box 107, Low/RPI.

35 PN #105, 21 Oct. 1973, 1–2; Fletcher to all NASA employees (2 Nov. 1973), 2–3, both in Folder 1, Box 68, Low/RPI; Holden, 805.

36 George Low, “Comments in 14 Nov. 1973 Draft Letter to Senator Moss,” 19 Nov. 1973, Box 35, Low/RPI.

37 Low to Fletcher, 15 March 1973, 3, Folder 5, Box 68; Low/RPI; PN #91, 14 April 1973, 1–2, Low/RPI; Low, “EEO Contr Compl,” notes on the reverse of Low's appointment book for 7 March 1973, Low/NHO; PN #91, 14 April 1973, 1, Low/RPI.

38 For McConnell see Senate Space Committee Hearings (1974), 5.

39 [George M. Low], “McConnell Qualifications,” undated handwritten memo, c. April 1973, Low/NHO; PN #91, 14 April 1973, 2, Folder 4, Box 68, Low/RPI.

40 Holden, 804, 806; Senate Space Committee Hearings (1974), 64–5.

41 PN #100, 11 Aug. 1973, 1–2, Folder 2, Box 68, Low/RPI; Holden, 805.

42 Harris, Harlem Princess, esp. 267, 262–64 (quote from 264); Senate Space Committee Hearings (1974), 88 ff; Holden, passim.

43 Ruth Bates Harris, Joseph M. Hogan, and Samuel Lynn to Dr. James C. Fletcher, 20 Sept. 1973, Low/NHO (three-page unpaginated cover-letter).

44 Points II [p. I] and IV [p. 2] of 20 Sept. 1973 cover-letter. Harris, Hogan, and Lynn to James Fletcher, Low/NHO.

45 “Preamble,” final paragraph, and “Special Concerns: No Minority or Female Astronauts” sections of Harris, Hogan, and Lynn's unpaginated 23 Sept. 1973 report.

46 PN #105, 21 Oct. 1973, 1–2; Fletcher to all NASA employees (2 Nov. 1973), 2–3, both in Folder 1, Box 68, Low/RPI; Holden, 805.

47 PN #107, 13 Nov. 1973, 4–5, File 5, Box 67, Low/RPI.

48 “H” to Dr. Low, 20 Nov. 1973, Low/NHO.

49 Holden, 806; Constance Holden, “NASA Satellite Project: The Boss is a Woman,” Science, 5 Jan. 1973, 48–9; “Harris, Mrs. Ruth Bates” biographical file, NHO (hereafter Harris/NHO). Part of the radical charge may have come from the dedication of the Harris, Hogan, and Lynn report to “those who have been victims of economic indignities” and “those who are indignant enough to do something about it.”

50 Holden, “NASA: Sacking of Top Black Woman,” 806; Constance Holden, “New EEO Leadership at NASA,” Science, 30 Aug. 1974, 769.

51 Holden, “Sacking of Top Black Woman,” 806; Ruth Bates Harris, Harlem Princess, 261, 263–64; St. Germain to Fletcher, 12 Dec. 1973, Low/NHO. N.O.W. only belatedly protested Harris's firing. Freeman, The Politics of Women's Liberation, 71 ff; For N.O.W.'s after-the-fact protest see Senate Space Committee Hearings (1974), 98–99.

52 Fletcher to Low, 14 Dec. 1973; Low to Fletcher, 14 Dec. 1973; and M. Johnson to James Fletcher, 30 Oct. 1973; unsigned memo from Low, undated, c. Dec. 1973, regarding report from Bart Fugler re “Concerned Citizens for America” group, all in Low/NHO.

53 Holden, “NASA: Sacking of Top Black Woman,” op. cit., 806.

54 PN #110, 23 Dec. 1973, 7, Box 67; Low to AD/Deputy Administrator, 19 Nov. 1973, Box 35; Low to AD/Deputy Administrator, 21 Jan. 1974, Box 34; “Center Director's Meeting, December 10–11, 1973 …,” (minutes dated 18 Dec. 1973), Box 66, all in Low/RPI.

55 PN #111, 6 Jan. 1974, 6–7, Box 67, Low/RPI.

56 PN #126, 18 Aug. 1974, 8, and 1, Box 67, Low/RPI.

57 “Racism, Sexism, and Space Ventures” editorial; PN #111, 6 Jan. 1974, Box 67, Low/RPI; Dudley McConnell to Low, 26 Nov. 1973, Low/NHO. The Johnson Space Flight Center in Houston, the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama refused to accept Low's initial hiring efforts. See e.g. Senate Space Committee Hearings (1974), 26–8.

58 PN #112, 20 Jan. 1974, 3, File 4, Box 67; Low/RPI; for Proxmire and Harris in the 1960s see Harris (1971–1), 5 ff.

59 McConnell's “NASA always breaks the law” statement may have harked back to the agency's ability to avoid some civil service salary limitations when hiring key technical and scientific personnel. Austin Scott, “NASA Hit on Minority Hiring: Agency Needs Prodding, Proxmire Says,” Washington Post, 12 Jan. 1974, clipping in Low/NHO; Senate Appropriations Subcommittee Hearings (1974), esp. 118–21.

60 Scott, “NASA Hit”; Senate Appropriations Subcommittee Hearings (1974), 132–34, 138.

61 “NASA Defends Lag on Women's Jobs,” New York Times, 12 Jan. 1974, clipping in Low/NHO. See also Senate Appropriations Subcommittee Hearings (1974), 137; for audience laughter at NASA expense, 138–40.

62 PN #112, 20 Jan. 1974, 2, File 4, Box 67, Low/RPI; [Washington, DC] Afro-American, 11 Jan. 1974 clipping in Harris, Harlem Princess, 107.

63 Roger D. Launius, “A Western Mormon in Washington, DC: James C. Fletcher, NASA, and the Final Frontier,” Pacific Historical Review, 64 (May 1995), 217–41, esp. 228; PN #112, 20 Jan. 1974, 3, Box 67, Low/RPI.

64 The exclusion came from a narrow reading of Scripture, including the Book of Alma in The Book of Mormon. Industrious Nephites and slovenly Lamanites fought for control of a New World and the latter lost. Their skins became dark and they became savage by Godly decree. Mormon traditionalists put up a 20-year fight against allowing African Americans full spiritual standing.

65 PN #112, 20 Jan. 1974, 4, and PN #113, 3 Feb. 1974, File 4, Box 67, Low/RPI.

66 Ibid., 4–5, 112, 20 Jan. 1974; “Discussions with the Civil Service Commission,” PN #87, 17 Feb. 1973, Box 4, Low/RPI.

67 “Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences: Testimony of Ruth Bates Harris, 24 Jan. 1974,” Harris/NHO.

68 Ibid., 3–6.

69 Austin Scott, “Senators Eye NASA EEO Goals,” Washington Post, 25 Jan. 1974, clipping in NASA Current News, 25 Jan. 1974, I, PN #113, 3 Feb. 1974, 3, File 4, Box 67, Low/RPI.

70 R. Tenney Johnson to “A” [Fletcher and George Low], 3 Jan. 1974, Low/NHO; Low to McConnell, “Decision Statement on Numerical Goals for 1974,” 7 Jan. 1974, and PN #113, 3 Feb. 1974, 3, File 4, Box 67, Low/RPI.

71 Low to Fletcher, “Miscellaneous Items,” 21 Jan. 1974; Low to Deputy Associate Administrator for Organization and Management, 5 Feb. 1974; Low to Fletcher, “Harriet Jenkins,” 5 Feb. 1974, all in Box 67, Low/RPI; Senate Appropriations Hearings (1974), 143.

72 Low to McConnell, “Complaint Processing Time,” 4 Feb. 1974, File 8, Box 34, Low/RPI; Low to McConnell, 28 Jan. 1974, Low to Assistant Admin. for Institutional Management, “Proposed Recruiting Plan for Minority Scientists and Engineers,” 2 Feb. 1974; Meeting Record, 6–7 Feb. 1974, JSC, Deputy Directors' Council Meeting, all in folder 4, Box 67, Low/RPI; “Ex-Aide Rehired by NASA,” Washington Post, 18 Aug. 1974, A-20.

73 Harvey W. Herring, Meeting Record, 29 March 1974, EEO Officer, Low/NHO; PN #117, 30 March 1974, 4; PN #118, 13 April 1974, 2; PN #120, 11 May 1974, 7–8; PN #122, 8 June 1974, 11; “Notes for All Hands Meetings [April 1974],” all in Box 67, Low/RPI; “GAO Investigation of NASA EEO Program,” 23 Apr. 1974, Box 107, Low/RPI.

74 See e.g. David R. Cashdan to R. Tenney Johnson, 10 June 1974, Box 67, Low/RPI. (GS-11 ranks and above were at issue.)

75 [R. Tenney Johnson], “Concerns and Views” [c. 5 June 1974], Box 67, Low/RPI.

76 PN #122, 8 June 1974, 11–12, Box 67, Low/RPI; Low to Fletcher, 8 July 1974, 5, Box 34, Low/RPI.

77 George Low, “Meeting with Headquarters Equal Employment Opportunity Advisory Group,” 26 June 1974, esp. 3.

78 PN #125, 20 July 1974, 5–6, Box 67, Low/RPI; Low to Fletcher, 17 July 1974, “House Staff Study on NASA Public Affairs Activities,” Box 67; Constance Holden, “New EEO Leadership at NASA,” Science, 30 Aug. 1974, 769.

79 R. Tenney to James C. Fletcher, 4 April 1974; PN #126, 18 Aug. 1974, I, Box 67, Low/RPI; James C. Fletcher, “Memorandum to All NASA Employees” 16 Aug. 1974, all in “EEO-Very Sensitive” file in Low Papers, NHO; Gloria Borger, “Woman Fired by NASA Wins Fight to Return,” Washington Star-News, 17 Aug. 1974, A-4; “Harris, Mrs. Ruth Bates” biographical file, NHO. Constance Holden, “New EEO Leadership at NASA,” 769.

80 Lawrence Feinberg, “Ex-aide Rehired by NASA,” Washington Post, 18 Aug. 1974, A-20; “Ruth Harris Assumes New Post at NASA, 17 Aug. 1974” (news release, 3 pages, NHO).

81 “Ruth Bates Harris Honored at Headquarters Farewell Party,” Spaceport News (no location), 25 Nov. 1976, 4; NASA Weekly Bulletin, Vol. 20, 15 May 1978; “Ruth Bates Harris Appointment at Interior,” all in “Harris, Mrs. Ruth Bates” biographical file, NHO. Harris, Harlem Princess, 279 ff.

82 Kevles, Almost Heaven, esp. 69 ff. Weitekamp, Right Stuff, Wrong Sex, and Ackmann, The Mercury Thirteen, also briefly cover the opening of the Astronaut Corps to women. Only Kevles mentions Harris as a change agent (see 58–59).

83 R. Tenney Johnson to Cashdan, 2 Aug. 1974; Low to Frank Zarb of OMB, 18 Sept. 1974; Low “Telephone Call From Hugh Loweth,” 1 Oct. 1974; Low to AC … Center Operations, 20 Feb. 1975; PN 137, 1 Feb. 1975, 3 and 8; PN 139, 1 March 1975, 3, all in Box 66, Low/RPI. For “organizational culture” at NASA Hanold W. Gehman, Jr., et al., Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report, Vol. 1 (August, 2003) (Washington, DC, NASA and U.S. govt. Printing Office, 2003), 9. op cit., 9, 99–118; McCurdy, Inside NASA; Diane T. Vaughan, The Challenger Launch Decision (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996); Sylvia Fries, NASA Engineers in the Age of Apollo (Washington, DC: NASA, 1977); Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox, Apollo: The Race to the Moon (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989).

84 PN #156, 13 Dec. 1975, 9, Box 65, Low/RPI.

85 Ibid.

86 Minutes of Senior Management Conference, Reston, Virginia, 17–19 March 1976, 12, Box 65, Low/RPI.

87 Oral interview with Dr. Harriett Jenkins, Bethesda, Maryland, 25 Aug. 2005.

88 For Jenkins see www.thehistorymakers.com/biography; Jenkins, interview, 25 Aug. 2005.

89 Jenkins interview; Senate Appropriations Committee hearings (1974), 56–58.

90 Harris, Harlem Princess, 303, 311, 333; “Joint Statement by Senator Patrick Leahy and Senator James Jeffords [of Vermont] on the Retirement of Dr. Harriett G. Jenkins,” Congressional Record, Senate, 5 Nov. 1997, S 11788; Jenkins co-authored several National Academy studies on improving federal bureaucracy in 2000 and 2006.

91 Jenkins, oral interview, 28 Aug. 2005; “Senate Leaders Appoint a Director of Fair Employment,” Jet, 82, 1 (June 1992), 22; Nichelle Nichols, Beyond Uhura: Star Trek and Other Memories (New York: Putnam, 1994), 220–23. Dr. Harriett Jenkins to author, 6 Nov. 2005 (hiring statistics).

92 National Science Board, National Science Foundation, Science and Engineering Indicators – 2000, Vol. 1 (Washington, DC: NSF, 2000), Ch. 8, 21; The “pale, stale, male” comment got Goldin in immediate trouble. See Dan Goldin, “Bullish on Space Symposium: New York, New York, 22 July 1994,” 6; idem, “Welcoming Remarks: Briefing for Dr. Petersen, National Science Foundation, 9 Aug. 1994”, 1, NHO. For NASA female and minority hiring data (after 1982) see http://NASApeople.NASA/gov/workforce/diversity/present.htm.

93 Kevles, Almost Heaven, 51; Jodi Dean, Aliens in America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998), 96.