There seems to be no end to the unsung “Hidden Figures,” particularly among Black women in mathematics and technological development. You have probably never heard of Gladys West, but without her, your travel destinations might not be as easy to determine.
West, who died on Jan. 17 in Fredericksburg, Virginia, at age 95, played a key role in the development of GPS (Global Positioning System), a satellite-based navigation system first used by the U.S. military, but now available through most mobile phones.
Like so many of the Black women who have gained notice for their scientific contributions, West, born into a sharecropping family in rural Virginia, had to overcome the hurdles of racism and segregation. In effect, long before her calculations facilitated travel for millions of others, she had to navigate her way out of the handicaps imposed on her because of her race and gender.
Born Gladys Mae Brown on Oct. 27, 1930, in Sutherland, Va., she was the fourth child of Nolan and Macy (Scott) Brown, tobacco farmers. Her school was three miles away, and when she returned home, there was work to do harvesting the tobacco.
No matter the sweltering heat in the tobacco fields and the segregated school, Gladys excelled, particularly in geometry. When she graduated from high school, she was her class’s valedictorian and held a full academic scholarship to Virginia State College (now University). In quick succession, she earned her bachelor’s degree in 1952 and her master’s degree in 1955, both in mathematics. She was teaching math in a high school in Martinsville, Va., when she applied for a job at a nearby naval base. After they received her application and invited her to an interview, she declined, fearing she would be rejected when they learned she was Black.
But as she would soon learn, the job was hers if she wanted it, and she accepted it, believing, as she later said, “this must be God’s plan for me.”
In 1956, she joined the Navy’s weapons facility in Dahlgren, Va., a year after President Dwight Eisenhower issued an executive order banning racial discrimination in federal workplaces. One of her first assignments was the use of a hand calculator to determine the accuracy of bombing tables. Her proficiency was recognized immediately, and she was soon invited to join a team to program a computer to perform five billion calculations to track Pluto’s motion relative to Neptune, in the search for a more accurate understanding of planetary orbits.
In 1957, she married Ira West, one of the four Black mathematicians at Dahlgren. He died in 2024.
She was next involved in applying IBM’s advances to calculate the Earth’s precise shape, taking into account gravitational variations, ideal forces, and ocean curvature. All of these steps were significant in laying the foundation for making the world more precise for all of us.
For much of her endeavors in this technical advancement, she worked in obscurity. Even her children were not aware of her achievements. Among her many honors, four years ago, during Black History Month, she was saluted by the state of Virginia and placed in the Walk of Fame. In 2018, she was inducted into the Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame.
With the assistance of M.H. Jackson, she published her memoir, “It All Began with a Dream.” Gladys was endowed with a tireless curiosity, and in 1998, she returned to college, earning her doctorate in Public Administration from Virginia Tech in 2000.
She is survived by her daughter, Carolyn West Oglesby; two sons, David and Michael; seven grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.