Computer is the job title for women who worked at NACA and later NASA doing calculations for various research projects. Eventually, electronic computers were invented and used to do calculations instead of people. However, for most of Hidden Figures, the term “computer” refers to women like Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden.

Double V is a concept that African American people developed referring to the double victories of winning World War II and winning equality for Black people in the United States. African Americans felt like the United States could not fight for the freedom of people in other countries if its own citizens at home were not equal. Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, and Katherine Johnson embodied the idea of the double V as their work helped support the war effort and paved the way for greater equality in the African American community.

NACA was the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, a federal agency founded in 1915. NACA built a laboratory and research facility in Hampton, Virginia, where teams studied and researched flight. It is the setting for much of the biography.