She was inventing in an era when the ideological pressure on women to confine themselves to domestic roles was intense, when the professional networks she needed to commercialize her inventions were heavily male-dominated, and when the racial barriers she faced as a Black woman compounded the gender barriers that all women inventors faced.

The intersection of race and gender in Kenner’s experience is crucial.

She did not face racial discrimination and then separately face gender discrimination; she faced the combined, compounding effect of both simultaneously.

The specific form of discrimination she experienced — the manufacturing company that backed out when it discovered she was Black — was racial discrimination.

But her ability to find alternative partners was limited by both her race and her gender, and the commercial reception of her inventions reflected both.

Dunbar High School and the Legacy of Educational Excellence