But the underlying structures of advantage — the distribution of venture capital, the demographics of patent law firms, the composition of manufacturing company boards and leadership teams, the networks through which commercial relationships are built — still reflect historical patterns that favor white men over other groups.

The gap between formal equality and substantive equality in the culture of invention remains.

For contemporary inventors from underrepresented backgrounds, Mary Kenner’s story offers several things.

First, it offers historical precedent: people like you have been inventing things throughout American history, even when that history was not being recorded.

Second, it offers a model of persistence: the combination of continued inventive work alongside the economic necessity of other employment, maintained over many years, is a path that has been walked before.

Third, it offers a framework for understanding the barriers: the obstacles are not a reflection of the quality of the work but of the structural characteristics of the systems through which inventions reach the market.