Their historical presence is confirmed.

But the stories that would have made those achievements vivid and memorable were, for the most part, not told.

The consequences of this selective forgetting are not merely academic.

History shapes identity.

The stories that a society tells about its past shape what people believe is possible, who they see as role models, and what kinds of achievement they understand as normal and expected.

When the only inventors in the history books are white men, the implicit message — absorbed by students, by aspiring inventors, by the general public — is that invention is something white men do.