Mary Kenner’s life as an inventor was lived within this context.

Her patent applications were filed through the U.S.

Patent Office, which was accessible to anyone who could meet the technical requirements.

But the world between having a patent and having a manufactured product was a world of business relationships, manufacturing capital, and marketing decisions that was far less formally open to Black Americans.

A white man with a patented invention could, with relative ease, walk into a business meeting in a downtown office building and expect to be taken seriously.

A Black woman faced layers of exclusion that had nothing to do with the quality of her ideas.