Rape kits are used to collect evidence of sexual assault for testingJaclyn Nash/National Museum of American HistoryThe Secret History of the Rape KitPagan Kennedy (Vintage Books)While writing Inventology, a book on inventions that create social change and the people behind them, Pagan Kennedy became fascinated by what she describes as a piece of technology designed to hold men accountable for brutalizing women: the rape kit.But who invented it? Newspaper reports credited Chicago police sergeant Louis R. Vitullo at the citys crime lab, but a few accounts mentioned a woman he collaborated with. Kennedy investigated, and