The Brilliant Climate Scientist History Forgot 0

Why Eunice Newton Foote’s legacy matters—especially now.

By Lindsay H. Metcalf, author of Footeprint: Eunice Newton Foote at the Dawn of Climate Science and Women's Rights

It’s been almost 170 years since Eunice Newton Foote discovered carbon dioxide’s atmosphere-warming properties—what we now know as the greenhouse effect. It’s about time the world discovered her.

A smattering of articles have noted her groundbreaking backyard experiment measuring the sun’s effect on various gases since 2011, when a retired petroleum geologist unearthed Foote’s 1856 research. But drive-by summaries paint an incomplete picture of a woman whose work and life intertwined with women’s rights activism and industrialization—the cradle of climate change.

Eunice grew up in East Bloomfield, New York. Her parents, modest farmers, scrimped together money to send her to a boarding school that offered revolutionary science classes to girls. Through her roommate, a sister to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Eunice became associated with the Cady family.

Eunice married Elisha Foote, a young patent lawyer who was also connected with Cady family. The pair began their life together in Seneca Falls, New York, where Eunice spent time inventing and experimenting in the Footes’ home lab.

As a woman, she couldn’t legally patent her first invention—a stove with a thermostat. So her husband did, in 1842. Eunice was reported as the inventor in The Lily, the women’s newspaper edited by Amelia Bloomer. Eunice was bursting with ideas she wanted to share with the world, but first, the world would have to recognize her agency as a woman. Thus began Eunice’s fight for women’s rights.

Her friend Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the first women’s rights convention in 1848 in Seneca Falls. Eunice and Elisha both attended and signed the Declaration of Sentiments demanding the vote for women. Eunice also helped to publish the declaration in Frederick Douglass’ newspaper, The North Star.

A few years later, Eunice conducted her gases experiment. Fossil records had shown that the world had once been warm, and she wanted to know how. Eunice knew that limestone had been found to hold trapped carbon dioxide. Through her experiment, she concluded, “An atmosphere of that gas would give to our earth a much higher temperature.”

Eunice needed to get her discovery in front of the new American Association for the Advancement of Science. But a man would have to present her paper.

That man was Joseph Henry, the original secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Elisha Foote had known Henry since he taught Elisha as a teen in Albany. So Henry presented Eunice’s paper at the 1856 AAAS convention, and the next-day’s newspaper ran a tepid write-up admitting that Eunice “must be a charming person,” but her research “would hardly interest your readers.”

Eunice and Elisha continued to tinker in their lab, each earning patents for multiple inventions such as squeak-free rubber insoles (Eunice) and ice skates (Elisha). A few years after the Civil War, President Ulysses Grant appointed Elisha as US patent commissioner. Elisha directed which inventions would receive patents during the height of industrialization. His own brother, Henry R. Foote, earned one of the first patents for oil as a vehicle fuel—for a steamboat engine. The family of the first person to predict a warming climate contributed to its genesis.

History’s butterfly effect is wild. What if the world had listened to women of Eunice’s time? What if the world had taken her climate discovery seriously? Would people have been more cautious with their adoption of fossil fuels? Would we be struggling with human-caused climate change today?

Eunice’s story deserves space in our understanding of history. Likewise, the field of climate science demands space in public discourse. The Trump administration has taken drastic steps to erase documentation of human-caused climate change, first by scrubbing federal websites and documents of climate-change references and data, and most recently, by taking steps to shutter the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

My forthcoming novel-in-verse, Footeprint: Eunice Newton Foote at the Dawn of Climate Science and Women’s Rights, attempts to correct the record, at least for Eunice. With one notable gap.

Because history rendered Eunice invisible, we don’t know what she looked like. (Don’t Google her; many images attributed to her are actually her daughter Mary or unidentified.)

But I think I found her.

(Dudley Observatory Dedication, August 28, 1856, Tompkins Harrison Matteson, 1857. Image from Wikimedia Commons.)

A painting by Tompkins Harrison Matteson depicts an observatory dedication that coincided with the 1856 AAAS convention where Eunice’s climate paper was featured. Dozens of scientists pose stiffly in the painting, entitled “Dudley Observatory Dedication, August 28, 1856.” Many remain unidentified by scholars.

(Detail of Dudley Observatory Dedication, August 28, 1856, Tompkins Harrison Matteson, 1857. Albany Institute of History & Art. Photo by Lindsay H. Metcalf.)

One unidentified couple sits prominently onstage. The man looks like a young Elisha Foote—with the same beard, glasses, and build shown in a confirmed 1860s photograph. The woman beside him echoes Eunice’s physical description from her passport and resembles their daughter Mary.

(Photograph of Judge Elisha Foote from Wikimedia Commons.)

(Mary Foote Henderson image from Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.)

I showed the painting to historians. Leif HerrGesell, former director of the East Bloomfield Historical Society in Eunice’s hometown, called the image a “dead ringer.” Sam McKenzie, who self-published a biography of Eunice, said, “I think this is called . . . a scoop.”

Still, historians are cautious to confirm the image, and rightly so. If this is Eunice, it would be the first portrait of her ever identified. Either way, her legacy is finally visible. 

It’s futile to speculate what might have happened with fossil fuels and climate change if the public had known of Eunice’s carbon dioxide discovery earlier. What is worthwhile? Making sure that climate science remains visible and accessible—while we still can.

Lindsay H. Metcalf is the author of Footeprint: Eunice Newton Foote at the Dawn of Climate Science and Women’s Rights, a young adult novel-in-verse releasing February 10 from Charlesbridge Publishing.

Footeprint

Eunice Newton Foote at the Dawn of Climate Science and Women's Rights

A fascinating novel-in-verse for young adults capturing the discoveries of Eunice Foote, a remarkable woman in science WAY ahead of her time.

Discover the extraordinary life and work of Eunice Newton Foote: The woman who identified carbon dioxide as a cause of climate change in 1856 (!) when most people preferred that women be seen rather than heard. This lightly fictionalized novel-in-verse account finally gives her the credit she deserves for her groundbreaking work.

Eunice’s most important discovery was recognizing the effect of excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere: a warming planet. But in a society driven by coal, kerosene, and crude oil, Eunice’s warnings went unheeded. After all, who would listen to a woman—especially a woman known to consort with suffragists?

From the Seneca Falls Convention to the halls of the US Patent Office in Washington, DC, Eunice Newton Foote blazed a trail for independence and inquiry. Today Eunice’s discoveries feel ever more prescient. She knew that reliance on fossil fuels would have a devastating effect. Today she is finally receiving the credit she deserves. Perfect for teenagers interested in STEM and the Age of Steam.

Be sure to check out the downloadable for a free discussion guide.