Eunice Newton Foote

Eunice Newton Foote (July 17, 1819 – September 30, 1888) was an American scientist and women's rights campaigner, who was an early researcher of the greenhouse effect and a signatory of the Declaration of Sentiments.

Campaigning

As a member of the editorial committee for the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, the first women's rights convention, Foote was one of the signatories of the convention's Declaration of Sentiments.[1]

Research

Foote conducted early work on the warming effect of the sun on air, including how this was increased by carbonic acid gas (carbon dioxide), later called the greenhouse effect, which was presented by Prof. Joseph Henry at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in 1856. A contemporary account describes the occasion as follows: Prof. Henry then read a paper by Mrs. Eunice Foote, prefacing it with a few words, to the effect that science was of no country and of no sex. The sphere of woman embraces not only the beautiful and the useful, but the true. (Wells, 1857, p. 159-160, cited by Raymond Sorenson.)

Foote's work preceded the better-known work of John Tyndall on the warming of CO2 by infrared radiation by three years.[2][3] Similar experiments are taught in modern schools.[4]

She also worked on electrical excitation of gases,[5] and received a patent in 1860 for "filling for soles of boots and shoes".[1]

Personal life

On August 12, 1841, she married Elisha Foote, a judge, statistician and inventor.[6] Elisha and Eunice were the parents of Mary Foote Henderson, an artist and writer born July 21, 1842,[7] and Augusta Newton Arnold, born October 1844, a writer who wrote The Sea at Ebb Tide. They had six grandchildren.[5] Elisha died 1883 and Eunice died five years later, on September 30, 1888.[5]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Wellman, Judith (October 5, 2004). The Road to Seneca Falls: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the First Woman's Rights Convention. University of Illinois Press. Retrieved January 31, 2016.
  2. ↑ Sorenson, Raymond (January 11, 2011). "Eunice Foote's Pioneering Research On CO2 And Climate Warming" (PDF). Search and Discovery. AAPG/Datapages, Inc. (70092). Retrieved January 31, 2016.
  3. ↑ Foote, Eunice (November 1856). Circumstances affecting the Heat of the Sun's Rays. The American Journal of Science and Arts. pp. XXXI. Retrieved January 31, 2016.
  4. ↑ Darby, Megan (September 2, 2016). "Meet the woman who first identified the greenhouse effect". Climate Home. Retrieved September 22, 2016.
  5. 1 2 3 Reed, Elizabeth Wagner (1992). "Eunice Newton Foote". American women in science before the civil war. Retrieved January 31, 2016.
  6. ↑ Goodwin, Nathaniel, "The Foote family: or, The descendants of Nathaniel Foote, one of the first ... " Hartford, Press of Case, Tiffany and company, 1849. p. 159
  7. ↑ Goodwin, p. 159
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