Born: 17 July 1819, United States
Died: 30 September 1888
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Eunice Newton
The following bio was written by Emma Rosen, author of On This Day She Made History: 366 Days With Women Who Shaped the World and This Day In Human Ingenuity & Discovery: 366 Days of Scientific Milestones with Women in the Spotlight, and has been republished with permission.
Eunice Newton Foote was an American scientist, inventor, and advocate for women’s rights. She is best known for her pioneering work in the mid-19th century, where she became the first scientist to propose the idea of the greenhouse effect. Born in Connecticut and educated at the Troy Female Seminary and the Rensselaer School, Foote was a product of her time, actively participating in movements such as abolitionism, temperance, and women’s rights.
In 1856, Foote published a groundbreaking paper demonstrating the heat-absorbing properties of carbon dioxide (CO2) and water vapor, predating similar work by John Tyndall. This marked her as the first American woman to have her scientific findings published in a physics journal. Her insights into how changing atmospheric CO2 levels could impact climate were visionary. While her experimental methods had limitations, her contributions to early climate science were instrumental, earning her recognition in the 21st century with the establishment of The Eunice Newton Foote Medal for Earth-Life Science by the American Geophysical Union.
The following is republished from the US Department of Energy. This piece falls under under public domain, as copyright does not apply to “any work of the U.S. Government” where “a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. Government as part of that person’s official duties” (See, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 105).
Foote’s experiments with atmospheric gases in the 1850s laid the groundwork for the discovery of the greenhouse effect, which is how greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide trap heat close to the earth’s surface. Her work showed that carbon dioxide and water vapor absorb and retain heat, which increase the earth’s temperature and lead to climate change. A male colleague presented her findings in 1856 at the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting. Foote did not get credit for her work until 2011.