On this day: Woman’s research on greenhouse effect presented in 1856

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Friday marks the anniversary of a scientific concept that has dominated and will play a role in countless discussions this century: the greenhouse effect .

While its impacts here are more apparent and more deeply understood in the 21st century, the concept was first broached more than 150 years ago.

On Aug. 23, 1856, Eunice Foote’s research on what we now know as the greenhouse effect was presented to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Albany, New York.

Foote’s paper, titled “Circumstances affecting the heat of the sun’s rays,” is a historic piece for several reasons. Not only is it the first known published study on the greenhouse effect, but it was written by a woman and features some bizarre twists.

While her study predates the term “greenhouse gas,” the concept was spelled out bluntly: More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would result in a warmer planet. Foote used some rudimentary tools to show the effect: two glass cylinders, one filled with carbon dioxide and one filled with regular air. The cylinder with carbon dioxide rose to much higher temperatures.

At the meeting, because a woman had never presented findings to the AAAS, Foote did not present her research. Instead, Foote asked family friend Joseph Henry to do it. Henry was a local physicist and the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, the leading scientific organization in the U.S. at the time, who had previously studied with Foote’s husband.

However, three years later, Irish scientist John Tyndall published a similar study and became known as the person who discovered the greenhouse effect. But why? According to Scientific American’s Zoe Kurland , Foote’s work didn’t make much of a splash.

“Eunice’s paper didn’t make it into the official conference proceedings, but she formally published it a few months later,” Kurland wrote. “She got a write-up in the Annual of Scientific Discovery, where Ray Sorenson first came across her, and she made it into a German publication where they mistook her for a man.

“Another factor working against her? By the time John Tyndall had published his paper, Eunice had moved on,” Kurland continued “She was looking at other scientific questions.”

To Tyndall’s credit, his experiments were more thorough and were able to draw more conclusions, including findings on what is now known as infrared radiation. Also, there is no evidence that Tyndall had ever seen or heard of Foote’s research. Regardless, she deserves her place in history — one that was only recently discovered.

Amateur historian Ray Sorenson discovered Foote’s research in 2011 while digging through the 1857 Annual of Scientific Discovery. With his findings, more experts explored Foote’s history and learned more about her story.

For example, Foote wasn’t simply a scientist. She was also a wife and mother and a champion for women’s rights. Foote was neighbors with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and attended the famous Seneca Falls Convention in 1848.

She also worked on and patented several inventions alongside her husband, including a paper-making machine, a rubber shoe insert and a prototype of an ice skate. One of their inventions eventually made them rich: a rudimentary thermostat for stoves. It used a metallic piece and would expand or contract and tell you whether the stove was too hot or too cold.

According to SA, several businesses infringed on their thermostat design. Lawsuits were brought all the way to the Supreme Court, which ordered the businesses to return all of their profits earned from the thermostats. The Footes received more than $60,000, which is well over $2 million in value today.

Foote is now celebrated as a female pioneer of science. The American Geophysical Union launched the Eunice Newton Foote Medal for Earth-Life Science in 2022, used to recognize “outstanding creative achievements in research … that substantially advanced understanding of the past, present or future of key facets of the Earth system.”

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