Eunice Newton Foote

First printing. The first discovery of greenhouse gases, by an American physicist and suffragist.

• Eunice Newton Foote (American, 1819–1888).
• “Circumstances affecting the heat of the sun’s rays” in The American Journal of Science and Arts (New Haven) series 2, volume 22 (July–November 1856, offered complete), pages 382–83.
• Octavo.
• [i]–viii, [1]–460 pages.
• Includes three engraved plates, folding engraved map, woodcut figures.
• Original printed wrappers.

The discovery of "greenhouse gases" by an American woman in 1856, ignored by Tyndall (1859) and Arhennius (1896), unknown to Fleming (1998). Foote’s experiments led her to predict, correctly, that “An atmosphere of that gas [carbon dioxide] would give to our earth a high temperature” (page 383).

“The scientific community ignored the brief note from an unknown female, and Foote has seldom been given credit for her discovery.” (Spencer Weart “The discovery of global warming” 2019.) Foote’s paper was the focus of a groundbreaking exhibition “From Eunice Foote to UCSB: A story of women, science, and climate change,” University of California (Santa Barbara) 2019–20.

Walter J. Johnson (1908?–1996), of New York, bookseller and publisher, Grolier Club 1958–96