A fictionalized account of the life of Eunice Newton Foote (1819–1888), a pioneering but long overlooked climate scientist, inventor, and women’s rights advocate.
Metcalf traces her subject’s early years in a family that nurtured her curiosity, eventually sending her to New York’s only science-focused girls’ seminary, where her roommate was Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s sister. She married Elisha Foote, a lawyer and inventor, who supported her experiments and her fight for gender equality. In 1856, the American Association for the Advancement of Science accepted Foote’s groundbreaking study on greenhouse gases—but demanded a man present it at their convention. Elisha was voted a member of the AAAS; Foote was not. In 1860, English scientist John Tyndall was credited with “discovering” greenhouse gases. Still, Foote carried on, patenting her inventions. A speculative section in which Foote and her daughter Mary travel to Europe and confront Tyndall feels inessential to the narrative. The final chapter describes how, in 2010, retired geologist Raymond Sorenson stumbled upon Foote’s original 1856 report and wrote an article that set the record straight. Although at times her reliance on figurative language feels excessive, Metcalf’s research shines through in the vivid details and contextual information about racial and gender bias surrounding Foote, who was white. This novel in verse effectively illuminates the life of a woman who pursued science despite systemic barriers.
A valuable corrective to erasure in climate science history.
—Kirkus Reviews
Using unadorned verse, Metcalf (Tomatoes on Trial) chronicles the experiences of scientist Eunice Newton Foote (1819–1888) combatting gender discrimination to pursue patents for her groundbreaking inventions in this comprehensive fictionalized biography of an overlooked pioneer. Born in Goshen, Conn., Foote—the youngest of 12 and cousin of Sir Isaac Newton—is raised in a science-minded family (“Justice & science/ fold into curious Eunice,/ mold into her bones”). At 15, she attends Troy Female Seminary, the country’s first school for women’s higher education. In 1841, she marries attorney Elisha Foote and, in 1842, invents a device that regulates the heat of stoves. Aware of the scientific community’s prejudice against women, Foote shares her ideas by whatever means she can, including applying for patents under her husband’s name. And when Irish scientist John Tyndall is credited with launching initial investigations into climate science in 1859, Metcalf challenges that accreditation in a poem titled “Combustion,” employing forthright lines to detail Foote’s own experiments on greenhouse gases and her subsequent findings, which were presented to the American Association of the Advancement of Science in 1856—three years before Tyndall. Diligently researched passages highlight the accomplishments of a female scientist only recently being recognized for her discoveries.
—Publishers Weekly
There were plenty of obstacles for a science-minded girl to pursue an education in the early 1800s, but a young Eunice Newton was lucky to have a supportive family. They scraped together the funds to send her to the Troy Female Seminary in upstate New York, where she’d not only study science but also be introduced to ideas of women’s suffrage and abolition. Post-graduation, she’d marry Elisha Foote, who would become her collaborator in invention and biggest fan; the fact that her first patent had to be recorded under her husband’s name further spurred her interest in women’s rights, and both she and Elisha would later sign the Declaration of Sentiments. Her passion for science never faltered, even as she became a mother and grandmother, and she’d eventually publish her discovery that greenhouse gases trapped heat. But that groundbreaking development was unfortunately attributed to a man, John Tyndall, who would later be considered the father of climate science. This verse novel contains an enormous amount of factual detail on a range of subjects and figures, including climate science, major players in women’s suffrage, and the US patent process. The strikingly elegant text, however, imbues the linear narrative with a hefty amount of emotion, so that the overall story is one of a fully-fleshed out character radically moving within but not defined by the social and scientific worlds of the 1800s. Eunice took on each of her roles, both professional and personal, with a deep sense of devotion and responsibility, and the book allows for an authentic picture of a woman struggling but mostly succeeding in juggling career and family. A lack of discussion around the privilege that enabled Foote’s success limits the book’s scope but not its narrative success; the poetic form, visual layout, and cohesive plot make this an exemplar of verse storytelling. Source notes, quotations, and a bibliography are provided.
—The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
