This season, no fewer than three books introduce young readers to the life and work of Eunice Newton Foote, the first person to discover that trapped carbon dioxide warms the Earth’s surface, a process that causes climate change: the STEM picture book biographies Foote Was First! by Jen Bryant and Change Is in the Air by Rebecca Donnelly, as well as Linsday H. Metcalf’s YA novel in verse, Footeprint. We invited the trio to discuss how they first learned about Foote, and their research into her scientific contributions.
Rebecca Donnelly: My introduction to Eunice Newton Foote was an essay in All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for Climate Crisis, edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson. I was astounded that there were no children’s books about her [at that time]. I knew immediately that I had to try [to write one].
Where did you first hear about Eunice?
Jen Bryant: I first saw her name in 1994, when I was writing a YA biography about Lucretia Mott, the Quaker minister and social reformer who spoke at Seneca Falls. Mott was the first signer of the convention’s “Declaration of Sentiments,” and Eunice Newton Foote was the fifth. Then in 2020, my agent, Alyssa Henkin, sent me a New York Times article about Foote that her husband had read. It gave me that déjà vu feeling of circling back to a previous topic and time, but through a new and exciting lens.
Lindsay H. Metcalf: I’m not sure which article tipped me off, but I pitched the story to my agent the day after I read about her in November 2021. Eunice intersects with many major events and people in our history. Her big discovery, in 1856, was that carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere—what we now know as a greenhouse gas. Before that, she signed the Declaration of Sentiments. Before that, she attended the first girls’ school for science. And before that, she was born into the family of Sir Isaac Newton. She also patented several inventions, her husband became U.S. patent commissioner, and her brother-in-law patented the first steamboat engine to burn oil as a fuel instead of coal. There are so many parallels between her evolution as a woman and scientist with the infancy of fossil fuels. I wanted to explore the layers in depth, so I endeavored to write my first novel-in-verse—heavily researched, yet lightly fictionalized.
All of our approaches are different, and I think there’s room for a lot more books about Eunice! How did each of you choose the focus for your picture books?
Donnelly: I opted for a straightforward biography format. I wanted to put Eunice’s story into context in a way that felt true to how she might have felt during her life. When we look back, we can see all the ways her life was unfair, but I think it’s important to see her as someone with real agency, too. She had the best education she could have had, and she did something remarkable with it. She left her stamp on other parts of history, too. I also thought it was extremely important to recognize that, as much as she occupied a space somewhere between privilege and oppression, she was part of a movement that routinely left Black people behind, and that’s something we have to reckon with.
Bryant: “Context” and “agency” were two aspects I also focused on. One challenge of biography is to help the reader understand the circumstances in which their subject is living. With Foote, there was the additional challenge of explaining scientific terms and theories in a way that young readers could understand. But overall, my approach to writing Foote Was First was much like my previous biographies: I did as much research and drafting as I could until certain themes emerged. In this case, it was Eunice’s innate curiosity and ability to question accepted knowledge and norms that sprang forth.
Metcalf: It’s been nice to nerd out about a shared hero with you two. What was the coolest part of your research process? For me, touching Eunice’s letters to her family at the Smithsonian took my breath away. She wrote them long after her CO2 discovery, but the humanity in her concern for her daughters and grandchildren made me want to tell her full life story in Footeprint.
Bryant: I began researching during the Covid lockdown, when travel was restricted. I hoped that people I connected with virtually, and whom I relied on to provide documents and information, would be as passionate about Eunice’s story as I was. And they were! Everyone from the archivist at the school Eunice attended as a girl, to the volunteers at East Bloomfield Historical Society, to one of her descendants (a marine educator), responded enthusiastically. At a time of isolation, their generosity made this project special.
Donnelly: I also started this project during 2020, when research was hard to do! Even the community borrowing privileges at local universities were restricted. I reached out to a university librarian I knew and asked if she could check out a book on the Troy Female Seminary for me under her own name and then met her covertly by the library loading dock to pick it up—at a safe distance, of course. The things we do for knowledge!
Foote Was First!: How One Curious Woman Connected Carbon Dioxide and Climate Change by Jen Bryant, illus. by Amy June Bates. HarperCollins, $19.99 Jan. 13 ISBN 978-0-062-95706-1
Change Is in the Air: The Hidden Discoveries of Eunice Newton Foote, the First Climate Scientist by Rebecca Donnelly, illus. Mercè López. Macmillan, $18.99 Feb. 10 ISBN 978-1-250-82853-8
Footeprint: Eunice Newton Foote at the Dawn of Climate Science and Women’s Rights by Lindsay H. Metcalf. Charlesbridge Teen, $18.99 Feb. 10 ISBN 978-1-623-5
