Cartes de Visite from the Henderson Family Papers

Eunice Newton Foote (1819–1888) was one of the first climatologists to theorize and publish about the greenhouse effect. As a female scientist, however, her scholarly contributions were overlooked for over one hundred years. Toward the end of this 100-year period, the Henderson Family Papers were transferred to the Smithsonian Institution Archives as Record Unit 7075. This collection documents the work of Eunice’s grandson, John Brooks Henderson, Jr., a Smithsonian Regent and amateur conchologist, or expert in molluscs; his father, John Brooks Henderson, Sr., U.S. Senator from Missouri; and Mary Foote Henderson, Henderson Sr.'s wife and Foote's daughter, a suffragist and temperance activist. The collection also includes some of Foote's own correspondence. Foote has finally found well-deserved recognition 200 years after her birth, with dozens of scholars publishing about her life and work today. Yet we still don’t know what she really looked like: no historian has ever found a verified photograph of her. The Henderson Family Papers do also include one folder of family photographs, many of which are not labeled—evidence suggests one, long identified as Foote's daughter, Mary Foote Henderson, could instead be of Foote herself. We invite you to take a look and offer your own guess!

Discover more about these cartes de visite in this collection.