Why Do Things Burn? Elizabeth Fulhame’s Challenge to the Antiphlogistic Theory of Combustion

Motivated by her interest in fabric arts, late-eighteenth-century British chemist Elizabeth Fulhame experimentally investigated whether cloths of gold, silver, and other metals could be made by chemical rather than mechanical processes. In contrast to other women studying science at this time, she not only published an original monograph under her own name that challenged both the phlogistic and antiphlogistic views of combustion but also proposed an alternative explanation for oxidation and reduction. Although her contemporaries widely cited her innovative research, her history is not well known, yet a careful analysis of her work provides further insights into the reception of the antiphlogistic theory and the challenges and limitations experienced by women in chemistry during this period.