Alice Austin lived from 1866 to 1952. Austen grew from Victorian clutter in the black and-white cottage on the Staten Island waterfront in the late 19th century. When she died at 86 in 1952, she left behind 8,000 images. Some of her most intriguing pictures could easily have been considered “scandalous given the social conventions of the Victorian era,” said Monger. In one photo, Austen and a minister’s daughter, dressed in petticoats, pose while smoking in a church. In another, women are dressed like men – including wearing fake moustaches. Other images show three women in bed and two sets of female couples embracing. Austen also explored other subjects that would have been considered unseemly for women of her social class, taking photos of immigrants and the poor, from quarantined patients to rag-pickers to street peddlers. These pictures were documented for a paper called the “street times.” Elizabeth Alice Munn was anything but shy. She didn’t mind stepping outside her comfort zone in her work, as well as in life. The victorian-era photos, captured by Austen, are now arrayed around the house’s patterned wallpaper, depicting starchy grandees and cheeky tableaux of women embracing and cross-dressing. Museum materials disclose that Austen never married and that her live-in companion was Gertrude Tate.
”Larky” was how she described her friend-filled, unencumbered youth. At a young age, just after Alice’s birth, her father abandoned her and her mother, leaving Alice with great skepticism towards men. In fact, as she matured she chose to never take her father’s name. Alice and her mother moved back in with her mother’s affluent family to Clear Comfort, a large cottage dusted by servants, which turned out to be a fertile artistic environment. One uncle, a sea captain, brought home a camera and let the 10-year-old Alice toy with it. Another, a chemistry professor, taught her how to develop photos. A maid helped her rinse the glass plate negatives at the outdoor pump, since the house had no running water in the 19th century.
Alice decided to further isolate herself from the male sex by joining the classified and unprecedented “darned” club, a group of three women that swore off men. Later in life, Austen met Tate in the Catskills in 1899. It was not uncommon for single women to live together in that era in what was called a Boston marriage.
Throughout her life Alice never failed to capture changing New York, both in her homelife and outside. She owned a dry plate camera, which didn’t need a dark room, making her liberal dreams a reality. She often used the ferry to get to NY, accompanied by the cameraman, who lugged her cumbersome camera equipment around. She was a leader in her community, having a reputation of determinism and uptightness. She grew up with luxury, money, comfort, enjoying leisure time to explore activities such as biking, photography, tennis, etc. In fact, she was the first good winning female tennis player of her time. She was also a great supporter of the bicycle movement. This sport had was just being introduced to woman during her lifetime. This sport empowered women and gave them an unprecedented freedom. She documented this new trend through photos, which later in life became her first sold images. She turned them into a book that sought to teach young girls how to properly ride a bike
Later in life she was administered into a poorhouse after she was foreclosed on during the stock market crash of 1929. After failing to make ends meet, Alice and Gertrude were eventually evicted from the home that’s now a museum. Gertrude’s family took her in, but Alice ended up in the poorhouse. While it’s possible that Tate’s family was simply unable to care for Austen, it’s also possible that she wasn’t welcome to live with them. In addition, Alice had some serious health problems, requiring her to use a wheelchair as a means for travel. However, her memory was still in tact and remained in good condition due to the multitude of photos she took early in life. Finally, when her pictures got sold to a national magazine she was moved to a private nursing home. A year later, she passed with no marker for her grave, her marker is her work, which bridges expectations and reality.
Timeline:
- 1866: Alice Austin’s birth
- 1876: Alice receives first camera from her uncle.
- 1899: Alice meets Gertrude Tate in Catskills
- 1914: Starts Staten Island Garden Club
- 1919: Alice and Gertrude move in together.
- 1929: Alice loses entire inheritance to stock market crash
- 1937: NYer critiques Tea Room and offers readers a bad review.
- 1941: Tea Room closes
- 1945: Alice and Gertrude are evicted from home.
- 1950: Alice is sent to the poorhouse
- 1951: Alice’s work is exhibited in national magazine.
- 1952: Alice passes away with unmarked grave.
WORKS CITED
Besonen, Julie. “She Did It Her Way.” New York Times, 29 June 2014, p. 2(L). Academic OneFile.
Faderman, Lillian. “Where The Heart Lies: Discovering the photography of Alice Austen.” Curve, Fall 2018, p. 68+. Academic OneFile.
