Alice Austen facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Alice Austen
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Austen in Richmondtown, Staten Island on October 9, 1951, for her photo exhibition
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Elizabeth Alice Munn
March 17, 1866 Rosebank, New York City, New York, United States
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| Died | June 9, 1952 (aged 86) |
| Resting place | Moravian Cemetery |
| Occupation | Photographer |
| Years active | 1880s–1930s |
| Partner(s) | Gertrude Amelia Tate (1899–1950~) |
| Parent(s) | Alice Cornell Austen (1836–1900) |
Elizabeth Alice Austen (March 17, 1866 – June 9, 1952) was an American photographer working in Staten Island.
Biography
Alice Austen was born in 1866 to Alice Cornell Austen and Edward Stopford Munn. Austen's father abandoned the family around 1869. Her great great grandfather, Peter Townsend, was the owner of Sterling Iron Works famous for forging the Hudson River Chain used to thwart British ships during the American Revolutionary War.
Austen was introduced to photography at age 10 in 1876. A second-floor closet of her home on the shoreline of the New York Narrows Harbor served as her darkroom. In this home studio, which was also one of her photographic muses, she produced over 7,000 photographs of a rapidly changing New York City, making significant contributions to photographic history, documenting New York's immigrant populations, Victorian women's social activities, and the natural and architectural world of her travels.
One of America's first female photographers to work outside of the studio, Austen often transported up to 50 pounds of photographic equipment on her bicycle to capture her world. Her photographs represent street and private life through the lens of a lesbian woman whose life spanned from 1866 to 1952. Austen was a rebel who broke away from the constraints of her Victorian environment and forged an independent life that broke boundaries of acceptable female behavior and social rules.
Austen was independently wealthy for most of her life and has widely been considered an amateur photographer because she did not make her living from photography. However, in addition to completing a paid assignment documenting the people and conditions of immigrant quarantine stations in New York during the 1890s, Austen copyrighted, exhibited and published her work.
Alice Austen's life and relationships with other women are crucial to an understanding of her work. Until very recently many interpretations of Austen's work overlooked her intimate relationships. What is especially significant about Austen's photographs is that they provide rare documentation of intimate relationships between Victorian women. Her non-traditional lifestyle and that of her friends, although intended for private viewing, is the subject of some of her most critically acclaimed photographs. Austen would spend 53 years in a devoted loving relationship with Gertrude Tate, 30 years of which were spent living together in her home which is now the site of the Alice Austen House Museum and a nationally designated site of LGBTQ history.
Austen's wealth was lost in the stock market crash of 1929 and she and Tate were evicted from their beloved home in 1945. Tate and Austen were finally separated by family rejection of their relationship and poverty. Austen was moved to the Staten Island Farm Colony where Tate would visit her weekly. In 1951 Austen's photographs were rediscovered by historian Oliver Jensen and money was raised by the publication of her photographs to place Austen in private nursing home care. On June 9, 1952 Austen passed away. The final wishes of Austen and Tate to be buried together were denied by their families.
Timeline
- 1866: Birth and baptism
- 1876: Begins photographing
- 1899: Meets Gertrude Tate
- 1917: Gertrude Tate moves in
- 1929: Stock market crash
- 1945: Evicted from home
- 1950: Declared a pauper then her rediscovery
- 1951: Alice Austen day
- 1952: Death
- 1976: Clear Comfort becomes National Landmark
- 2017: Landmark Designation Amended to include LGBTQ history as an area of significance
Legacy
The Alice Austen School, PS 60, located on Merril Avenue in the Bulls Head neighborhood of Staten Island, is named in her honor as is a Staten Island Ferry boat. Playwright Robin Rice's drama Alice in Black and White traces Austen's life from 1876 to 1951. The play also follows Oliver Jensen's search for and discovery of Austen and her glass plate negatives. The play received its world premiere at the Kentucky Center followed by a New York City premiere at 59E59 Theaters in 2016, the 150th anniversary of Austen's birth. (Both productions with Looking for Lilith Theatre Company). The play won the StageWrite Women's Theatre Initiative Award.
Her life and work inspired the fiction book Alice Austen Lived Here by Alex Gino, in which two non-binary middle schoolers do a US History report about Austen.
Gallery
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Street types of New York City-Emigrant and pretzel vendor
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Street Types of New York City-Messenger boy and bike
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New York City, 1897. The organ grinder and his wife
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Street types of New York City-Street cleaner with pick ax standing in front of pile of snow
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Quarantine station, Hoffman island, NYC-group of immigrants amid buildings
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Immigrants from a smallpox ship, held in custody for observation, behind wire fence, Hoffman Island, N.Y.
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Ladies' Home Journal Vol. 11 No. 09 (August, 1894)
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New York City Street sweeper and handcart
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Street types of New York City-Policeman, standing full length facing left
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Street types of New York City-2 rag carts
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Street types of New York City-Postman at letter box
See also
In Spanish: Alice Austen para niños
