With its panoramic views of New York Harbor, the house that trailblazing photographer Alice Austen (1866-1952) called home for most of her life, is a sprawling, two-story, elegant Victorian Gothic waterfront property known as Clear Comfort. Situated on the Staten Island shoreline near the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, she would have witnessed the monumental assembly of the Statue of Liberty in 1886, immigrants arriving at Ellis Island, and World War I soldiers returning from the front—much of which she captured in more than 7,000 incredible photographs throughout her lifetime.
Austen’s body of work is considered among the earliest and most prolific by a female photographer. Long viewed as an amateur because she pursued the craft predominantly as a hobby, she is now recognized for her significant contributions to the canon of American photography. For several decades, her work has been stewarded by Historic Richmond Town, formerly the Staten Island Historical Society, where more than 7,500 prints and negatives were entrusted in 1945. This month, the entire archive returns to Clear Comfort—now known as the Alice Austen House—thanks to a landmark acquisition.
Growing up in New York, Austen discovered photography when she was 10 years old, converting her bedroom closet into a darkroom. “In this home studio, which was also one of her photographic muses, she produced thousands of 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,” says the museum.
While she participated in Victorian society as a woman of wealth and privilege, Austen also flouted and mocked its customs and defied expectations of gender roles and domesticity. “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,” the museum says. She often lugged the cumbersome camera equipment, weighing sometimes up to 50 pounds, around on her bicycle.
Austen snapped humorous photos of family and friends during leisurely activities around New York and on international travels. She also focused on immigrants and working class people in New York City, but her images primarily highlight upper class style and pastimes, from tea time “larks” to swimming to hanging with the girls—her relationships with other women proving influential in the type of work she made and how we read it today.
Marking a significant site in LGBTQ+ history, Clear Comfort was home for 30 years to both Austen and her life partner Gertrude Tate. Austen met the kindergarten and dance teacher in 1899, embarking on a relationship that would span more than five decades. While financial difficulties at the end of their lives forced them to separate—Austen lost all of her wealth in the stock market crash of 1929 and she and Tate were evicted from Clear Comfort in 1945—Tate advocated for the preservation of Austen’s work. Their families denied the couple’s final wishes to be buried together.
Today, Alice Austen House is committed to showcasing the breadth of the seminal photographer’s work and highlighting her heretofore ignored yet influential role in LGBTQ+ history. The organization is a member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Historic Artists’ Homes and Studios program (previously) and is open to the public Tuesday through Saturday.
If you’re in Chicago, Austen’s work is included in The First Homosexuals: The Birth of a New Identity, 1869-1939 at Wrightwood 659 through July 26. The return of the archive to Austen’s ancestral home also aligns with the release of Too Good to Get Married: The Life and Photographs of Miss Alice Austen by Bonnie Yochelson. Find your copy on Bookshop, and plan your visit to the Alice Austen House on the museum’s website.
