Alice Austen House

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The House and its surrounding NYC waterfront park are a nationally designated site of LGBTQ+ history, centering on the 56 year relationship between Alice Austen and her life partner Gertrude Tate, providing an important window into pre-Stonewall LGBTQ+ history and enriching our understanding of the important life and work of Alice Austen. A permanent display focuses on Austen’s life’s work and legacy with three additional galleries dedicated to changing contemporary exhibitions of photography and related media.

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“I am happy that what was once so much pleasure for me turns out now to be a pleasure for other people.”

— Alice Austen

Alice Austen (1866–1952)

Alice Austen was introduced to photography at age 10 in 1876. A second-floor closet of her home on the shore line 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 8,000 photographs of a rapidly changing New York City. 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 the boundaries of acceptable female behavior and social rules.

_{Shoeshine boys search for customers, City Hall Park (Three bootblacks) by Alice Austen, April 13, 1896. Collection New York Public Library, New York, NY. Photograph courtesy of Alice Austen House.}

_{Alice Austen’s Clear Comfort, 2015. Courtesy Alice Austen House. Photograph © Floto + Warner.}

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Clear Comfort, now a National Historic Landmark, was purchased in 1844 by Alice Austen’s grandfather, John Haggerty Austen, a well-to-do businessman, whose wife gave the house its name. Located at the entrance to New York Harbor, Clear Comfort stands today as a reminder of the picturesque suburban “cottages” that dotted the shore and hills of 19th-century Staten Island.

John Austen’s original purchase encompassed an 18th-century farmhouse in a serious state of disrepair on a half-acre lot. Two subsequent purchases increased the grounds to approximately one acre. The tumbledown farmhouse had originally been a one-room structure. Built in the 1690s, it included what became the middle parlor and entry hall. About 1725, the room that became the present parlor was added, and at mid-century, the dining room/kitchen wing was constructed. Over a period of 25 years John Austen undertook an extensive restoration and renovation of the house and its surroundings. He transformed the original structure into a Carpenter Gothic cottage set on carefully landscaped grounds.

Alice Austen was introduced to photography at age 10 in 1876. A second-floor closet of her family home 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.

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 56 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 finally evicted from their beloved home in 1945. Tate and Austen were 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 9th 1952 Austen passed away. The final wishes of Austen and Tate to be buried together were denied by Tate’s family.

IN COLLABORATION WITH THE NATIONAL TRUST