The American Photographer Who Brought LGBTQ Perspective to Victorian Street Photography

On the coastline of Staten Island, where the Atlantic makes its way between Brooklyn, Manhattan, and New Jersey, children’s playful shouts populated the otherwise peaceful greenery outside the Alice Austen House Museum on a Tuesday afternoon in early May. Zoe Tirado, the museum’s education director, told *Hyperallergic* that the group of kids was visiting from an LGBTQ+ club at a local elementary school.

The home-turned-museum was once the residence of Alice Austen, who defied gender roles as one of the first American women photographers to work outside of a studio, capturing the young Victorian and immigrant women of New York City.

Austen’s black-and-white photographs depicted what she described as the “larky life” of middle-class Victorian women — dressed in drag, sleeping in the same bed, and appearing as though they were about to kiss. Austen moved with her family into the idyllic waterfront home, which they referred to as “Clear Comfort,” in 1866, when she was an infant. In 1917, Austen was joined by Gertrude Tate, a teacher who would become her partner of 55 years.

For years, most of Austen’s glass plate negatives, prints, and image copyrights have belonged to the borough’s historical society, Historic Richmond Town, which took the photographs in as donations as the artist faced financial difficulty and eviction in her late life. This week, however, the artifacts will finally be repatriated to the Alice Austen House Museum in its 40th year, the institution’s Executive Director Victoria Munro told *Hyperallergic*. Currently, the museum holds only 400 prints and 60 glass plates by the artist.

Munro said that the return of photographs will expand public access to some 7,500 images taken by Austen over the course of her career.

“The house was a muse for Alice. It’s poignant for the works to come home to an institution that recognizes and centers her truthful identity and life story,” Munro said, adding that she is grateful for the historical society’s longtime stewardship.

On the phone, Munro teared up speaking about the repatriation, which she said she worked to achieve for over seven years.

“As a lesbian woman myself and an artist, it’s just so important,” Munro said.

At home, Tate and Austen lived what Munro described as an “out life,” putting both of their names at the top of their letterhead. Relics representing Austen’s everyday life, including a staged living room and a miniature model of her darkroom, were reconstructed based on images that Austen took of the house’s interior while she lived there, Tirado told *Hyperallergic*. The quaint home museum also devotes space to a collection of photographs of immigrant street workers in Manhattan, where she commuted from Clear Comfort.

These photographs, published in 1896 by the Albertype Company, put Austen on the map as one of the first women street photographers. Austen was scouted by the United States Public Health Service to capture immigrant quarantine centers, where ship passengers entering the country were expected to wait in an effort to curb the spread of contagious diseases. The images were reproduced in *Harper’s Weekly Magazine* and shown at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition.

When the stock market crashed in 1929, catalyzing the Great Depression in the 1930s, Austen and Tate could no longer afford the residence. The couple took out a mortgage on the house, but it was foreclosed on only a few years later. Despite financial troubles, they remained in the home as renters, paying $10 a month until a new buyer evicted them in 1945. That year, Austen gave the majority of her photographs to the Staten Island Historical Society, now known as Historic Richmond Town.

By the mid-1960s, the house was slated for demolition, but was saved when New York City took title of the land to create a future museum after a push from fellow photographers.

For Munro, the return of Austen’s works during Pride Month, amid mounting attacks on queer communities in the United States, represents a glimmer of hope.

“The transfer marks a pivotal moment — not only for our institution, but for the broader cultural landscape — at a time when LGBTQ+ communities face renewed threats of erasure,” Munro said.