Alice Austen House
Alice Austen Museum No. 12
Alice Austen Museum
Exhibition room with video
View of the Narrows from Alice Austen Museum
untitled
ADDRESS:
ALICE AUSTEN HOUSE 2 HYLAN BOULEVARD STATEN ISLAND NEW YORK 10305-2002
PHONE/FAX: (718) 816-4506
DESCRIPTION OF SITE:
Alice Austen was raised in the family home called 'Clear Comfort'. At the age of 10, Alice's uncle brought a camera back from a European voyage. From that time on she began taking photographs and continued with this passion throughout her life.
Austen came of age during the American Victorian period, during the Industrial Revolution, and at a time of huge population change in New York city due to immigration. Austen created a rich pictorial history of the leisure class and the development of Staten Island and New York city in the late 1880s.
Most central to Alice's work, both as a single woman and as a photographer, were issues surrounding the domestic sphere. She lived for 40 years with her "soul mate" Gertrude Tate and created vignettes of women being 'notably not victorian ladies'.
'Clear Comfort' was restored in 1984, opened to the public in 1985. Now an official National Historic Landmark.
Research Articles
To view a list of research articles about this location click here