Completely destitute, Alice was consigned to the Staten Island Farm Colony, the local poor house.
But the same year that Alice was deemed a pauper, a researcher came across Alice’s negatives in the Staten Island Historical Society’s archives. This discovery led to connections with a publisher, who included Alice’s photos in a book titled “Revolt of Women” and who also arranged to have Alice’s story and photos featured in Life and Holiday magazines.
The proceeds from these endeavors were enough to move Alice, by now wheelchair-bound, into a private nursing home.
October 9, 1951, was proclaimed Alice Austen Day on Staten Island, and she was the guest of honor at a local exhibit of her photographs. She is reported to have told the 300 guests who turned out for the occasion, “I am happy that what was once so much pleasure for me turns out now to be a pleasure for other people.”
Alice Austen died eight months later.
Over the next decade, Clear Comfort gradually reverted to the tumble-down state Alice’s grandfather had confronted a century earlier. But because Alice’s works had been rediscovered and her reputation had been revived, a public effort got underway to save the house and grounds. Over the next three decades, restoration was undertaken in bits and pieces.
The Alice Austen House was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1993. In 2017, it was further marked as a site of significant LGBTQ history. Today the site is open to the public as a house museum and cultural center. Year-round, it features exhibitions of Alice’s photography along with works by other photographers.
Alice, no doubt, would be pleased.
LEARN MORE: Alice Austen’s life story is just one of many narratives about American artists’ work and challenges that are preserved and interpreted by museums associated with the Historic Artists’ Homes and Studios program. Learn more at https://artistshomes.org/
Barbara Lloyd McMichael is a freelance writer living in the Pacific Northwest.
PHOTO CREDITS:
Daniel Wend and WendImages.com.
Historical Photos are used with permission from the Collection of the Alice Austen House.
E.A. Austen, 1897. Collection of the Alice Austen House.