My Dear Alice

Image attributions: (HRT) Historic Richmond Town archive; (AAH) Alice Austen House Museum collection.

with Julia Marsh Lord. Austen’s married with children friends. (HRT)

while she and Alice Austen spent much time together. (HRT)

Minnie Austen Hicks Muller at Clear Comfort (AAH)

Their first trip abroad. (HRT)

In Trossachs, Scotland. (HRT)

during 3 months when they traveled to England, France, Scotland, Germany, and Holland.

from Julia Martin at the Bloomingdale Hospital for the Insane (AAH)

New York’s Health Officer. New York Tribune.

Trunk reading EAA (Alice’s initials), door reading ETAT, Tate spelled backwards. (HRT)

Alice and Gertrude at morning tea (HRT)

An early snapshot-type photograph. (HRT)

Tate in back at right (HRT)

at a picnic spread in Tangier. (HRT)

for Dr. Alvah Doty, New York’s Health Officer. New York Tribune.

photographed en route in Spain (AAH)

one of many copyrighted photos from 1909 (AAH)

from a 5 month European excursion (HRT)

Tate’s longtime Brooklyn friend, sometimes traveling to Europe together – with his car. (HRT)

Austen photographing a car race (HRT)

Makeshift photography article – a Page for Misses.

for newspaper photo spread – Makeshift Photography.

at the Hotel Eden Molaro, on the Island of Capri.

as noted on Austen’s negative sleeve (HRT)

at Clear Comfort’s front pathway (HRT)

Illustrations including of Clear Comfort’s front lawn. 

detail showing photo credit.

Alice & Gertrude traveled to Sweden, Denmark & Germany in 1912 (HRT)

Returning to America from Cherbourg, France. (HRT)

at the Hotel Sagamore in August. (HRT)

Austen taught 100s of women how to drive during WW1.

Returning after delivering thousands of American soldiers. (HRT)

Alice Austen pictured at far right, middle row, in top photo; far right, front row in bottom photo.

at passing ships (HRT)

pictured alongside Clear Comfort (HRT)

Returning the remains of 2,000 soldiers. (HRT)

(see podcast transcript or notes)

entrance facing north (AAH)

showing encroaching industry (AAH)

photographed before auctioned by Lloyd Hyde (see notes) (HRT)

re-upholstered and sold for $1,400.

one of several folders of loose clippings (HRT)

Austen also began filming ships passing during this time. (HRT)

Simons helped during this time when Austen filed for bankruptcy (see notes.) 

by New Yorker magazine.

(AAH)

(HRT)

Still from 16mm film (see notes) (HRT)

Still from 16mm film (see notes) (HRT)

asking her cousin Rogers Winthrop for help (see notes) (AAH)

showing the beginning of its decay. 

with another vine on tree (HRT)

with grandfather John Haggerty Austen the year before he died. (HRT)

with support, during the time of the Wisteria tea party (HRT)

posing by her beloved wisteria vine (HRT)

containing many objects from the Austen home (AAH)

showing items prices penciled in margin (AAH)

A catty review.

Links from chain forged by Townsend ancestor (see notes) (HRT)

Candlesticks as pictured in the parlor decades earlier. (HRT)

of the Clear Comfort Tea House.

The business closed this year. 

In 1941 the bank foreclosed, and then in 1944 it sold Clear Comfort to the Mandia family. (see notes)

The family that bought Clear Comfort illegally offered it for sale. (AAH)

Photographed by their boarder Dr. Richard Cannon.

showing Austen from 1892 (AAH)

showing Austen’s family and home. (AAH)

showing images as featured in Chapter 3 of this podcast. (AAH)

showing photos described throughout this podcast (AAH)

horribly sensation final page in photo spread (AAH)

with Gertrude Tate, as published in LIFE magazine. Photo © Yale Joel

published in LIFE magazine. photo © Yale Joel

Alfred Eisenstaedt and Oliver Jensen brought Austen back to her home for LIFE magazine article (see notes)

Austen appeared on television, and was celebrated on Alice Austen Day. (AAH)

Austen died 9 months after being celebrated for her photography. (AAH)

Austen’s story was celebrated after her death. She would become recognized for the highs and lows of her final years.

to Oliver Jensen, expressing her devotion to Alice Austen. (AAH)

unpublished photo for LIFE magazine (see notes)

around the time the Mandia family moved out. Unattributed press photo, collection of Pamela Bannos.

© Diana Mara Henry (AAH)

© Diana Mara Henry (AAH)

© Diana Mara Henry (AAH)

Photograph by Pamela Bannos.

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Opening music …

[Narrator]

Theme music …

[Narrator]

During the decade of the ‘teens, when Alice Austen and Gertrude Tate spent their summers traveling through Europe, Alice’s correspondents’ lives’ changed also.

Even earlier, some of them were the victims of illnesses, and war.

Mr. Gregg, once Trude Eccleston’s fiancé, perished in a battlefield of the 1898 Spanish-American War.

In 1899, 28-year-old Effie Emmons Alexander died after a prolonged illness.

And during those first years of the new century, other life altering shifts would unfold.

+++++++

Julia Martin continued at her boarding house venture after recovering from surgery for chronic appendicitis. That same year, she bought a corner property where she moved her business, and in the following year, she bought the adjacent lot. In 1899, a local newspaper reported that Julia, her brother Walton, and their Aunt Adelaide were together in Los Angeles. Apparently, Walton Martin was there to deliver their mother’s sister to Santa Barbara. The 1900 census shows 34-yr-old Julia, her 47-year-old Aunt, and a 40-year-old Chinese cook named Sing who had been with Julia for at least four years.

[Julia Martin]

[Narrator]

And then, the unimaginable.

In my tracing of her whereabouts, the 1905 census locates Julia in the Bloomingdale Hospital for the Insane in White Plains, New York.

When I told this story to a friend of mine, they responded: did she have a family member that was a doctor? And, of course, there was Julia’s brother Walton, the famous New York surgeon who also delivered Aunt Adelaide to California. A newspaper article reported at one point that “of the 535 patients treated for mental diseases in Bloomindale Hospital 419 were committed involuntarily.”

I dug deeper to try to make sense of this and found that Aunt Adelaide was chronically ill with tuberculosis. In early 1902, Julia had petitioned for and was appointed as Adelaide’s legal guardian; soon thereafter, a court order directed a sale of her Aunt’s personal property and this is when it looks like Julia went on some sort of “wild spree,” entertaining at posh restaurants and traveling to resorts. I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but the reports of her excursions occur simultaneously with the legal activities. In the middle of 1903, it was reported that Julia was visiting her father in Albany. She never returned to Santa Barbara.

There is an empty envelope at the Alice Austen House with a May 1904 postmark from White Plains that suddenly and tragically made sense. But I’m heartbroken to not have Julia’s letter to Alice that might shed some light on what happened.

She was still at the Bloomingdale Asylum in the 1910 census; and in 1915; and in 1920.

Her Aunt Adelaide died in 1913 in Santa Barbara. She had a will in which she left the bulk of her sizable estate in trust to Julia. Julia’s brother Walton became Julia’s guardian, and there was also a guardian assigned to Julia’s estate in California who at Adelaide’s death, sold her Santa Barbara house.

By 1925, she had been transferred to another New York asylum called the Long Island Home, in Amityville. Julia Taber Martin died there twelve years later, in 1937, when she was 71 years old.

There’s no other known evidence linking Julia with Alice, but I’d like to think they were still connected. And I shudder to think that Julia’s example contributed to others’ keeping their personal lives in even lower profile. It did dawn on me that maybe Julia was with someone during that extravagant year before she was committed – and maybe it was a woman.

Which brings us back to Daisy Elliott.

+++++++

Ship manifests show Daisy returning to Europe every year from 1900 through 1910. It’s sometimes hard to track who she’s traveling with, but the name Leonie Stamm shows up several times. Stamm was famous in New York for teaching fencing to ultra-wealthy women.

Like Julia Martin, Daisy also has a baffling pivotal event. In 1911, when she was fifty-four years old, and while visiting her family’s ancestral town in England, Daisy Elliott married a man. A widower from Massachusetts, and the father of four grown children, Frederick Fosdick had been the mayor of the town of Fitchburg, having run on the Prohibition Party ticket. Upon her return to the States, Delia Marie Elliott disappeared on the ship manifest, replaced as Mrs. Frederick Fosdick. It was her last time abroad as a married woman and she moved from New York to Fitchburg, Massachusetts. The marriage ended thirteen years later when Mr. Fosdick died. Daisy was 67 years old, and a wealthy widow.

The following year, she got back on a steamship for Europe, traveling with Caroline Lawrence. The same Miss Lawrence with whom she bicycled across the alps in 1897. They would return to Europe together every year for the next eleven years. In 1936, at the time of their last voyage together, Daisy was 79 and Miss Lawrence was 84. Caroline Lawrence died the following year.

[Daisy Elliott]

+++++++

[Narrator]

Julie Bredt and Bessie Strong never married.

Here’s Bessie at age 29:

[Bessie Strong]

[Narrator]

[Bessie Strong]

[Narrator]

Bessie moved out and lived alone, remaining in New Brunswick for the rest of her life. She died in 1952 at the age of 86. Her obituary noted her as having been one of the board members of a local nursing home that pioneered a home environment like today’s assisted living facilities. She was also president of the Visiting Nurses Association, which was active during the First World War. Her yearly president reports are as thorough as her letters to Alice Austen.

I have little doubt that if Elisabeth Briard Strong had been born one or two generations later, she would have been a successful attorney like her father, brothers, and six nephews. And she’d likely have been a successful politician whose name would be familiar today.

+++++++

Speaking of famous people, Julie Bredt is vicariously connected to one.

[Julie Bredt]

[Narrator]

Julie Bredt became a champion golfer. Her name began appearing in newspapers in 1907 and her appearance in golf tournaments continued being reported on through 1938 when she was nearly 70-years-old. Bredt was also a gifted artist. One of her scrapbooks was acquired by the Alice Austen House Museum – found in a Westhampton, New York, bookshop ten years ago.

+++++++

And so now it’s time to return to Violet Ward …

[Violet Ward]

[Narrator]

[Carrie Ward]

[Narrator]

But Violet and Carrie show up in the area newspapers for other reasons, also.

In 1914, a notorious public proceeding shows Violet on the witness stand defending her competency to maintain her estate, which had been put in trust to a bank.

The Ward sisters had taken separate apartments in Manhattan away from Oneata, the family grounds on Staten Island. Violet stayed on the Upper-West side at 86th St. and Carrie moved into the National Arts Club in Gramercy Park. In 1911, Violet moved back to Oneata permanently, and Carrie returned in 1917 after seven years in Gramercy Park.

It was while the sisters were separated that their estate was turned over to a trust – they were reported to have inherited several hundred thousand dollars from various family members – worth more than 6-million dollars today.

In 1913, they had modified the Oneata grounds to include a Montessori school and had started placing ads advertising “a little colony of bungalows” for “university graduates and others of culture” and “board for a limited number in a fine old mansion, use of a tennis court, and use of a 40-ft sailboat and automobile for tenants who “cooperate with up-keep.”

In 1915, the trust company was concerned that Violet would spend beyond her allowance, incurring debts that would complicate the trust. She had just bought a new Model-T Ford.

A newspaper more directly stated that the bankers said that Violet “had delusions, which indicated she was deranged.”

52-year-old Violet was a witness on her own behalf, so it’s anyone’s guess why she thought it was a good idea to tell the story that she did.

I won’t go into too many details, but basically Violet testified that when she was twelve, her father had her married to an army officer because he had to attend to emergency business elsewhere and it would put her in the care of the US government. Beyond that, she explained that her father had them go into a tent, where he left them for two days, apparently to consummate the marriage. Further, she asserted that she had given birth to twins – who had died at birth. When her sister Carrie took the stand, she said that she had never heard this story until four years ago, at which time she told Violet not to repeat it.

A doctor representing the bank testified that after examining Violet, it was his professional opinion that she was suffering from delusional insanity. However, the next day’s newspaper headline stated:

[Newspaper Reporter]

[Narrator]

Violet was declared sane, thoroughly competent, and able to manage her own affairs.

It is not lost on me that at this point in 1915, Julia Martin had been institutionalized for more than ten years, and this may go to show the power of money, if nothing else.

Violet and Carrie remained at Oneata through the end of their years.

Carrie appears to have lived adventurously for the next couple of decades, frequently traveling abroad, and in 1931 embarking on an around the world cruise – at the height of the great depression. She turned 67 during that five-month jaunt. More than thirty years earlier, Violet had written to Alice:

[Violet Ward]

[Narrator]

Athlete, Author, and Inventor Maria Emily Graham McKnight Ward died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1941, just shy of her 78th birthday.

Caroline Constantia Ward died 6-months later of Ovarian Cancer at the age of 76.

Later in 1942, their home and its contents were sold at auction – the 1915 Model T Ford was still in the garage.

In 1949, Wagner College purchased the Oneata grounds.

A student paper titled “Rumors of the Ward House,” explored tales of paranormal activity. The house was sealed in 1983 and was torn down ten years later – the college football stadium now occupies the site, adjacent to the women’s sports field.

+++++++

It was just as Oneata was closed down in the mid-1980s that Clear Comfort re-emerged from its own harrowing spiral.

Which leads us back to Alice Austen.

+++++++

We left off in the first decade of the twentieth century, with Alice and Gertrude Tate’s yearly excursions abroad. These were the best years.

In 1903, in France, Alice and Gertrude appear in a rowboat with Alice standing, steering with one long oar and Gertrude smiling broadly at whoever took the photo. In another picture, taken by Gertrude from her seat, Alice faces her, smiling, while rowing with both oars.

Gertrude is the object of Alice’s gaze, throughout. Here is the great love story of this podcast.

There’s Gertrude Tate sitting at a Parisian café; there she is on a donkey being led on a mountain trail; there’s Alice standing over her on a terrace at morning tea; there she is leaning out a 2nd story window, smiling at Alice, and under a tree amongst a picnic spread; and there she is again in Paris, in a horse drawn carriage, the roof overloaded with steamer trunks – one with EAA, Alice’s initials, stenciled onto it – the carriage door reading in French, ETAT – Tate spelled backwards.

Alice Austen and Gertrude Tate spent three to four months a year traveling overseas throughout the decade. Mid-decade, Austen’s photography was mentioned in a newspaper article titled “Women of Society in Trade,” and she made more quarantine photographs for Dr. Doty – two of which were featured on the front page of the New York Tribune. And Gertrude Tate was teaching dancing classes. But none of this alone would support their lavish vacations.

Gertrude’s family was said to have had and then lost money; Alice had the support of family inheritance. Her mother left her a sizeable estate, and earlier, her grandmother left her all the money she had deposited into banks, the interest of which could provide income. There’s a document in the archive that lists five bank accounts, each with a $3,000 balance – and each showing the collected interest sums.

During the first decade of the 20th century, and well into the nineteen-teens, Gertrude remained living with her mother and younger sister in Brooklyn, even while she spent more and more time with Alice. Gertrude Tate’s sister Winifred was seventeen years younger than her, and it seems that Gertrude was expected to help support their family.

Many years later, Winifred said that her family felt that Alice had absorbed Gertrude. And she said they felt there was “a wrong devotion” on both sides. A wrong devotion. It’s no wonder that these women stayed on Staten Island.

+++++++

In 1910, Uncle Oswald and Aunt Min still lived upstairs at Clear Comfort; and three live-in maids remained in residence.

Oswald Otto Miller died at the end of 1912, just weeks after Alice and Gertrude returned from Germany, Sweden, and Denmark, including a visit to Copenhagen, his birthplace. It would be their last trip abroad for more than ten years.

Alice and Gertrude’s circle of friends had shifted and they were spending time in the company of more wealthy friends – participating in lavish parties and automobile excursions to Long Island and up the Hudson Valley. Alice drove a Franklin automobile, today an obscure brand, but then, a luxury car, made in New York – and she carried her own tools.

Austen continued to copyright her photographs and in 1911, four of her pictures illustrated a newspaper article titled “Makeshift Photography” for a series called “A Page for Misses,” with a photo credit that called her Miss Alice Austen – her photographs showed makeshift ways of doing photography, like tying a camera to a tree and putting it on a pile of books if there was no tripod.

And again in 1912, with five photos of Clear Comfort’s front yard, her work illustrated an article called “The Winter Garden Club for Girls.” These syndicated features appeared in newspapers from New York to San Francisco. That article, which talked about how to form a garden club may have inspired Austen. The following year, she founded the Staten Island Garden Club.

By the mid-nineteen-teens, Alice was crazy for gardening and automobiles, and Gertrude was becoming prominent as a dance instructor who also organized afternoon tea dances, known as The Dansants. In the same newspaper, from one paragraph to the next, Alice was mentioned as hosting the first Garden Club meeting, and then Gertrude’s The Dansant was noted as an upcoming event. The following week she hosted 200 dancers at the Heights Casino in Brooklyn.

The Garden Club expanded to include an antiquarian society. Together, they opened a tea house at the Old Perine House, the Club’s 17th century headquarters. A fundraiser was held to raise money to purchase the house, and it was reported to have been brought to a close by a grand march and butterfly dance led by Miss Gertrude Tate.

They were constantly listed in the society pages as being at all sorts of events.

+++++++

In 1917, Gertrude finally moved into Clear Comfort. She took an upstairs bedroom, down the hall from Auntie Min. There were still two live-in maids. Gertrude was now 45 and Alice, 51. They had been together for nearly twenty years.

They were now spending time with the wealthy Jessie Vanderbilt Simons who threw extravagant costume parties – in which Alice consistently dressed in drag, wearing a van dyke beard.

Just months after that party, World War 1 began and the women went to work. Jessie Simons was active with the Red Cross, and Alice Austen had initiated driving classes. She was later said to have “organized four classes of 100 or more women to study to become ambulance drivers and mechanics” as part of a motor corps that would travel overseas.

Austen had always photographed passing ships from Clear Comfort’s front lawn; her photos from this period show an inventory of war vessels, along with her meticulous notations. One says: “troops & nurses on a transport / passed the house very fast at 1:30. We displayed the flag & they cheered.” There are photographs of Gertrude Tate waving an American flag at passing vessels.

Austen recorded so many ships coming and going that they serve as an extensive record of the time.

+++++++

Auntie Min died in April 1918 at the age of 77.

Minnie Austen Hicks Muller left everything she owned to Alice.

+++++++

In 1920, Alice bought a new Franklin car, and she and Gertrude appeared together in New York’s Social Register.

Her petition to build a landing pier in front of Clear Comfort was denied, but in 1922, Alice was among those who purchased apartments in a new building on Lexington Avenue in New York City. She listed her residence as the Colony Club – a private women’s club. That same year, she and Gertrude and another woman opened a gift shop by the Staten Island ferry terminal.

Things had calmed down a bit as the 1920s were coming to a close, Alice was active with the Garden Club and Gertrude with her dancing activities. Austen hosted what she called a “wisteria tea party” to celebrate the blooming of her beloved wisteria vine that had now wrapped onto the house. She’d photographed it for 40 years; its roots now appeared to be growing down into the house’s cellar. The New York Evening Post reported that the “magnificent wisteria” covered one side of the house and was more than 100 years old. Alice once posed in costume as some sort of wizard standing next to her beloved wisteria vine.

It was now the end of the 1920s and everything was about to change.

+++++++

I’ve been saying from the beginning that Austen was evicted from her home – but I haven’t mentioned that things got so bad that she ended up in the poor house – what was called the New York City Farm Colony.

The rest of this story is a roller coaster ride.

+++++++

There are many versions of the story as to how Alice Austen lost Clear Comfort.

The version that makes the most sense, because it was relayed while she was still alive, states that Alice had hired a financial adviser three years before the 1929 stock market crash, giving over her assets in exchange for ongoing payments of a percentage of its value – this had been going fine until the market crashed.

It seems that the finance man had been borrowing on her funds and lost all of it with the collapse of the market.

In 1931, Austen took out a mortgage on Clear Comfort.

+++++++

All associated papers related to this next horror are part of the Jessie Vanderbilt Simons archive at Duke University.

During that same year, a series of newspaper articles detailed a plan to build a transportation tunnel. The tunnel would emerge at the site of Alice Austen’s house.

In a series of letters from state officials, attorneys, and her title company, Austen is informed that despite her grandmother’s original surveys and deeds, she does not own the riparian rights in front of Clear Comfort. The land extending beyond the shore into the Narrows belonged to the State of New York.

Then, talk changed to plans for a connecting ferry service that would dock at the front of her house. Austen was told that she might be able to buy the water rights to avoid their sale to a ferry company. Alice appealed to her cousin, attorney William Wheelock, Aunt Sarah Ann’s grandson, but he was on holiday in Europe.

The attorney who did sign on to help suggested that she sell Clear Comfort. She would not. The conversations continued through the end of 1931 and included the suggestion that perhaps the house could be moved to another location.

Then the communications come to a complete halt.

I can’t help but think that Jessie Simons had something to do with it since these letters are with her papers.

Ultimately, there would be no tunnel or ferry dock – and the Verrazzano Bridge, which currently joins Brooklyn with Staten Island a-ways south of Clear Comfort was not built until 1959.

+++++++

Alice Austen’s financial troubles deepened and she began selling antiques and furniture.

The 1810-vintage Duncan Phyfe sofa that belonged to her great-grandparents while they lived on the Bowling Green was put up for auction. It brought $1,400 –a huge sum that Austen undoubtedly used to help dig herself out of debt.

Another cousin – Rogers Winthrop, the grandson of her Aunt Mary Austen Townsend – responded to some questions with a letter that began: “I am sorry to say that I have not any good news for you.”

Alice was looking for someone to lend her $5,000 against her home. Winthrop mentioned hearing talk that the house could be used as a tea house or a restaurant and closed with his regrets that he could not help her.

At the end of 1934, the same day that Alice utilized a new bankruptcy clause, filing for an extension on her debts, a bank bought Clear Comfort in foreclosure proceedings.

Inexplicably, two days later, Alice sent Jessie Simons a telegram saying, “Appreciate Kindness Foreclosure Stopped.”

Simons was staying at the Imperial Hotel in Vienna; and although it appears that the foreclosure went through, Alice was allowed to remain rent-free at Clear Comfort, so maybe that was why she thanked Jessie Simons.

+++++++

Alice and Gertrude Tate did end up opening a Tea House at Clear Comfort, serving lunch on the front lawn. In 1937 and in 1941, the New Yorker magazine mentioned it in reviews; as did Vogue Magazine in 1941. The chief attraction was the view from the front lawn.

By this time, Alice was 75 and Gertrude 70.

+++++++

Alice Austen never stopped photographing; and in the 1930s, she had begun making short 16-millimeter films at Clear Comfort. We see ships passing; tables on the front lawn; short clips of her beloved Franklin car; and lots of footage of her cats – and her wisteria vine; and we see Gertrude with her dancing teacher colleagues who came to visit.

In one delightful set of film clips, two smiling men walk Gertrude up Clear Comfort’s front walk, then they walk arm-in-arm with Alice from the same point; then in a reverse cut, each of them walks back, flanked by Alice and Gertrude, all three smiling and laughing.

These men were Lloyd Hyde and his partner Arvid Knudsen, gay antique dealers and interior decorators, both in their thirties. Hyde had auctioned the Duncan Phyfe sofa.

Years later, Gertrude’s sister Winifred offered that Alice and Gertrude had a separate gay life in which they socialized with Lloyd and Arvid, and which they did not share with their Staten Island society circle.

+++++++

Austen started creating a photographic inventory of furniture and objects from the house, setting them outside to photograph them: the antique Hepplewhite Chairs from the dining room set; two silver candlesticks. Objects she would sell for cash.

Two giant links from the legendary chain that a Townsend ancestor’s forge had made, to draw across the Hudson, foiling incoming ships during the Revolution. They had always been mounted to the parlor’s fireplace mantel. She documented the links & then they disappeared with the other things.

As did the Baby Grand Steinway piano.

In 1941, a Fifth Avenue New York auction house advertised a big sale, including items from Austen’s family. The auction catalogue’s cover page announced: Property of Miss E. Alice Austen, Clear Comfort, Staten Island, New York.

The items included Japanese objects and vases from Aunt Minnie’s travels, among other pieces seen in her photographs – Alice penciled the final prices in the page margins of the catalog – they did not fetch enough to make a difference.

Austen also began suffering from a debilitating arthritis that would soon force her into a wheelchair.

+++++++

There are some very sad letters imploring Rogers Winthrop to help her – and he did continue sending small sums of money. But in 1944, the bank trust that owned Clear Comfort sold the house to a local Staten Island family – the Mandias – for $7,500. And the new owners would soon begin eviction proceedings, giving Austen and Tate 90 days to pack up and leave.

In August, someone put up a “For Sale” sign. This turns out to have been illegal and triggered an action to help Alice and Gertrude stay – the new owner had acquired the place with the stipulation they would live in the house.

The Associated Press reported on this in stories that appeared coast-to-coast, with headlines including:

[Newspaper Reporter]

[Narrator]

[Newspaper Reporter]

[Narrator]

+++++++

Within weeks, Alice and Gertrude had taken in two boarders – a husband and wife, he being a medical student – so at least they had some help and company.

Then a storm caused a tree to fall on the house, destroying the porch where Auntie Min had spent her days. The boarders moved out; and then the Mandias decided that they wanted to move into their house. And the eviction process began again – initiating a frenzy of activity.

+++++++

Alice Austen was a classic hoarder. There are oral histories that convey that her bedroom was piled ceiling-high with newspapers. In addition to the antiques and collections gathered by her family over the years, she didn’t throw anything away.

And that is one reason why we have this story to tell.

+++++++

Gertrude and Alice had people helping them empty the house, and members of the Staten Island Historical Society arrived to see what could be of value – discovering photographs and glass plate negatives that they hauled out, box after box.

They worked as fast as they could, because in her haste, Alice had sold the contents of the home to a furniture dealer for $600, and he would soon arrive to empty the rest of the house.

Aspects of the story fall apart here with the byproduct being that thousands of negatives went missing.

+++++++

The women moved into an apartment building called The Wisteria, then when Gertrude could no longer care for Alice, she went to the Mariner’s Family Home that took her in because of Uncle Oswald’s maritime connection.

Gertrude moved in with her sister Winifred in Jackson Heights, Queens, but handled the loan agreement of Alice’s materials to the historical society.

This remaining part of the story, alone, could be its own podcast – so many are the details that I will gloss over.

+++++++

After the Mariner home, and a couple other places, Alice Austen was declared a pauper, and was moved into the New York City Farm Colony – the poorhouse that was located on Staten Island.

As part of the process, Alice had signed everything over to Gertrude. The Historical Society would pay her $50 for the title to all of Austen’s photographs. They had now been sitting in the Society’s basement for five years.

Within days of that transaction, C. Coapes Brinley, a curator there, had begun contacting area museums. The New York Public Library thanked him for the print donation.

Brinley wrote to the George Eastman House, the New York Historical Society, the Library of Congress, and the Museum of the City of New York, asking if they’d be interested in purchasing Alice Austen’s negatives. They were all interested and began a series of correspondences.

Brinley then wrote to every conceivable magazine and New York newspaper, offering them exclusive rights to publish Austen’s 1890s Street Type portraits; leading to another series of correspondences.

And he wrote to the Marine Historical Association and the Smithsonian Institution, inviting them to review Austen’s ship photographs.

+++++++

Around this time, a random occurrence changes the course of the story again.

+++++++

At the end of December 1950, when Alice Austen marked five months in the poor house, a letter arrived at the historical society from a researcher named Constance Foulk.

It began:

[Constance Foulk]

[Narrator]

The book publisher, a photo-editor named Oliver Jensen, picked it up from there.

Jensen recognized Alice Austen’s value – both as a resource for historical photos, as well as her worth as a trail blazing photographer.

It was only after a couple of meetings while he was asking about the people in the photographs that he was told that Austen was still alive and that he could visit her in the poorhouse.

+++++++

Brinley’s communications with museum and magazine people did not lead anywhere.

Nobody was more interested in Austen’s photography than Oliver Jensen, who was well connected and saw her as a cross between Matthew Brady and Grandma Moses – as he says in one of his letters – and he described her as about to burst onto the scene, as a result of his efforts.

Jensen wanted to publish her photographs in his book, which would be called The Revolt of American Women, and he also pitched her story to LIFE magazine, who sent along Alfred Eisenstaedt – the famous journalistic photographer best known for his VJ Day photo of a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square.

Glossing over the struggle between Brinley and Jensen to monetize and divide the proceeds from Austen’s works, the effort was now on getting Alice out of the poor house, which happened in August. She had been there for a year.

Gertrude Tate was ultimately the great negotiator in these efforts – she was there, steadfast, through every twist and turn of the last harrowing decade. And through all of everything from the previous forty years. In the end, Alice Austen’s photographs would be responsible for the relatively happy ending to this story.

+++++++

In September 1951, Austen was celebrated with a photo-feature in LIFE magazine.

There’s Auntie Minn holding one of the family cats, and Alice’s mother in her fancy striped and polka-dot dress; and Uncle Oswald on Clear Comfort’s porch. There’s Julia Martin and Mrs. Snively with Alice in bed. And The Darned Club. And Trude Eccleston with Alice performing their scandalous masked burlesque. There’s Henry Gilman and Julie Bredt playing cards with Alice. And there’s Violet Ward with Daisy Elliott on her bicycle. And of course, there’s Alice Austen perched on top of a fence, poised with her camera, photographing a car race – with Gertrude Tate standing beneath her.

In October, the Staten Island Historical Society proclaimed an Alice Austen Day and hosted a celebration in her honor. LIFE Magazine was there again, and published photos from that occasion in the next couple of weeks. Austen was interviewed on the radio amidst other excitement that unfolded.

She was finally recognized for her groundbreaking photography, and Gertrude Tate was at her side.

+++++++

Elizabeth Alice Austen died in her sleep in June 1952; she was 86.

Gertrude Amelia Tate died ten years later at the age of 91.

In a diagram of the Austen family cemetery plots, Alice had Gertrude positioned alongside her. Alice’s grave remained unmarked for 25 years and Gertrude’s family kept her remains in Brooklyn. It may still be feasible to return them alongside Alice – the space remains available.

+++++++

After Alice and Gertrude left Clear Comfort in 1945, the Mandia family stayed for twenty years.

Subsequently, the house declined.

In 1975, the city of New York took over the property.

The house was rebuilt using Alice Austen’s nineteenth-century photographs as reference. She had documented every part of it, inside and out. Even though it had many permutations throughout the years, it now looked the way it did when she made the work she is now best known for.

As the house returned to its appearance from the 1890s, someone from the Mandia family returned to Clear Comfort with four boxes of letters that had been found in an attic closet.

They had arrived back at the place where they had originally been sent – to the house that again appeared as it had then.

And so now we’ve come full circle, returning to the place where we began.

+++++++

This is a story of home, history, celebration, and reclamation.

Clear Comfort, now known as the Alice Austen House Museum, sits on the bank of the Narrows with a sweeping view of the Manhattan skyline. Dating back to pre-Revolutionary days, this modest cottage remains a sentry to our changing world.

+++++++

The Alice Austen House and grounds are owned by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, operated by the Friends of Alice Austen House, a non-profit organization, and a member of Historic House Trust. The Alice Austen House is a New York City and National Landmark, on the Register of Historic Places and a member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s distinctive group of Historic Artists’ Homes and Studios. In 2017 the designation was updated to become a National site of LGBTQ History.

The Alice Austen House fosters creative expression, explores personal identity, and educates and inspires the public through the interpretation of the photographs, life and historic home of pioneering American photographer, Alice Austen.

+++++++

This audio production was written and produced by me, Pamela Bannos, and was presented in collaboration with the Alice Austen House Museum. The accompanying website, My Dear Alice dot ORG, shows hundreds of photographs and documents that illustrate Austen’s story, as told through her own photographs and the letters that she saved.

+++++++

This episode featured the following voice talent, in their order of appearance: Liv Glassman, Kristen Waagner, Natalie Welber, Sydney Hastings-Smith, Madeleine Bagnall, Maya Slaughter, Charlie Niccolini, and Jennifer Webster.

VOICE TALENT

Cast in the order of appearance:

MUSIC ATTRIBUTION etc.

MUSIC AND SOUND FILES USED IN THIS EPISODE:

Theme music by Nicolas Rosa-Palermo: Interpretation of the 1889 Santiago Waltz (two iterations)

Sheet Music Singer (Fred Feild) by permission:

Musopen website:

Freesound website music:

Incompetech website: (incompetech.com)

Adobe Stock music:

Pamela Bannos:

NOTES ON THE GALLERY IMAGES

In this final chapter of My Dear Alice, we hear of the remaining biographies of the correspondents and we see how Alice’s and Gertrude Tate’s lives play out. We also learn of the demise and resurrection of Clear Comfort, leading to the return of the letters that allowed this story to be told.

Pictured from 1894 are Austen’s married friends, each of whom had two children by that year: Julia Marsh Lord, Effie Emmons Alexander, and Lou Alexander Richards. Also pictured, is Violet Ward at Clear Comfort during a blizzard at the period when she and Austen were spending much time together with their mutual interests.

Listen to the audio or read the transcript to learn of Mr. Gregg, Effie Emmons, Lou Alexander, Daisy Elliott, Bessie Strong, as well as Violet and Carrie Ward and their home Oneata.

The last letter in the collection is from Julia Martin in Santa Barbara, California, in April 1898. But there are some empty envelopes from the regular correspondents, and as they trail off, there’s one dated May 1904 (pictured) from White Plains, New York.

Julia Martin, who wrote the most letters – 87 – continued running her Santa Barbara boarding house. From 1900 through 1903, she thrived, traveling and entertaining in posh restaurants. In 1902, she became her Aunt Adelaide’s guardian, also petitioning to sell her ailing aunt’s personal property. In the middle of 1903, she visited her father in Albany, NY – and she never returned to Santa Barbara. In a jarring realization, the May 1904 White Plains envelope is from Julia Martin. Apparently, at the time of her Albany visit, Julia was committed to the Bloomingdale Hospital for the Insane in White Plains. She remained there until 1925, when she was transferred to another asylum until her death in 1937, at the age of 71. There are more details in the audio and podcast transcript.

Alice Austen and Gertrude Tate also thrived during the first years of the 20th century – and throughout the next two decades. Photographs in the gallery show them in Europe during five separate years. They would travel overseas nearly yearly until 1912, staying 3-4 months each time; and for 5 months in 1909.  View some travel photos from 1909. 

Also, during the new century’s first decade, Austen continued working for Dr. Alvah Doty, the Health Officer at New York’s port. She would copyright nearly 50 of those photographs in 1901, alone. Her quarantine station and related photographs would be published in multiple outlets, including in the New York Tribune and the Medical Record journal. In 1907, she copyrighted 30 more photos, and in June of that year she was recognized in the article, “Women of Society in Trade,” in the New York Tribune.

In a few more years, Austen would publish two syndicated newspaper photo stories (pictured) in a series called A Page for Misses: “Makeshift Photography” and “The Winter Garden Club for Girls.” She would soon be a founder of the Staten Island Garden Club. During this time, Gertrude was active with New York Society of Teachers of Dancing, and then together they would run the tea room at the Stillwell-Perine House, which housed the Antiquarian Society that joined with the garden club.

From 1915: Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Staten Island Garden Club in Picturesque Quarters.

When World War 1 broke out, Alice and Gertrude joined in local efforts. Austen taught women how to drive.

From a syndicated article from April, 1917 (pictured):

In 1918, Austen’s Aunt Min died. Her will stated, in part:

“All the rest, residue and remainder of my property, real and personal and mixed … I hereby give and bequeath, absolutely and in fee, unto my niece, Elizabeth Alice Austen, sometimes known as Elizabeth Alice Austen Munn, it being my express wish that she shall occupy, rent free, the premises upon which I now dwell so long as she may elect so to do or so long as same may continue to be a desirable place of residence.”

Earlier, Alice’s grandmother had included these instructions in her will:

“ … the dwelling house and grounds belonging thereto on Staten Island now occupied by me shall not be sold during the life time of my two daughters or the survivor of them; and so long as it is occupied as a home by any of my family my wish is that no greater rent shall be charged therefor than an amount sufficient to cover the taxes, insurance and ordinary repairs thereon.”

Later, in 1918, Austen was offered considerable sums to sell Clear Comfort. The area was becoming developed and industry and piers began lining Staten Island’s shores.

From Ann Novotny’s 1976 biography, Alice’s World:

WW1 was in full swing during this time, and Alice Austen kept an ongoing extensive inventory of passing ships. Her negative sleeve descriptions were always similarly thorough, but these notations almost imply spying or government work.

June 20:

Her ongoing cataloging of passing ships continued, and in September 1920 she photographed Gertrude Tate and others with flags waving at a passing ship that was returning with the remains of American soldiers (pictured):

“Group watching for the US transport Pocahontas / with col & Mrs Ford / above Major & Mrs Dunsmore & child / Roswall / The col / orderly / Dr & Mrs Thomas & GAT / Sept 7 1920”

During the 1920s, Alice and Gertrude spent time with wealthier friends at parties and automobile excursions. They were often with Gertrude’s Brooklyn friend, Guy Loomis, who they motored with in New York (pictured) and also in Europe. Oral histories tell of close friendships with sisters Faith and Jessie McNamee. Faith Morton died at age 57 in 1928; Jessie Simons and Alice stayed close, with Jessie’s parties and excursions to Ocean City, Rhode Island.

And then in November 1929, the stock market crashed.

From the podcast transcript:

In 1931, Austen took out a mortgage on Clear Comfort.

She also began raising money by selling antiques and furniture from her home, creating a photographic inventory as they went. In 1931, the 1810 Duncan Phyfe sofa that belonged to her great-grandparents was sold at auction (pictured), bringing $1,400. In 1933, the Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired a Chippendale armchair.

Later, a marble bust of great-grandfather David Austen went to the Museum of the City of New York, and painted family portraits were returned to the Staten Island Historical Society. Alice had given these items to her cousin Rogers Winthrop in exchange for monetary help he had been providing her. (Winthrop was her grandfather’s sister’s grandson)

In 1934, Austen lost Clear Comfort in foreclosure proceedings.

Between 1931 and 1934, Jessie Vanderbilt Simons helped Alice through various legal proceedings, including frantic activity around a proposed tunnel from Brooklyn to Staten Island, that would emerge at the site of Clear Comfort. Plans changed to a commercial ferry that would dock at the site of Austen’s house. All correspondences relating to these plans are with the Jessie Vanderbilt Simons papers at Duke University. The last communication is a telegram from Alice to Jessie.

From the podcast transcript:

Jessie Vanderbilt Simons died in London, England, in August 1936. She was 63 years old.

Rogers Winthrop had suggested that Austen could turn Clear Comfort into a restaurant or tea house, which she and Gertrude Tate did around 1937. Pictures in the gallery include an advertising card, images of the tables on the front lawn, and notices from the New Yorker and Vogue magazines.

In Austen biographer Ann Novotny’s notes for her 1976 book, she states that Gertrude Tate was friends with Charles Hanson Towne, who also suggested that the women could serve meals at Clear Comfort. Towne was a poet, writer, and magazine editor, and was known as the ‘quintessential New Yorker.’ His influence may have helped Austen and Tate’s tea room get press.

Gertrude and Alice had many acquaintances through their travels and individual interests, and they befriended a 30-something gay couple, Lloyd Hyde and Arvid Knudsen. Hyde auctioned the Duncan Phyfe sofa, and they both visited Clear Comfort on a day that Alice was filming with her 16mm camera. Stills from that day’s footage are pictured in the gallery. The men were antique dealers and interior decorators. Gertrude’s sister Winifred told Novotny that these men had a gay social life with Austen and Tate.

The seasonal Clear Comfort tea house did not do enough business to sustain itself and seems to have closed at the end of the 1941 season. There are also stories related to concerns about German spies going there to monitor the passing ships.

An excerpt from a sad 1940 letter that Alice Austen wrote to Rogers Winthrop is pictured. She is thanking him for his help and asking for more support, also telling of her arthritis and how the house’s heat was shut off due to non-payment.

She also wrote, “Old age and poverty are very hard to cope with, but I keep trying, & am thankful I am allowed to stay in my dear old home.” The 1940 NY tax photo shows the beginning of the house’s physical decline.

In 1941, Austen sold many family items at a Fifth Avenue New York Auction House. The cover page and a page of auction listings are pictured. Her inventorying of other objects shows silver candlesticks and two links from the legendary chain that had been forged by a Townsend ancestor to draw across the Hudson River to foil incoming ships during the Revolutionary War (both pictured.) The links had always hung on the parlor’s mantle. Austen also sold the Steinway baby grand piano that is detailed in Chapter 6 of this podcast.

In 1944, the bank trust that owned Clear Comfort sold the house for $7,500 to the Mandia family, who initiated eviction proceedings.

The Mandias posted a For Sale sign at the house, which turns out to have been illegal and initiated a series of sympathetic newspaper articles. Austen’s family story was told and she was recognized as an early tennis player, but there was no mention of her being a photographer.

Later in 1944, the women rented part of the house to two boarders: a medical student, Richard Cannon, and his wife. They stayed for 9 months. During that time a hurricane caused a tree to fall and crush the 2nd floor porch where Aunt Minn had spent her days.

In 1945 the eviction process began again and the women began packing up their house.

In her haste, Alice had sold the contents of the house to a New Jersey furniture dealer for $600. Representatives from the Staten Island Historical Society arrived and removed box after box of photographs, negatives, and other items they considered of historic value. In a series of unfortunate occurrences, including storing some of Austen’s items with a neighbor to avoid their removal, 1,000s of negatives went missing.

Alice and Gertrude moved into an apartment at another part of Staten Island.

A note from that time, written by a Historical Society officer, states:

Alice Austen had become wheelchair-bound as a result of severe arthritis, and when Gertrude Tate could no longer care for her, she went to the Mariner’s Family Home. Tate moved in with her sister Winifred in Jackson Heights, Queens.

Listen to the audio or see the transcript for more details between 1945 and 1950.

In 1950, Alice Austen was declared a pauper and was moved into the New York City Farm Colony – the poorhouse that was located on Staten Island.

As part of the process, Alice had signed everything over to Gertrude. The Historical Society paid her $50 for the title to all of Austen’s photographs.

Then the story takes another startling turn.

From the podcast transcript:

The book’s publisher, a photo-editor named Oliver Jensen, picked it up from there.

Jensen wanted to publish her photographs in his book, which would be called The Revolt of American Women, and he also pitched her story to LIFE magazine, who sent along Alfred Eisenstadt – the famous journalistic photographer best known for his VJ Day photo of a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square.

To see LIFE magazine’s collection of 77 Alfred Eisenstaedt photographs of Alice Austen – some of which are quite sad, even appalling – go to https://artsandculture.google.com, and search “Alfred Eisenstaedt’s photographs of Alice Austen.”

Austen would remain in the poor house for one year. Jensen’s sales of her photographs helped transfer her to better accommodations. After the September 1951 LIFE magazine story, the Staten Island Historical Society proclaimed an Alice Austen Day and celebration, and another LIFE photographer documented that event for an October issue.

Alice Austen died in June 1952, nine months after she became recognized for her groundbreaking photography. Gertrude Tate died in 1961.

At Alice’s death, Gertrude wrote to Oliver Jensen (she had worked closely with him over the previous two years):

My dear Mr. Jensen,

+++++++

The Mandia family stayed at Clear Comfort for around 20 years. After that, the house declined. It was declared a national landmark in the 1960s, and then the City of New York bought the entire property in 1975.

From the 1979 structural report:

From 1981-1986, Margaret (Peggy) Riggs Buckwalter served as Executive Director of the Friends of Alice Austen House. During her tenure, she oversaw the restoration of the property, made possible by a $1,050,000 grant obtained from the City’s capital budget through Borough President Anthony R. Gaeta, and began the operation of Austen’s home as a museum through an agreement with the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Restoration began in January 1984, and was completed in April 1985. The museum opened to the public on May 14, 1985.

+++++++

The Alice Austen House Museum also maintains the Ann Novotny archive and materials she gathered for her book Alice’s World, published in 1976. The materials include interview transcripts, photographs, and correspondences, including with Oliver Jensen. The collection also contains copies of letters written beginning in the 1940s by C. Coapes Brinley of the Staten Island Historical Society to museums and magazines, as well as the correspondences from Alice Austen to her cousin Rogers Winthrop (donated by Winthrop’s secretary) among other items. Ann Novotny died in 1982 at the age of 46.

As a result of Ann Novotny and others’ efforts, Austen’s grave was dedicated with a marker and in 1976,  Staten Island’s PS 60 school was renamed Alice Austen School. In 1986, the Alice Austen Staten Island Ferry was launched in Austen’s honor.

+++++++

There are endless other fascinating details and stories that deserve to be told concerning Alice Austen, Clear Comfort,

Image attributions: (HRT) Historic Richmond Town archive; (AAH) Alice Austen House Museum collection.

Pickard’s penny photos studio portrait – at least 4 known copies. (AAH)

Alice’s mother at Clear Comfort’s front path. (HRT)

Katherine Wertz was with the Austens for more than 10 years. (HRT)

Violet & Carrie Ward’s house. (HRT)

Inside Violet & Carrie Ward’s house. (HRT)

Presented in this episode. (AAH)

Julia Martin’s brother’s wife. She writes to Alice in this episode. (AAH)

Martin is with her sister-in-law Amy (left), and the children’s nanny. (HRT)

Relating to Julia Martin’s illness; presented in this episode. (AAH)

A rare note by Austen, found in an envelope with Eleanor Coleman correspondence. (AAH)

A rare note by Austen, found in an envelope from Eleanor Coleman. (AAH)

The final letter in the Alice Austen House letter collection. (AAH)

Taken before her 1899 hair loss. (HRT)

On Clear Comfort’s front porch. (HRT)

Taken before her 1899 hair loss. (AAH)

Alice Cornell Austen stayed here, not far from Twilight Park. (AAH)

Not far from Twilight Park, Austen’s mother stayed here in 1899. (AAH)

Alice Austen’s mother stayed here while everyone else was at Twilight Park. (AAH)

Inscribed to Gertrude Tate by Alice Austen. (AAH)

The earliest known photo of them alone together. (AAH)

Photographed in July by Pamela Bannos.

Alice (seated, left) looks up at Gertrude. (AAH)

A startling and intimate portrait. (AAH)

Gertrude’s hair loss was due to Typhoid Fever. (AAH)

Alice will insert herself into the group alongside Gertrude. (AAH)

After photographing the group, Alice stood alongside Gertrude in the back row. (AAH)

Photographed in July by Pamela Bannos.

Photographed in July by Pamela Bannos.

Gertrude Tate’s mother is at far left. (AAH)

Photographed in July by Pamela Bannos.

An intimate portrait by Alice Austen. (HRT)

Austen photographed the Hoffman Island steerage dormitories in April. (AAH)

Austen photographed the quarantine station for NY’s health officer. (HRT)

Gathering emigrants onto the disinfecting boat. (HRT)

By Dr. Alvah Doty, NY Health Officer, llustrated by Alice Austen.

By Dr. Alvah Doty, NY Health Officer, illustrated by Alice Austen.

At Dingman’s Ferry en route to the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, NY. (HRT)

A rare photo of them alone together. (HRT)

Austen is said to have taken more than 130 4×5 photographs here. (AAH)

Austen hauled 4×5 glass plates and her camera through the exposition. (AAH)

Tate waits for Austen to finish photographing. (HRT)

At the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, NY. (HRT)

Opening music …

[Eleanor Coleman]
My dear Miss Austin:
You have received my telegram and I am so happy to add that Julia still improves.
       If all goes well and the physicians now are very hopeful, she can return to the hospital here in about a month.
Now, if she can only summon strength to rally, as we hope, six months more and she may resume her work.
Of course, her financial condition worries her.
       Why don’t that old uncle do something? I should not have written that, so please do not read it.
Yours very sincerely
Eleanor Coleman

[Narrator]
As the letter collection nears its end, the correspondents’ lives also begin shifting.
Julia Martin was hospitalized for chronic appendicitis as the letters trail off.

Theme music …

[Narrator]
I’m Pamela Bannos, in collaboration with the Alice Austen House Museum, and this is My Dear Alice, a podcast series that explores the life of photographer Alice Austen through her photographs and these letters that were discovered decades after her death. You’ll find images of some of these letters, along with photographs referred to here at the website that accompanies this podcast. That’s My Dear Alice dot ORG.

Chapter Nine:

At the beginning of September 1897, as Daisy Elliott wrote from the train on route from Geneva, Switzerland to Lyon, France…

[Daisy Elliott]
We are passing through a very pretty country now: vineyards on all the hills, and a fragrance reminding one of bees & wild honey.

[Narrator]
She continued her one-sided communication.

[Daisy Elliott]
I wonder where you are today. I look forward to the Autumn days and some good rides with you.

[Narrator]
That was to have been her last letter, but she squeezed in one more to be sure Alice would know of her arrival date:

[Daisy Elliott]
Alice dear –
This is positively my last from this side, for day after tomorrow, I sail for home.
       I got to Paris day before yesterday and have been rushing around ever since. Such looking women and such horrid men! Of course, not all of them, but so many that you can’t forget it.

[Narrator]
She was still sore about Violet Ward, and also something else…

[Daisy Elliott]
I have had a big blow on my arrival here (no, not Violet) – will tell you when I get back.
       I think I may have to cross the ocean without my steamer trunk containing all my warm clothes and rugs! Have just had word it cannot be found! This ill luck is getting positively funny.
       The “Spree” is due in New York Sunday, September 12th.
With love dear, your friend Daisy.

[Narrator]
I admit, it’s a little unsatisfying to not get the full story between all these women. But I’m hoping on her return that Daisy still thought her bad luck to be funny, because Alice seems to have made amends with Violet.

Two days after the Spree arrived at New York’s port, Alice was photographing at Oneata, the Ward’s family estate. She portrayed the lush grounds, including greenhouses and an ice house; she captured a two-horse carriage entering the grand gated entryway; and she shot the house itself, a two-story 18-room mansion covered in vines; and then also, gorgeous interior views, including a tall staircase in a foyer that also included a grandfather clock and a large wooden wall mounted telephone.

I’m still wondering if Alice was at Clear Comfort two days earlier when Daisy’s steamship came up the narrows, or if Daisy peered out, her heart pounding as her ship passed the house, close enough to see chairs on the porch.

Within days, Alice received a thank you note from someone who she had already sent photographs from Twilight Park, which suggests, like before, she immediately processed her plates and began printing upon her return. And she would print duplicates for herself. The Oneata photographs are in an album in the collection of the Staten Island Historical Society, which also holds Violet Ward’s family papers.

So, clearly Austen was busy during those weeks of September after her whirlwind summer – as is also evident from the next letter from Julia Martin, writing from her place in Santa Barbara, California.

[Julia Martin]
Where are you, & why do you not write to me?? It is ages since I have heard from you. I wrote you weeks ago.

[Narrator]
Julia went on at length about the goings on at the boarding house, also mentioning her brother Howard, who was a newspaper journalist, and his family who were all with her and would soon move to Juneau, Alaska. Clearly out of touch with Alice’s goings on, she ended her letter…

[Julia Martin]
How is Violet & her “pal” and how is everyone? And is Trudie engaged yet? I was thinking today that it seems years since I had lived on Staten Island. Life changes one – Give much love to all your family for me & keep lots for yourself.

[Narrator]
By the end of 1897, golf had commanded everyone’s attention and in November the Staten Island Cricket and Baseball club held the first annual women’s golf championship. Alice Austen was among the top ten listed players, along with Violet Ward and some of their other friends.

+++++++

[Narrator]
The remaining letters in the collection are notable for conversations around accidents and illnesses. First, pertaining to something that happened to Alice’s mother on a street in Manhattan. It’s not entirely clear what occurred by way of the notable discretion of the times:
First, Bessie Strong:

[Bessie Strong]
Dear Alice –
       I was so sorry to hear of your mother’s illness. But I hope it is only temporary, and that she will soon be quite restored.
       You were not with her I imagine, from what you say in your letter. Can realize how alarmed you must have been on receiving the news. What was the cause of the illness? Had your mother not been well before?
       Mother sends love and hopes Mrs. Austen will soon be better. Do send us word, just a postal if you have time for no more, for you know we are interested.

[Narrator]
Then, Trude Eccleston:

[Trude Eccleston]
My dear Alice – I am so awfully sorry that your mother is sick – you must be quite worried about her as it is such a new thing for her to be anything but strong and well – You could not have her in a better place on the face of the earth & I hope the Doctors will soon pronounce her quite well again.

[Narrator]
And then later, Julia Martin:

[Julia Martin]
I was so sorry to hear of your mother’s accident. It must be very hard for her not to be able to move around.

[Narrator]
The woman who found her on the street also wrote to Alice.

Notably, Alice was staying in New York City with her elderly Aunt Sarah Ann, her grandfather John Austen’s favorite sister. You may remember the earliest letter from the first episode when she was seventeen:

[Sarah Ann Austen]
New York, April 25, 1833
My Dear Brother – We have just been with you through Venice and all your wanderings, as Pa and myself have just received your letter dated Milan 22nd February.

[Narrator]
Sixty-five years had passed and the whole world was looking different. 82-year-old Sarah Ann lived on Park Avenue in an elegant home that would be in her family for 35 years. She was part of New York’s famed Gilded Age. You may also recall from the first episode that Sarah Ann, her brother John, and sister Mary had all married Townsend siblings. While the Austens receded financially, the Townsends thrived. Mary Austen Townsend’s family were among New York’s famed 400. They had attended the notorious Vanderbilt’s Ball of 1883 – photographs of them from that occasion are in the collection of the Museum of the City of New York. Mary and Sarah Ann had eight children between them, seven of them daughters, six who would outlive their successful husbands – one who never married – all of whom were very wealthy now, at the end of the 19th century. Alice Austen would come to rely on the kindnesses of her grandparents’ extended families.

While Alice was staying on Park Avenue during her mother’s hospital stay, letters were forwarded to her from Aunt Minnie. But two letters, written on the same day were hand delivered to Sarah Ann’s house:

[Daisy Elliott]
My dear Darling,
Your note from the hospital just received, and I am concerned, indeed, for you. I hope you will let me know at once if I can help you in any possible way. I will put anything else aside if I can do something for you or your mother.
       I am very sorry darling – I don’t like any trouble coming to you.
Let me help you and tell me more that I may know just how things stand.
       I will write again today – late. Shall be in town tonight at Miss Lawrence’s. Shall be at the gym all day tomorrow – even at lunch time.
       I think I shall deliver this myself at 77 Park Avenue on the chance of seeing you; but do not expect you to see me if you prefer not.
Lovingly yours, Daisy

[Narrator]
Although Daisy lived in Brooklyn, she was also staying in Manhattan – with Miss Lawrence, her traveling companion – and her letter was written on Berkeley Gymnasium stationary. The Gym had relocated to Carnegie Hall, and Daisy was still its director.

She wrote again:

[Daisy Elliott]
My dear Love,
Can you stand two in one day?
You were perfectly sweet to come to see me today.
My darling, you don’t know what a brick you are. I simply admire what I saw in you today – more still for me to love, and I know now to do that.
       You have enough now to think of, and I won’t allow you to consider me, as you showed today that you did. You have gotten me on my feet. Now I’m the one to look after you.

[Narrator]
The slow-paced Victorian courtship, as evidenced by the four-year correspondence from Henry Gilman who, to the very end, was negotiating visits while still calling Alice Miss Austen – is also apparent in Daisy’s letter.

[Daisy Elliott]
You have made me believe in your love. You never made it more evident than today. And now I am willing to be set aside until you again have time for me. I am so confident of your faithfulness that I am not afraid to wait, for I know you won’t fail me, ever.

[Narrator]
And, of course, Alice had met Gertrude Tate a few months earlier…

[Daisy Elliott]
I cannot help thinking how dear you were today. I wanted to put my arms around you, but am willing not to; but to substitute anything that will help you now –

[Narrator]
And, again, the intensely romantic and ever-tortured Daisy Elliott professes her feelings toward Alice, stopping short in her discretion. The limits of proper Victorian desire are manifest in this very last letter from Daisy Elliott.

+++++++

As the letter collection that was returned to Clear Comfort tapers off in 1898 – the last one received was from Julia Martin in April – the bulk of the letters are in relation to Julia’s alarming hospitalization. First, from one of the Santa Barbara boarding house friends:

[Eleanor Coleman]
My dear Miss Austin;
       Julia wishes me to write to you telling you of her illness. She was so dreadfully weak that I did not dare to ask her how much you knew about it. She has been living and keeping up in will power for months. Of course you know how great a success she has made her house, making it a home in every sense, for all of us wanderers.
       About last September I believe she had the first attack; after then, 3 or 4 of them, her physician handed her over to the hospital and there she had been with really every comfort and in spite of all this had had 3 more, the last attack was really dreadful.
       I felt as if she could not rally, but she has done so and the physicians intend to operate on her Saturday or Monday. They now say it is appendicitis, it has gone on so long I feel intensely worried over the outcome. If she had been permitted she would undoubtedly have sent you a message.
       Poor Julia, she is so brave and so utterly alone way out here, but she has some of good friends too. Your picture is familiar to me and Julia often spoke of you, so I feel as if you were not an utter stranger.
Yours sincerely, Eleanor E Coleman, Santa Barbara.

[Narrator]
Fortuitously, Austen had kept penciled drafts of her responses together in the envelope containing that letter, and she emerges, finally, giving a strident voice to her presence.

First a telegram that would read:
“Letter received, wire result, my expense, give love, anxious, thanks – Alice Austen.”

Then a partial draft of a letter to Julia’s brother, the New York doctor – written on the back of two small 1896 calendar pages – the middle and last page are missing.

The important parts say:
“My dear Walton; today I received a letter from Julia’s friend Mrs. Coleman written at Julia’s request to tell me that she was to be operated on for appendicitis …
       She has mentioned being ill, but her last letter gave me the idea that all danger had passed & I am so shocked at receiving this news today – what are your office hours? I should like very …”

And there the draft ends.

She received a letter back from Dr. Martin, stating that he had received a telegram saying Julia had the appendicitis operation, and that her doctor reported a favorable outlook. Walton Martin told Alice he would notify her if he heard anything else and signed off suggesting that they get together, and also thanking her for her Sunday dinner invitation.

And then Alice heard from Julia’s sister-in-law Amy, who had joined her in Santa Barbara four years earlier..

[Amy Martin]
It is a week and a half since Julia’s operation for appendicitis and she is doing beautifully.
       Her nurse & I took her down to Los Angeles in a car all to ourselves. Of course we moved very slowly over the cobbles & finally we got there. The next morning they had the consultation & the morning following, the operation. She was awfully plucky & only winced just before taking the ether.
       She is making money now, I am thankful to say, if it only will keep up. It is a glorious place – a place to dream in & of and what is more practical, a good place for people who are hard up.
Always yours, Amy Martin

[Narrator]
And then, the final letter in the collection, from Julia Martin

[Julia Martin]
My dear Alice,
       I know you will be glad to hear from me even on this paper, as it is all I have at present & I want to write you while I feel like it.
       Mrs. Coleman has told me about your telegraphing and I have received your kind welcome letters and I cannot begin to tell you how much I appreciate all your interest in me.
       I have given up my house for the summer and shall do everything to get strong and I’m planning to open it in the late autumn.
       …. Sometime you must come & spend the winter with me – now I am tired,
so with lots & lots of love to you all I am
Affectionately, Julia T Martin

[Narrator]
That was April 1898.

We don’t know what happens next, directly, from Julia, Violet, Daisy, Trudie, Bessie Strong, or Julie Bredt, whose last letter was from four years earlier, expressing her condolences in at the death of Alice’s grandfather. Or the others, including Lou Alexander and Effie Emmons – or Aunt Minnie and Alice’s mother. But I did look into all of that and will tell you in these final chapters of this story.

But right now, it’s Alice’s story.

+++++++

At the end of May, she returned to lower Manhattan, photographing in Chinatown on Mott Street and on Mulberry Street, also known as Little Italy. And through the summer, she continued photographing at the Quarantine Station.

There are empty envelopes in the collection showing that Alice received letters from Trude Eccleston while she was summering with her family in the Adirondacks. And then from Bessie Strong, sent to Clear Comfort later in July. And then even the envelopes trail off.

In 1899, Alice returned to Twilight Park with Trude Eccleston. There are multiple copies of small albums of photographs that she compiled in the collection of the Staten Island Historical Society and at the Alice Austen House Museum. The album that remains in her house is inscribed to Gertrude, and says “Twilight Park, Summer of 1899.” Similar to the group photos from 1897, in one of a pair, Alice is behind the camera; in the second, she has squeezed in alongside Gertrude, who stood in the back row. None of the other twelve people left their position. There are also photographs of Gertrude performing another dance, this time with Alice peering up appreciatively at her. Gertrude will be dancing for decades to come.

The photos in the album portray Gertrude wearing a dark curly haired wig. It’s strange to see that when everyone else has long hair pulled back into loose buns. In a striking – and somewhat alarming – diptych on facing pages, Gertrude is seated in profile on a rocking chair out on a rustic veranda. In the second picture her wig is off, revealing her closely cropped hair. She holds out the black wig in front of her, with her other hand positioned so that one finger props her elbow steady for the camera. It is a stunning image that demonstrates trust and intimacy. The only clue as to the circumstances leading to her baldness comes from Gertrude’s younger sister, Winifred, who decades later relayed that she had had Typhoid Fever in 1899, a side effect of which is hair loss.

Gertrude would turn 28 while at Twilight Park, and Alice was now 33. Both of their mothers were also in the area at that time – Alice’s appears seated in a rocking chair at the end of a long elegantly columned veranda. She is bundled up and facing away from the landscape, reading a newspaper. Gertrude’s mother appears in two group photos, wearing the same stern expression as she did in the 1897 photographs.

Trude Eccleston does appear in one group picture, in shadow, where she also seems to be receding to in Alice’s life.

This album, as well as the few photographs that exist of Gertrude Tate from this period have led to the belief that she met Alice Austen in 1899. But her hair length helps reconstruct their earliest time together. In the late summer of 1897, dressed in black mourning for her father, Gertrude had long hair.

But there are several summer photographs of Gertrude with long hair at Clear Comfort with Alice. One in which she’s sitting serenely on a hammock surrounded by a glowing light amidst the vines and plants on the Austen’s piazza; in the others, she’s at the other end of the porch, dressed differently. In two photos, she’s posed in the identical way that Austen photographed Julie Bredt, Trude Eccleston, and herself in 1892, merging her into Alice’s group. She’s wearing a long ruffly summer day dress. And of course in one photograph she dances, kicking up one leg, smiling toward the camera.

It would take a while for Gertrude’s hair to grow back after that late summer of 1899, and she appears again at Staten Island in the following spring, where Alice poses her within Clear Comfort’s parlor in the most evocative of her portraits. Gertrude wears a low-cut black dress with sequined trim; in one photo she sits in profile, facing the light of an open door. In the other, her posture is unnatural, as she leans her head against the tall-back chair gazing directly into the camera. It is an awkward and intimate portrait, probably not meant to be shared. They had now known each other for three years. The nineteenth century had come to a close. It was the spring of 1900, and their lives were joining, even as Gertrude remained living with her mother and sister in Brooklyn.

+++++++

The new century had also started with a wedding announcement. After years of flirtations…

[Trude Eccleston]
I am having two very flourishing flirtations with Dr. Edie & Mr. Gregg. I like the latter better, but I don’t let on I do.

[Narrator]
…and whatever amounted to the Victorian dalliances of a minister’s daughter, in January 1900, Trude Eccleston announced her engagement.
To Charlie Barton.

The same Mr. B who Julia Martin mentioned in 1889, ten years earlier.

[Julia Martin]
Doubtless Misters B & T were with Trudie. I wonder which of the two had the most of her? I bet on Mr. T.

[Narrator]
From the earliest photographs Charlie Barton gazes admiringly at Trudie (who never seemed to have given him the kind of attention he seemed to crave from her)

From 1892:

[Trude Eccleston]
I went over to the fair last night at the New Brighton Tennis Club with Charlie and Ellie Barton. I just made up my mind that if he wished to be useful, I would use him. He was very nice and presented me with a beautiful Japanese teacup & a big bunch of roses.

[Narrator]
They had known each other for nearly their whole lives. Trudie was now 35 years old and Charlie was 42. Their engagement was announced in January, but the wedding wouldn’t be until November.

In September, Alice Austen’s mother died of heart failure. She was 63 years old. Everything was changing.

Alice Austen’s father, who was apparently never spoken of – and who a hundred years after his disappearance seemed impossible to find by Austen’s first biographer, who published the book Alice’s World in 1976. That biographer, Ann Novotny, had hired a British research firm as family lore said Edward Stopford Munn had deserted his young family and returned to England. Six months later, after a lot of legwork, the head of the firm reported that they could find no trace of him there. A lot has changed in research methods, too. A quick search now shows that Alice Austen’s father had moved to Brooklyn where he remained until his death in 1879, when Alice was 13. His father had died two weeks earlier. A nearly indecipherable letter in the collection of the Staten Island Historical Society shows there was ongoing conversation between Munn’s sister and the Austens. Thirteen-year-old Alice was left her father’s share of his father’s estate, in a trust, which would be hers when she turned twenty-one.

By the end of 1900, Alice was living alone in Clear Comfort with her Aunt Minnie and Uncle Oswald, who had made themselves an upstairs apartment with a separate stairway entrance. Alone, that is, except for two maids and a cook, who also had their own upstairs quarters.

Like others of their class, the Austens always had live-in domestic help. Back in 1855, ten people lived in Clear Comfort, including two maids and a cook, same as now, forty-five years later.

Alice’s mother often talked of Katie, whose job included tending for the Austen’s dogs and cats.

From 1889:

[Alice Cornell Austen]
Katie scents the dogs and gets a dreadful lot of fleas off Chico. What she picked off yesterday were the biggest and blackest I had ever seen. Chico has not run away a moment; he stays constantly with your Auntie.

[Narrator]
And also, two years later…

[Alice Cornell Austen]
Katie gave the dogs a bath and they slept for hours after. All the animals are well. Chico sleeps a good deal under my bed where it is dark and cool. Tommy is frightful from wounds and want of hair.

[Narrator]
And five years after that, also mentioning one of the cats…

[Alice Cornell Austen]
We are all well here; Punch gets on better now that it is cool. Katie is devoted to him. It is curious to see Snip watching over him at night.

[Narrator]
Nine years older than Alice, Katherine Wertz was with the family at Clear Comfort for 10 years…

[Alice Cornell Austen]
The beasts are all well, Katie waters the plants with care. Good night my precious one, Your Mama

[Narrator]
Alice Cornell Austen was her daughter’s her greatest admirer. From this point forward, Gertrude Tate would step into that role.

+++++++

In 1901, Alice ramped up her work with Dr. Alvah Doty, photographing the Quarantine Stations and their associated subjects. Dr. Doty was becoming known as America’s gatekeeper; one article would call him the most powerful hold-up man in the world. His work was to stop infectious diseases from entering New York’s port through the steamships that approached from all ends of the world.

It’s worth noting again that Clear Comfort was also in view of every incoming and outgoing vessel. Alice’s grandfather was known to say that his house was the first one on the left as you entered the country. I like to say that everyone whose family came to America through Ellis Island would pass by Clear Comfort as they headed toward the Statue of Liberty – which also arrived by ship, passing by Alice’s house during the summer of 1885 when she was 17 years old and playing her best tennis.

And I mentioned that the Austen family would often wave to their friends as they passed in and out of the narrows on increasingly grand steamships – it may not be a surprise to hear, that Alice Austen also photographed constantly from her front yard. There are hundreds of negatives and photographs in the archive that show sailing ships from the mid 1880s and show the evolution of maritime vessels over the next decades, including WW1 camouflaged warships, and famous ocean liners, including the Lusitania’s departure on its ill-fated last voyage – as noted by Austen on the negative sleeve.

Back to where we left off in 1901, Alice Austen was in and out of the Quarantine’s disinfecting rooms, ferrying to Hoffman and Swinburne Islands to photograph laboratories and the dormitories where sick immigrants would be detained. She carried heavy photographic equipment – including 8×10-inch glass plates that weighed a pound each – making of photographs from February through May. In three separate batches, she applied for the copyright of 46 images, sending 92 prints – two of each picture – as part of the process.

Dr. Doty was preparing a display on for the upcoming World’s Fair known as the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, and he would be exhibiting Austen’s photographs. The exposition opened at the end of May and in June, Collier’s Magazine featured twelve of Austen’s photographs in Alvah Doty’s article about the Quarantine station. In October, near the end of the exposition, he would win a gold medal for his display.

During that summer, Alice and Gertrude Tate went to the exposition together, with Alice carrying trunks full of photography equipment. They stopped at Dingman’s Ferry in Pennsylvania where they were photographed together in a two-seated carriage, Alice handling the horse’s reins. Austen was said to have shot more than 130 4×5-inch glass plate negatives at the fair, where tripods were forbidden; and it’s anybody’s guess how she dragged around that heavy equipment. There’s a photograph of Gertrude seated at a bench in the Japanese pavilion, flipping through a book. It would be the first of many excursions with Alice and her camera.

In demonstrating another activity seized with a passion, back on Staten Island, Alice’s Aunt Nellie’s 17-yr-old daughter Lysbet wrote in her diary that in September 1901 she went sailing every day with Cousin Loll and Miss Tate. There’s no doubt that Alice was the navigator and captain of the vessel.

For the next decade, Gertrude Tate would accompany Alice Austen on nearly yearly excursions abroad. Austen’s photographs show them in England, France, Scotland, Germany, and Holland in 1903, alone. And by 1912, they had added Hungary, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Spain, and Morocco. They slowed down in the following decade, with Gertrude teaching dancing classes, and Alice turning her attention to gardening and automobiles.

And then things began changing for the worse.

+++++++

In the next and final chapter, we learn about how each of the correspondents lives play out, Alice and Gertrude’s rollercoaster final years, and the evolution of Clear Comfort, from the eviction through today.

+++++++

This episode featured the following voice talent in their order of appearance: Ella Stevens, Kristen Waagner, Liv Glassman, Natalie Welber, Rachel Hilbert, Casey Wangman, Jennifer Webster, and Reute Butler.

Sound editor: Kendall Barron. Original music by Nicolas Rosa-Palermo and me, Pamela Bannos. Other music from Adobe Stock, Incompetech, MuseOpen, and other attributed sources. Links are at the website that accompanies this podcast. That’s My Dear Alice dot ORG.

VOICE TALENT

Cast in the order of appearance:
Eleanor Coleman: ELLA STEVENS
Daisy Elliott: KRISTEN WAAGNER
Julia Martin: LIV GLASSMAN
Bessie Strong: NATALIE WELBER
Trude Eccleston: RACHEL HILBERT
Sarah Ann Austen: CASEY WANGMAN
Amy Martin: JENNIFER WEBSTER
Alice Cornell Austen: REUTE BUTLER

Voices in the introduction (in order):
Ella Stevens
Maya Slaughter
Ella Stevens
Kylie Boyd
Natalie Welber
Graham Goodwin
Madeleine Bagnall
Efren Ponce
Cristina Bragalone
Reute Butler
Ella Stevens
Benjamine Jouras
Kristen Waagner

MUSIC ATTRIBUTION etc.

MUSIC FILES USED IN THIS EPISODE:

Theme music by Nicolas Rosa-Palermo: Interpretation of the 1889 Santiago Waltz 

Musopen website:
1835: Frederic Chopin, Waltz in B minor, Op. 69 no. 2, played by Olga Gurevich.
(licensed under Creative Commons Public Domain Mark 1.0 license)

Incompetech website:
(incompetech.com)
Kevin MacLeod, “Sheep May Safely Graze – BWV 208” 
Kevin MacLeod, “Waltz (Tchaikovsky Op. 40)” 
(both licensed under CC Attribution 4.0 License)

Freesound website:
Herman Ruzh – Shostakovich second waltz on guitar (licensed under CC Attribution 0 license)

Adobe Stock:
Lily’s Dance, Audio standard license, via Adobe Stock
First Snow Valse, Audio standard license, via Adobe Stock

Pamela Bannos:
Flute & String Waltz – opening music

NOTES ON THE GALLERY IMAGES

This chapter presents the final letters from the Alice Austen House collection. The last one was delivered in April 1898, from Julia Martin, who wrote the most letters in the collection – there are 87 of them.

This podcast series includes excerpts from around 180 letters in telling Alice Austen’s story.

As the letter collection draws to a close, Alice meets Gertrude Tate and the story changes as they begin their life together.

The episode begins with Daisy Elliott’s final letters from her bicycle tour of the Alps in September 1897. One of those letters is presented here.

Also in September, Austen photographs Oneata, Violet and Carrie Ward’s house and estate grounds. Those images are in an album at the Historic Richmond Town Archive (the Staten Island Historical Society.) They include exterior and interior photos of the house, as well as the surrounding grounds. Here is a negative showing their ice house.

The remaining letters in the collection are notable for conversations around accidents and illnesses.

First, Alice’s mother, Alice Cornell Austen, collapsed on a New York street. Alice received letters that never specifically mention what happened, or why she was hospitalized. Alice was staying at 77 Park Avenue with her elderly Aunt Sarah Ann Austen Townsend. Daisy Elliott hand delivers two letters there. Elliott is still the director of the Berkeley Gymnasium and her letter shows that the gym has relocated to Carnegie Hall.

Then, there’s a series of correspondences regarding Julia Martin’s hospitalization in California due to chronic appendicitis. Austen left penciled drafts of a telegram and a letter inside the envelope containing a letter from Eleanor Coleman. Those items are pictured. It is the first time Austen’s words become part of the story.

The last letter comes from Julia Martin, who is hospitalized in Los Angeles.

There are very few negatives left from mid-1897 through the end of 1899. The pictures that remain are largely in photo albums at the Historic Richmond Town Archive and at the Alice Austen House Museum.

There are multiple albums that show Twilight Park in the summer of 1899. The one at the Alice Austen House is inscribed to Gertrude Tate. Images from that album are presented here.

Alice Austen’s mother stayed at the Catskills Mountain House during the summer of 1899. The receipt is also pictured.

Austen photographed Gertrude Tate between 1897 and 1899, when she appears in a curly-haired wig because of hair loss due to Typhoid Fever. Those images are identified by her long hair, which would take a couple of years to grow long again.

The remaining negatives and photographs through mid-1901 include images of the quarantine stations at Hoffman and Swinburn Islands, the James W. Wadsworth disinfecting steamboat, and the Clear Comfort house and grounds.

In 1901, Alice and Gertrude went to the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, NY. Austen is said to have taken around 130 photographs there. I believe the images of them at Dingman’s Ferry were taken en route to that World’s Fair. One horse carriage photo is identified as being loaded with photographic equipment.

In this photograph, Alice is at the reins of a carriage at the High Falls Hotel. Then proprietor, Dr. P.F. Fulmer, stands under his sign.

There is a photograph of Gertrude Tate thumbing through a book at the Japanese pavilion. It would be an early photo demonstrating what it must have been like to travel with Alice and her camera.

Quarantine photos from circa 1900:
James W. Wadsworth disinfecting boat, shot on 8×10″ glass plate.
Charles F. Allen quarantine boat, shot on 8×10″ glass plate.
Hoffman Island dormitory.
Metal bunk beds in dormitory.
From 1901:
Two pages of images on Historic Richmond Town Archive website.

There is an unattributed Alice Austen negative on the Library of Congress website. It is likely a photograph she sent there as part of the copyright registration process.

Photographs of the Pan-American Exposition are included in the 38 photographs from 1901, as presented on the Historic Richmond Town Archive website.

Travel images from 1903:
At a train station in Holland.
Carriage in front of Regents Hotel, England.

Image attributions: (HRT) Historic Richmond Town archive; (AAH) Alice Austen House Museum collection.

Demonstrating how to carry a bicycle. (HRT)

On the set for Bicycling for Ladies book illustrations. (HRT)

Posing with their wheels. (HRT)

Demonstrating coasting. (HRT)

Alice accompanied Violet & her father, as referenced in a letter in this episode. (AAH)

Front page New York Times, November 13, 1898.

Written over 10 days on the steamship. (AAH)

The German ship from which Daisy wrote Alice during the 10-day voyage.

Demonstrating the proximity to passing vessels. (HRT)

Written from the Tyrolean mountains in Austria. (HRT)

Sent to Alice around the time she met Gertrude Tate. (AAH)

First letter, as read in this episode. (AAH)

Forwarded from Clear Comfort to Twilight Park. (AAH)

Gertrude Tate (far left) next to Trude Eccleston. Tate’s mother, back, right, in black. (AAH)

Earliest known image of them together – Alice squeezed in alongside Gertrude. (AAH)

Same location as Austen’s portrait of Tate. (HRT)

Viewing the Hudson Valley from a perch on a Catskill Mountain. (see notes) (HRT)

Part of a photo album sequence. (AAH)

Part of a photo album sequence. (AAH)

Animated sequence of nine photographs. (AAH)

Group including Trude Eccleston at the cottage where they stayed. (HRT)

Gertrude Tate center, in profile, dressed in black – Twilight Park. (HRT)

Photograph by Pamela Bannos.

Writing about their new friend, Gertrude Tate. (AAH)

Alice Austen at left. Group at Twilight Park. (HRT)

Engraving on postal card.

View of the Hudson Valley. Photograph by Pamela Bannos.

Twilight Park postcard.

Twilight Park. Photograph by Pamela Bannos.

Near Twilight Park. Photograph by Pamela Bannos.

View from lookout. Photograph by Pamela Bannos.

July 2022 photograph by Pamela Bannos.

Dripping rocks near the Santa Clara Waterfall. Photograph by Pamela Bannos.

Photograph by Pamela Bannos.

View of the Hudson Valley from Twilight Park. Photograph by Pamela Bannos.

Opening music …

[Daisy Elliott]

Theme music …

[Narrator]

Chapter 8:

During the busy year of 1896, after Alice Austen finished making two series of photographs specifically for publication – one as a collection of mounted prints, and the other to illustrate articles that Violet Ward wrote for Harper’s Weekly and Scientific Monthly magazine, she kept traveling and photographing.

Austen’s Street Types of New York were published in Albertype, a process also known as photogravure, a hybrid of photography and printmaking that allows for many duplicates. It is unknown how many of Austen’s Street Type sets were published, but the portfolio is in the collection of the Museum of the City of New York, the George Eastman House in Rochester, and other museum collections, including two sets at the Alice Austen House Museum, and a beat up set at the University of Miami as part of Ralph Munroe’s archive.

On January 2nd, 1897, Austen received a letter from Adolph Wittemann, on letterhead that identified him as the …

[Adolph Witteman]

[Narrator]

In the summer of 1891, Austen photographed a series showing the Bayhead Life Saving Station crew in action – The Albertype company had earlier published a similar set of images in their Atlantic City view book. In 1892, she made a set of photos of Boston, and also Harvard on its Class Day, including a portrait of a young man in his dormitory room – there are letters in the collection that show the conversation leading to that photo shoot. The Albertype company also published around two-dozen college photo books. By that time, the company was also making promotional booklets for factories.

Which brings us back to Austen’s 1892 New Brunswick factory visits, when she was staying with her Aunt Nellie, who would write after her visit…

[Nellie Austen]

[Narrator]

[Adolph Witteman]

[Narrator]

Austen photographed her first “street type” in March 1894, eight months after her Chicago trip, and she refined her approach until settling on the distance and framing that was consistent two years later in her published set of images. In comparison with the theatrical (and racist) character studies in the Chicago publication, Austen’s subjects feel authentic in their representation. Her direct on-the-street portraits were unique for that time, giving a glimpse of street life and also demonstrating her rapport with her subjects. Still, it’s not clear what her intention was in compiling, copyrighting, and publishing the portfolio at the end of 1896.

Adolph Wittemann’s letter was an offer for Alice to work for him.

[Adolph Wittemann]

[Narrator]

+++++++

As we enter 1897, evidence of Alice Austen’s activities is slim. She was in New Brunswick, New Jersey, at the end of January, visiting Bessie Strong – her Uncle Pete and Aunt Nellie had moved to Brooklyn. After teaching chemistry at Rutgers University for 14 years, Peter Austen was now a popular public lecturer and teacher at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute.

The next letter from 1897 is a Valentine – and it is the only Valentine note in the collection – not counting Henry Gilman’s from 1893:

[Henry K. Gilman]

[Narrator]

[Daisy Elliott]

[Narrator]

In April, Violet invited Alice to join her to see the parade leading to the dedication of Grant’s Tomb in Manhattan. Violet’s father had been a Civil War General and had been friends with Grant. Her last sentence reads cryptically…

[Violet Ward]

[Narrator]

[Alice Cornell Austen]

[Narrator]

[Alice Cornell Austen]

[Narrator]

[Daisy Elliott]

[Narrator]

[Daisy Elliott]

[Narrator]

[Daisy Elliott]

[Narrator]

[Daisy Elliott]

[Narrator]

[Daisy Elliott]

[Narrator]

[Daisy Elliott]

[Narrator]

[Daisy Elliott]

[Narrator]

[Daisy Elliott]

[Narrator]

[Daisy Elliott]

[Narrator]

[Daisy Elliott]

2pm Saturday –

[Narrator]

[Daisy Elliott]

[Narrator]

[Daisy Elliott]

[Narrator]

[Daisy Elliott]

[Narrator]

Daisy was traveling with Caroline Lawrence, one of the women pictured with her when Alice photographed at the Berkeley Gymnasium. They had traveled together before and would continue to for many years. Daisy only ever refers to her as Miss Lawrence.

[Daisy Elliott]

[Narrator]

[Daisy Elliott]

[Narrator]

[Daisy Elliott]

[Narrator]

[Trude Eccleston]

[Narrator]

[Trude Eccleston]

[Narrator]

It’s striking how the rain is disrupting everyone’s summer plans.

[Daisy Elliott]

[Narrator]

[Daisy Elliott]

[Narrator]

[Daisy Elliott]

[Narrator]

[Daisy Elliott]

[Narrator]

[Alice Cornell Austen]

[Narrator]

[Alice Cornell Austen]

[Narrator]

[Daisy Elliott]

[Narrator]

[Daisy Elliott]

[Narrator]

[Daisy Elliott]

[Narrator]

[Daisy Elliott]

[Narrator]

[Daisy Elliott]

[Narrator]

[Violet Ward]

[Narrator]

Alice had not received a letter from Daisy since her first days at Haines Falls, and would not receive Daisy’s subsequent six letters until she returned to Clear Comfort at the end of August.

Alice had been photographing small groups on their various outings. Gertrude Tate is recognizable in the photos because, like her Mother and ten-year-old sister, she is wearing black in mourning for her father who had died in February.

Gertrude loved to dance, and Alice photographed her in a series of eight pictures doing some sort of free-form jig. Alice was clearly charmed. And in one stunning photograph on another day, Gertrude stands in profile, alone at a precipice, looking out over the distant valley below.

Sometime around when that scene occurred, and weeks after Alice’s letter, Daisy wrote:

[Daisy Elliott]

[Narrator]

[Daisy Elliott]

[Narrator]

[Trude Eccleston]

[Narrator]

[Trude Eccleston]

[Narrator]

+++++++

[Narrator]

[Julia Martin]

[Narrator]

+++++++

[Narrator]

Sound editor: Kendall Barron

VOICE TALENT

Cast in the order of appearance:

Voices in the introduction (in order):

MUSIC ATTRIBUTION etc.

MUSIC FILES USED IN THIS EPISODE:

Theme music by Nicolas Rosa-Palermo: Interpretation of the 1889 Santiago Waltz 

Musopen website:

Freesound website music:

Adobe Stock:

NOTES ON THE GALLERY IMAGES

In this chapter, Daisy Elliott invites Alice Austen to “read between the lines” of her correspondence, and Austen meets Gertrude Tate, who will become the love of her life.

Daisy bicycles across the Alps, writing Alice more than a dozen letters, beginning on her steamship voyage. The lag in delivery intersects with Austen’s Twilight Park visit, and the letters pile up at Clear Comfort as Gertrude Tate enters Alice Austen’s life, changing it irrevocably.

Daisy’s letters include allusions to a rift between her and Violet Ward. Daisy had posed for Alice for Violet’s book, Bicycling for Ladies. All three women were active in their bicycling ventures. Violet and Alice spearheaded the Staten Island Bicycle Club, and Daisy was an avid bicyclist whose activities are highlighted in this episode.

In April 1897, Alice accompanied Violet Ward and her father General William G. Ward, to the dedication of Grant’s tomb in New York City. General Ward had been friends with Grant. Austen took a small roll film camera and put the prints into an album. The negatives seem to be missing, along with many others from this year.

All of the 1897 photographs pictured here are prints that are missing their negatives.

The Twilight Park seated group portraits portray, among others, Charles Wingate, the founder of the Park. He is seated with a long pipe. 

The portrait of Gertrude Tate at the overlook was taken at the nearby Catskills Mountain House.

I visited Twilight Park in July 2022 and am grateful for the permission I was granted to explore the grounds. It is now a community of homeowners.

Visit their website to see more photos and its history.

Image attributions: (HRT) Historic Richmond Town archive; (AAH) Alice Austen House Museum collection; (NYPL) New York Public Library.

Austen spent time traveling and collaborating with Violet Ward in 1895 & 1896. (AAH)

Austen’s friend Julia Marsh Lord had a bowling alley in her home. (HRT)

Martin visited from Santa Barbara, CA, with her nephew Kingsley. (HRT)

Envelope from Santa Barbara, CA, with torn corner stamp removal. AAH)

Letter from Julia Martin with torn center from envelope stamp removal. (AAH)

Item from Julia Martin’s Santa Barbara boarding house. (AAH)

On the set for the Bicycling for Ladies book photos. (HRT)

Book cover of the original edition – re-issued in 2021.

The bicycle is propped as Elliott holds her pose on the wrong way to turn. (HRT)

One of very few images that was not heavily retouched.

Staten Island Bicycle Club’s clubhouse on the day of the Ride & Tea. 

A photo in one of Austen’s photo albums. (HRT)

Glass plate envelope with Austen’s meticulous notations. (AAH)

Drawn over illustration of Daisy Elliott. 

Austen poses with her new bicycle. 

Letter from Daisy Elliott. (AAH)

Original caption, “Wheeling From the Peg — Showing Distribution of Weight” (HRT)

An early Austen street photograph. (HRT)

The complete list of Street Types from the portfolio album. (AAH)

A photogravure print from the portfolio. (AAH)

Photograph of a Street Type image donated in 1950 to the New York Public Library (see notes) (NYPL)

A print in the collection of the New York Public Library (see notes) (NYPL)

An image also included in the Street Types portfolio. (see notes) (NYPL)

At 30th Street. From the Street Types portfolio – a photogravure print. (AAH)

Photograph in the collection of the New York Public Library (NYPL)

Austen’s only side view portraits seem to be of large-bellied policemen. (NYPL)

Austen’s only side view portraits seem to be of large-bellied policemen. (NYPL)

Photograph in the collection of the New York Public Library (see notes) (NYPL)

Alice Austen copyrighted photographs of the disinfecting boat and her New York street portraits. 

A room in the Quarantine Station. (HRT)

One of many photographs Austen shot of the NY Quarantine Station. (HRT)

Austen collaborated with Violet Ward on two articles about New York’s quarantine facilities.

Austen made these photos for articles that Violet Ward wrote (see notes) (AAH)

Violet Ward wrote the article to accompany Alice Austen’s photos. 

Opening music …

[Violet Ward]
Chapter 10: Difficulties to Overcome.
       The first thing to do after learning the theory of starting and stopping the machine is to make it go. No matter what happens, keep it going, the faster the better, until a taste is acquired for the pastime; until the going forward forever idea seems to have taken possession of you.
       Then you want to try it again, but mounting seems more difficult than ever. The machine will not do anything it ought to do; it bucks and kicks and stops and spills and slips, and will not stand still, or even move on. You know how to mount, or think you know; but that knowledge does not seem to aid materially in overcoming the tendencies of the machine.
Now be sure that you do know what to do. The first thing to know is that the weight placed on the pedal starts the machine; that the foot on the ground will hold the machine, and keep it from starting; that the machine when in motion will move without falling, and when at rest will not stand still unless held up.

Theme Music …

[Narrator]
That was Violet Ward and an excerpt from her book Bicycling for Ladies.

I’m Pamela Bannos in collaboration with the Alice Austen House Museum, and this is My Dear Alice.

Chapter 7:

By the end of 1894, Alice and her friends were approaching 30, and their individual trajectories were taking form. A few of them settled into married lives, immediately having babies. Childhood friends Julia Marsh and Lou Alexander, already born into comfortable families, married wealthy businessmen. Julia stayed on Staten Island and became popular among her friends for parties at her home’s bowling alley. Lou moved to Boston where Alice would visit and photograph her opulent home and young family. Two other friends, Effie Emmons and Julia Martin moved further away. Effie married Lou Alexander’s brother Junius, and they moved to Washington State, where he was one of the founders of a wilderness town called Sedro, 75 miles north of Seattle, where Effie mostly stayed. Each of these married women had a two-year-old in 1894.

Julia Martin also left Staten Island but for different reasons. I’ve mentioned that Julia wrote the most letters remaining in the archive – there are 87 of them. She’s been writing all along as we’ve followed Alice through the 1880s until this point. Her letters, sent from Albany, Schenectady, and Bennington, Vermont, show her as displaced, particularly after her father lost their Staten Island home, which itself was a source of gossip in Alice’s circle:

[Alice Cornell Austen]
Miss Edwards told your Auntie that Mr. Martin had not bought the house from Mrs. Easton but had leased it for ten years, which is now expiring, and Mrs. E has come over to look after it. She has been seen on the Island with her husband the count. If this is so, the Martins cannot receive the rent, for the place is Mrs. Easton’s. What a snarl it is.

[Narrator]
In another letter, Alice’s mother followed up:

[Alice Cornell Austen]
I believe your Auntie wrote that Howard Martin and Amy were staying with I.K. I feel sorry for them, turned out of their pretty house, hard luck all round. Trudie must be glad she threw Howard over.

[Narrator]
That Trude Eccleston really got around – this is the first reference that she and Julia’s brother, Howard, had once been an item.
Julia Martin left Staten Island for Albany, where she ended up working for the elderly Mrs. Cooper.
Effie Emmons Alexander wrote:

[Effie Emmons Alexander]
Poor Julia Martin I feel very sorry for her, I hope she will be happy in this place she’s got; she never was happy at home so, perhaps she will be now.

[Narrator]
Julia had written Alice all the details, which I’ve largely skipped over until now because except for their summer together in Bennington, Vermont, it mostly veered away from Alice’s story. But this intertwined circle of friends also shows the culture and times in a way that is not particularly accessible through history books. I, for one, was surprised at all the moving and traveling among this tight group – especially in juxtaposition with the Austen family who stayed at Clear Comfort for three generations.

At the end of 1891, Julia wrote Alice:

[Julia Martin]
I came to Mrs Cooper’s on Monday & she is as sweet and kind as ever, and I realize how thankful I should be to have such a home.
       The days fly by. Every morning we got out shopping and do not get in till dinner time, after which I read aloud or help Mrs Cooper with anything, then I go out to make calls or to teas etc., so that my mornings & evenings are mostly engaged, but my afternoons are free.
       At first when I thought this is my home, no shipping off to Alice Austen’s or to other parts of the earth surface, I felt a little shaky, but I am alright now, and one certainly must be away from one’s friends to appreciate them.

[Narrator]
Five months later, in April, she wrote:

[Julia Martin]
On the whole, I have had a pleasant Winter, but I think I am in the habit of staying here a month & there a month, that I feel one place for six months – is it not rather a long stretch?
How I should like to see you, Alice. There is so much I should have to say.

[Narrator]
Then in May:

[Julia Martin]
Dear Alice,
       It is baking hot and I have put on most of my summer underwear, and yet feels 100 in the shade. As the summer comes on, I long to have a glimpse of Staten Island and all my friends, but I fear I am destined for Bennington till next November, with the exception of a week or so in Albany.

[Narrator]
And then, a few weeks later:

[Julia Martin]
If I ever left Mrs. Cooper, it should be on the plea of beginning something which should be my life work, which would be true. I feel that if I live with Mrs. C for five years and then she dies, and I am 30 years old, and each year now will be harder for me to begin any work.

[Narrator]
And then a couple of weeks after that:

[Julia Martin]
Yesterday, Mrs. Snively and I had such a nice talk. She told me that her mother would feel awfully to have me leave her, etc. etc., and she says that next winter she will see that I have some part of everyday for my own, so that I feel much encouraged, and have made up my mind, if possible, to live with Mrs. Cooper as long as she lives.

[Narrator]
Then, October:

[Julia Martin]
Well, Alice, you will not see me this autumn, after all, for Mrs. Cooper and I are going to stay here until January, and Mrs. Snively all winter.
       What do you think of that? Am I sorry? I do not know. On the whole, I do not think I am, although I suppose there will be many long dreary days, but it will make the winter shorter in all this, and next month is beautiful here.

[Narrator]
Julia Martin is the only correspondent who ponders life in her letters – it seems to be because her trajectory is uncertain. In early 1894, two years after her comment about staying on with Mrs. Cooper, the elderly woman and her daughter Mrs. Snively wintered in Santa Barbara, California. And when Julia sent Alice condolences for her grandfather in May, she announced her departure to join them.

[Julia Martin]
Life to me is one great mystery of uncertainty. One minute we are here, the next away.
       I feel this because my life is so varied. What do you think, now I expect to go to Santa Barbara probably next week, for the summer. I found a telegram awaiting my arrival from Troy on Friday morning asking me if I would come “expenses paid,” “terms as before” & this was the first I knew that they were not coming home.
       So, I thought I should go, & off I am. Am I glad? Yes, very. The trip will be delightful & it is always education to go to new places & of course I am glad to see Mrs. Snively – but Alice, I feel it is a very long way to go all alone away from all my friends & the few who are very dear to me & I somehow feel it will be longer than the summer.
       I feel it is the best thing to do for lots & lots of reasons & I am wild with delight, and blue as blue can be – if you can understand that mixture of feeling, and so death & change come so quickly we never know where we are.

[Narrator]
Two months later, her life changed again – she wrote from Santa Barbara:

[Julia Martin]
You really would not know me; I can hold my own so well and have to do it all the time too. Now that I am here, I want to stay, if possible, through next summer till the following October, but do not know if I can work it.
       If you can keep something, I will tell you a scheme of mine – I have written for Amy & the children to come out here & help me keep a boarding house & am of course anxiously awaiting an answer. It is not as wild an idea as you may think & I believe there is money in it. Would it not be odd if I should end up by living at this end of the earth?
I feel as if but for you, I never care to see Staten Island again.

[Narrator]
A couple of weeks later, the boarding house idea took hold:

[Julia Martin]
Well Alice, I do believe I am to make this far distant place my home for a few years at least. In my last letter to you I spoke of opening a boarding house & have now about decided to do it. Amy and the children are coming out to me the end of October & together we will either make our fortune or go bankrupt.

[Narrator]
During the first week of August, Julia explained some of why she decided to embark on this venture.

[Julia Martin]
Well, now for the questions. First, how did I get the idea.
I do not know if I wrote you that Walton came to Albany the day before I left & we talked all day & most of the night & I discovered that what I feared was only too true. Back to old tricks, no business & no money & naturally no prospect of any.
       Walton seemed to think things were hopeless and when he said goodbye, told me to stay out here if possible. On the train, the idea came to me that there must be lots of winter visitors coming & going, & so I determined to see what I could do.

[Narrator]
Julia’s brother Walton was a physician living in Manhattan, he was soon to begin a decades-long illustrative surgical practice – and he would become Teddy Roosevelt’s personal physician in Roosevelt’s final years. His medical practice may be important for later history here. At this point in the story, Julia called for sister-in-law Amy to come out with her young son and 2-yr-old daughter – she was having trouble in her marriage with Julia’s other brother, Howard. And she described the house and grounds, which provide a striking glimpse into this California town in 1894:

[Julia Martin]
There are pleasant grounds around the house – two acres, perhaps – with palm trees, fruit, and rose bushes; and I hope to be able to get in a single tennis court on the side of the house.
       A piazza runs halfway around, from which you get glimpses of the ocean as you do from many of the bedrooms. The horse cars run in front of the house every twenty minutes, down through the shopping part of the town & on to the beach, to the bathhouses.
       So, you see, we have everything in locality that could be desired …

[Narrator]
Julia and Alice set up an “every other week” letter writing scheme, which contributes to her letter volume. She wrote long detailed descriptions of her house, her staff, and the house guests, filling in between with her thoughts on failure and success.

And so now we’ve caught up with Julia Martin through the end of 1894, when she wrote of the letter she’d received from Trude Eccleston:

[Julia Martin]
She wrote me all Staten Island had gone “mad” over bicycling and she should have to go mad, too.
       You all must be having a great time & lots of fun out of it. Give my love to Violet when you see her & remember me to her “pal.”

[Narrator]
And… we’re back to Alice, Violet Ward, and Daisy Elliott.

By autumn 1894 and all through 1895, everyone within Alice’s circle was wild about bicycling.

Alice and Violet organized a bicycle club and in mid-June 1895 hosted a late-afternoon Bicycle Run followed by a Tea. They rode around for an hour and then returned to their club house, a large building near today’s St. George terminal of the Staten Island Ferry.

Alice photographed the gathering, showing a group of about 20 men and women at the starting line. The women’s skirts are down to their ankles. They’re all wearing gloves and fancy hats, some which have veils covering their entire head to stop bugs from hitting them. The men all wear knickers and short-billed caps or straw boaters.

The following month, Alice applied for membership to Manhattan’s Michaux Cycle Club – the exclusive club for the legendary New York 400 – elite society people – the club had formed 6 months earlier and it was frequently reported on in the New York area press. It’s large indoor track, which allowed for winter riding sometimes had orchestral accompaniment, and of course associated bicycle tea parties.

During all of this bicycle-mania, Alice was photographing Daisy Elliot for Violet’s book. In at least three photo sessions – judging by Daisy’s different outfits – she posed outside against a cloth backdrop demonstrating various mounting techniques, showing how to carry the bicycle; and illustrating the right and wrong way to lean when turning, among other useful details, and including repair instructions. In most of the photos the bike, which was referred to as a “wheel” was propped with objects to keep it upright. All of the background, and including Daisy’s likeness, would be re-drawn for publication. Daisy was a member of the Cycle Club of Brooklyn, where she lived.

By the end of July, some sort of conflict had occurred between Daisy and Alice, and as she was leaving for what seems to be her yearly European holiday, Daisy wrote to Alice on Staten Island’s Bicycle Club’s stationary:

[Daisy Elliott]
My dear Alice: –
Instead of going to see you this morning, as I had hoped, I shall have to write – the horse has gone to the blacksmiths, & I am sorry not to see you again before I sail. My coming back seems so far off.
       I hope you are having, and are going to have, a happy Summer. Some time I hope we can again have good times together. As I told Violet the other day; I love you, and should anything happen to her, you should be the first one I should turn to.
       I know I have given you no reason to believe this, and it is a constant regret, and I hate to go away feeling that I have put this between us.
I thought of you a great deal while I was away and would like to have written to you. I wish you would write to me; I don’t want to lose you, dear, as a friend, and when I get back after a two month’s change, I hope I shall be stronger and better.
       Take care of my Violet for me. And for her sake, try to like me better; and sometime, I hope it will be for mine – because I have made you.
Good-bye, Alice; Your friend, Daisy M. Elliott

[Narrator]
Unlike some of the other letters, Daisy’s handwriting is distinct and largely legible, but I’m stuck in trying to understand what she means when she tells Alice that she has “made” her. And Daisy’s close relationship with Violet is also not clearly stated but seems to indicate what decades later we might call a “special friend” or as Julia Martin put the word “pal” in quotes. Daisy and Violet were obviously queer, as we would say today.

Alice wrote to Daisy in London, England, at the address she provided and in a couple of weeks, Daisy returned her letter from France, arriving in Staten Island a month after she left. Of all the women’s letters in the archive, Daisy’s are the most expressive and articulate.

[Daisy Elliott]
       Alice dear, it is Sunday afternoon and as I sit here at the window overlooking the pretty town & bay, it seems almost as if I had gone back to Italy and was looking over the bay of Naples. It is very beautiful, and I am enjoying so much.
       My thoughts have been way over the water today, even more than usual; perhaps your letter and one from Violet which came last night together, have taken possession of me; for I certainly feel decided longings in that direction.
But my time is going very fast, and in a few weeks this trip will be over. You have no idea how almost ideal it has been. Everything seems to have favored us; the weather, the roads, the country, and all. We keep saying over and over “oh isn’t it lovely.”
       Since we landed in France, we have had a good deal of fun. To begin with, we failed to draw enough money to carry us through easily to the next place where we could get any. And our scheming and planning to pull through on little has been amusing.
       Ask Violet to tell you how we got locked in the room & had to cut out!

[Narrator]
Her letter continued a few days later from Paris:

[Daisy Elliott]
       We have anchored here for a few days before we finally tear ourselves away from France and get back to London. We have had such a good time. As yet, I have had not much chance to see bicyclers here, but the few I have seen wore “pants.”
       This is a dull letter and hardly worth sending, but it does take my love to you, which to me is something. A month from the day we shall be sailing toward home!
Your friend, Daisy M. Elliot

[Narrator]
During the first week of September, Alice and Violet attended the Richmond County Fair & Horse show. There were bicycle races & Violet won prizes with her carriage horses named Flashlight and Pussywillow.

In May of 1896, Violet’s book, Bicycling for Ladies was released by Brentano’s publishing house. The book contained twenty-two chapters, starting with:

[Violet Ward]
Chapter 1: Possibilities.
Bicycling is a modern sport, offering infinite variety and opportunity. As an exercise, at present unparalleled…

[Narrator]
And included an assortment of topics from the basic:

[Violet Ward]
Chapter 4: For Beginners.
Mount and away! How easy it seems. To the novice it is not as easy as it looks …

[Narrator]
To the mechanical nuances of riding:

[Violet Ward]
Chapter 8: The Art of Wheeling a Bicycle.
There are three very important methods of controlling the bicycle, namely, steering by the hands, guiding by foot-pressure on the pedals, and guiding by the swaying of the body; and these methods may be used separately or in combination.

[Narrator]
A chapter on difficulties:

[Violet Ward]
Chapter 10: Difficulties to Overcome.
There is the mounting difficulty and the steering difficulty and the pedaling difficulty; and then there is the general difficulty of doing all these things together.

[Narrator]
And of course how to dress:

[Violet Ward]
Chapter 11: Dress.
The matter of dress for bicycling is quite important from the hygienic standpoint.
       Clothing should be most carefully selected, with the view to an equal distribution of weight and an even thickness of material; it should have no constricting no tight bands anywhere, but should permit of absolute freedom of movement and be warm enough …

[Narrator]
In between were chapters titled, “What the Bicycle Does,” “Position and Power,” “Women and Tools,” “Solving a Problem,” and then finally, Chapter 22: “Breathlessness and The Limit Mechanical.”

The first notice of Violet’s published book appeared while Alice was in the middle of her big photo project that she would also publish. Continuing with her collection of what she called “Street Types,” Austen exposed more than two dozen glass plates in New York City from March through June, hauling her heavy camera equipment throughout the city. Each photograph named for the subject’s occupation, they stretched from a pretzel vender at the South Ferry to a Postman at 56th Street and Madison Avenue. Her subjects were portrayed from a distance that include the street and background as they stood facing the camera, or as in the case of several large-bellied policemen, in profile. A photo of a man posing at his horse-drawn Cab at Union Square shows Brentano’s book store behind him. That corner at 31 Union Square West at 16th Street and the three adjoining plots were the lots where Alice’s great-grandfather had built four homes for his daughters and her grandfather back in the late-1830s, and where her mother’s family lived for 15 years until moving to Staten Island. A lot had changed in Manhattan.
As a further side note, the famous 19th-century portrait photographer Napoleon Sarony had his studio in the building at what was the family’s the last adjoining lot at 37 Union Square, and 33 Union Square became famous in the 20th century as the location of Andy Warhol’s factory.

Alice Austen would copyright 32 of her street portraits and she published twelve mounted prints as a collection in a ribbon tied portfolio with the words Street Types of New York on the cover. In the corner of each print appear the words “Copyright 1896 by E A Austen.” She was clearly aware of her worth as a photographer.

In April, as Alice was beginning this project, the bicycling season started and an exasperating series of events surrounding the bicycle clubhouse made it into the New York Tribune. Titled “In a State of Siege,” the newspaper article began:

[Newspaper reporter]
“The young women of the Staten Island Bicycle club, whose members mingle in the most fashionable society on the island, are locked out of their clubhouse..” “as the result of a fight for possession between the ex-janitor of the club, and Miss Violet Ward and Miss Alice Austen, the founders and leading spirits of the organization.”

[Narrator]
The article went on to describe the tug of war between this ex-janitor and Violet and Alice, both of whom claimed they owned the lease to the clubhouse, and ended with the suggestion that there would be legal proceedings to settle the dispute.

During all of these busy days, Alice was receiving multiple letters from Julia Martin who was telling of her travails at her Santa Barbara boarding house, along with what she described as alarming news about Mrs. Snively. In September 1895, Mrs. Snively had divorced her minister husband – a scandalous story that made it into the newspapers, even though they were separated and he was living in Chicago – and of which Julia gave details in her letters to Alice. And now, two months later, she wrote:

[Julia Martin]
Yes, I am just as fond of Mrs Snively as ever, although I do not see so much of her as I did. I think she is going to marry a boy-husband & it makes me wild. He is a youth of 25, with not enough money to support himself & not her equal in position or interest, or in any other way. It is a very sad thing.

[Narrator]
Unbeknownst to Julia at this time, 38-year-old Mrs. Snively was pregnant by this young man. In the beginning of April, Julia wrote that they had returned from their honeymoon trip.

By this time, Alice was immersed in her occupational street photographs, and then the aggravation of being locked out of the bicycle clubhouse – and Julia was suggesting a visit to Staten Island. She would arrive in July with her 9-yr-old nephew Kingsley. That same month Mrs. Snively had a baby girl. Earlier, Mrs. Snively’s mother Mrs. Cooper had returned to Albany, and in March 1896, she died there. Julia’s life was changing fast. Her brother Howard, his wife Amy and their children were with her, but in a few months, Mrs. Snively would depart with her family for Canada, leaving this story completely.

Alice stopped photographing in the streets of Manhattan in June and as preparing to publish the work as a portfolio, Julia arrived at Clear Comfort with her nephew, staying with the Austens for around a week. Alice made photographs of herself with both of them in front of Clear Comfort. On July 15th, Julia was on the train back to California. She sent Alice a postcard while en route – written in pencil, the handwriting is shaky from the jostling train.

Two days later, Alice began a new photography project, again working with Violet Ward, kind of like their collaboration on the bicycling book. And similarly, it seems that they had ideas for publication from the start.

Austen had photographed the quarantine station just south of Clear Comfort as commissioned work for the Health Officer of New York’s port. But this 1896 set of photographs depicts a newly converted steamboat that was serving as a “floating disinfecting plant.” Austen shot at least two dozen plates depicting the various features of the boat’s facilities, and Violet wrote the first of what would be two articles utilizing Alice’s photographs. The first article appeared in Harper’s Weekly magazine a week after she shot the last set of photographs. Titled, “Quarantine’s Helpmate in New York Harbor – a floating disinfecting plant – from photographs by EA Austen.” The six published photographs showed exterior and interior views and included views of the sterilizing oven and the Sulphur furnace. Alice registered for the copyright of eight photographs.

Days after publication, Alice joined Trude Eccleston’s family at Lake Mohonk where she’d stay for ten days before continuing on to Kingston, Ontario, in Canada, where she would photograph army barracks, street markets, and the family she was staying with. Violet was summering in Cazenovia, New York, while taking care of her ailing father. She wrote Alice several short letters that followed her from Lake Mohonk to Canada. It’s funny that being a skilled and prolific writer that all of Violet’s letters are just short notes, and some of them are near impossible to understand because of missing context. And in the only letter from Violet’s sister Carrie, it is equally cryptic:

[Carrie Ward]
Papa seems all right – Vi is in fair shape – but must be in better before returning or there will be squalls – The kid is in charge at the home & not having too east a time I fear – I consider it V’s fault not mine, to have obviated it.
       I would have had to disbelieve her, a kind of chuck up of rudeness.
It is quite cold here – charming & cordial – I don’t know much else yet –
       Write me here Linklaen House – I am in too much of a hurry to think up what happened before I left & I have owed you this a long while –
Affectionately, Carrie Ward

[Narrator]
A few days later, Violet wrote:

[Violet Ward]
Carrie is better, much better. The house seems to get along, somehow, from Daisy’s account. And we are quietly happy here.
       Write me your plans and how and what you are up to.
With love. Violet
P.S. Harper’s check arrived all right.

[Narrator]
After the Harper’s Weekly article, they reworked the piece and submitted it to Popular Science Monthly magazine, which published it in January 1897. The article was ten pages long, written more technically, and illustrated with the eight photos that Alice had copyrighted.

Unlike the Bicycling for Ladies book, Austen received credit for her photographs in Harper’s. They were, after all, the basis of the article, acknowledged as “from photographs by E.A. Austen” using the common misspelling of Austen with an “I,” which has led to difficulty in finding evidence of Austen’s work. In the longer Popular Science Monthly article, Violet’s byline was M.E. Ward. Austen did not get credit for her eight copyrighted photographs.

Jessie Tarbox Beals, who is often credited as being the first female news photographer would not begin publishing for two more years. A better comparison to Alice Austen might be Frances Benjamin Johnston, who was two years older than Alice and lived a more privileged life. Growing up in Washington DC, she was said to have been given her first camera by George Eastman of Kodak fame. Like Austen, she photographed herself dressed as a man – two years earlier than Alice did; and like Austen, she belonged to her local Camera Club. But unlike Alice, she spent two years in Paris studying art, and then wrote and illustrated her own articles. By 1893, she was photographing inside the White House.

In 1896, as Alice Austen was working on her quarantine photos and New York street types, Frances Benjamin Johnston photographed herself and titled the image Self Portrait as New Woman: she posed with a cigarette, a beer stein, and her leg crossed to show her white undergarment and black stockings – all elements in Austen’s earlier photographs. Like Austen, Johnston had an intimate relationship with another woman.
Alice would be several years ahead of her at that.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

A lot had happened in 1896, and in comparison, there are very few remaining photographs from 1897 and 1898, which also corresponds with the ending of the letter collection – for whatever the reason.

What does change in 1897, 1898, and beyond, are the associations between all the players, as well as their individual trajectories.

+++++++

In the next chapter Daisy Elliott’s attention shifts from Violet to Alice as she travels to Europe to bicycle across the Alps:

[Daisy Elliott]
Alice dear,
Why aren’t you here! It is simply heavenly – such perfect days and such a beautiful sea. Those who are sick so far would be so if ashore, at the mere thought of water.
       I have thought of you and of how you would enjoy it; yet how you would fume because the ocean didn’t show how bad it could be.

+++++++

[Narrator]
This episode featured the following voice talent in their order of appearance:
Madeleine Bagnall, Reute Butler, Maya Slaughter, Liv Glassman, Kristen Waagner, and Tom Bannos.

Sound editor: Kendall Barron
Original music by Nicolas Rosa-Palermo and me, Pamela Bannos.
Other music from public domain and attributed sources – links are in the website that accompanies this podcast, where you’ll also find images of some of the letters and photographs that are referred to in each episode. That’s My Dear Alice dot ORG.

VOICE TALENT

Cast in the order of appearance:
Violet Ward: MADELEINE BAGNALL
Alice Cornell Austen: REUTE BUTLER
Effie Emmons: MAYA SLAUGHTER
Julia Martin: LIV GLASSMAN
Daisy Elliott: KRISTEN WAAGNER 
Carrie Ward: MAYA SLAUGHTER
Reporter: TOM BANNOS

Voices in the introduction (in order):
Ella Stevens
Maya Slaughter
Ella Stevens
Kylie Boyd
Natalie Welber
Graham Goodwin
Madeleine Bagnall
Efren Ponce
Cristina Bragalone
Reute Butler
Ella Stevens
Benjamine Jouras
Kristen Waagner

MUSIC ATTRIBUTION etc.

MUSIC FILES USED IN THIS EPISODE:

Theme music by Nicolas Rosa-Palermo: Interpretation of the 1889 Santiago Waltz 

The Edwardian Pianist (Adam Ramet) by permission:
1880s: Allan Macbeth, Forget Me Not intermezzo.
1881: G.D. Wilson, Moonlight on the Hudson. 
1882: Georges Lamothe, Dreaming. Waltz on Milton Wellings’ song.
The Edwardian Pianist’s YouTube Channel

Musopen website:
1835: Frederic Chopin, Waltz in A flat major ‘Farewell,’ Op. 60 No. 1, played by Olga Gurevich. (licensed under Creative Commons Public Domain Mark 1.0 license)

Incompetech website:
Kevin MacLeod, “Sheep May Safely Graze – BWV 208” (incompetech.com)
(licensed under CC Attribution 4.0 License)

Kevin MacLeod, “Waltz (Tschikovsky Op. 40)” (incompetech.com)
(licensed under CC Attribution 4.0 License)

Adobe Stock music:
Happy Orchestral Ballet (Bicycling for Ladies music)  Audio standard license, via Adobe Stock

In this chapter we catch up with Julia Martin, who wrote the most letters that are in the collection – there are 87 of them. Martin is the only correspondent who ponders life in her letters. She was working for the elderly Mrs. Cooper, who lived in Albany, NY, and in Bennington, Vermont. Martin would follow Mrs. Cooper and her daughter Mrs. Snively to Santa Barbara, California, where she would open a boarding house in 1894.

July 1896: Julia, Kingsley & Alice at Clear Comfort

1895 and 1896 were busy professional years for Alice Austen. She collaborated with Violet Ward on magazine articles and on Ward’s book, Bicycling for Ladies. And she continued her New York street photography, compiling a selection into a portfolio called Street Types of New York. She would copyright more than 30 photographs, sending twice as many prints to the Library of Congress as part of the process.

Alice Austen spent a lot of time with Violet Ward in the mid-1890s. They traveled together on a canal trip in 1894; organized a bicycle club in 1895; Austen photographed subjects for Ward’s 1896 Bicycling for Ladies book; and they collaborated on articles about New York’s quarantine station, published in 1896 & 1897.

June 25, 1895: Bicycle Club event & tea

Violet Ward’s Bicycling for Ladies was published by Brentano’s books in 1896. Daisy Elliott posed for Austen to illustrate various aspects of riding. The photos were heavily drawn over for publication.
Bicycling for Ladies was reissued in 2021.

Austen was very busy photographing in the summer of 1896. She compiled twelve of her New York street photographs into a portfolio she titled, Street Types of New York. The prints were published by the Albertype company and were made in photogravure, a hybrid print/photo process. It is unknown how many copies were made of the portfolio, but the Alice Austen House Museum has two copies with covers of different color ink, suggesting that there was more than one printing.

April 18, 1895: Egg stand group
April 13, 1896: News boy & girl
May 9, 1896: Organ grinder & wife
June 2, 1896: bicycle messenger
June 12, 1896: Street sweeper with helmet
June 13, 1896: Policeman 5th Ave & 14th St
October 1, 1896: Mounted policeman
October 30, 1896: Rag pickers & loaded carts

Austen made many more street photographs than were printed for the portfolio. In 1950, a curator at the Staten Island Historical Society donated 69 small photographs to the New York Public Library, which was collecting photos of New York. The story is part of Chapter 10, when we learn of the aftermath of Austen’s 1945 eviction from Clear Comfort.

You can see the Alice Austen photographs in the New York Public Library collection HERE.
Romana Javitz Collection, Transferred from the Picture Collection 1991
Sample of individual image:
The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. “Policeman.” New York Public Library Digital Collections.

Also in the summer of 1896, Austen and Violet Ward collaborated on magazine articles about New York’s quarantine station and a steamship that had been converted to a disinfecting station.

July 23, 1896: mattress in disinfecting station

More links forthcoming …

Image attributions: (HRT) Historic Richmond Town archive; (AAH) Alice Austen House Museum collection.

Violet and Alice posed for two portraits in their matching outfits. (HRT)

Ward is holding her new Kombi camera that shot 1 1/8″ square negatives. Alice’s 4×5″ glass plate camera is alongside her. (HRT)

Austen and Ward changed their clothes to make this portrait the same day as the portrait of them wearing their bicycle outfits. They traveled together in September. (HRT)

One of Austen’s earliest New York street photographs that would lead to her Street Types project. (HRT)

Isabella C. King’s letter, as presented in this episode (see notes) (AAH)

Showing the commemorative stamp from the Columbian Exposition. (AAH)

Oswald Otto Miller (or Muller) captained this ship & Aunt Min often sailed with him. (see notes)

Uncle Oswald holds the long cable release, squeezing the bulb to take the photograph. (AAH)

A young Alice Austen sits with her grandfather, aunt, and her pug, Punch. Photograph by Uncle Oswald. (HRT)

Alice (left) with Julie Bredt and 2 men, including Trude Eccleston’s brother John, at right. (see notes) (HRT)

The piano which may be referenced in the newspaper article as presented in this episode. (HRT)

The piano referenced in letters in this episode. Alice was very particular in her questions before purchasing this piano. (HRT)

Frederic E. Jones letter as presented in this episode (see notes) (AAH)

Another view of the middle parlor, also showing the Duncan Phyfe sofa. (see notes) (HRT)

The brightness and clarity in this photo is the result of an 11 1/2 minute exposure, as indicated on Alice Austen’s negative sleeve. (HRT)

Brightness and clarity as a result of a  7 1/2 minute exposure, as indicated on Austen’s negatives sleeve. Alice shared this room with her mother. (HRT)

Another view of Alice’s room that she shared with her mother. (HRT)

View of the parlor showing the 1835 painting of Alice Cornell Townsend, as presented in Chapter 1. (HRT)

Alice’s mother stand in front of Clear Comfort. (HRT)

Alice’s 80-year-old grandfather, who bought Clear Comfort in 1844. (HRT)

Alice’s mother sits in the bedroom she shared with Alice. (HRT)

View showing the piano moved as more furniture was added to the room. (HRT)

An unusual view of the house’s porch. (HRT)

80-year-old John Haggerty Austen (1811-1894). (HRT)

Alice’s grandfather and Julia Martin sit on the piazza. (HRT)

Alice’s friends wrote at the death of her grandfather, John Haggerty Austen. (AAH)

Alice’s grandfather views the ships in the narrows, two days after her 22nd birthday. (AAH)

A view of the property showing the lush grounds. (HRT)

Alice & Violet Ward went on a canal trip that ended here, at Annapolis, Maryland. (see notes) (HRT)

Photographed after the canal trip with Violet Ward. (see notes) (HRT)

1896 notice for the publication of Violet Ward’s book – as presented in Chapter 7.

Violet Ward’s book, as presented in Chapter 7, with an introduction at the end of this episode.

Opening music …

[Alice Cornell Austen]
My dearest Lollie,
       You wrote a very interesting letter that I received yesterday, that was a wonderful dream of yours; indeed, would it only come true. Your auntie has just bought a dream book. I must look it over about goats.
       Well, on Monday I went to Mrs. Hoods and left my dress. She finds she will have ripped the skirt apart entirely. It is too short on the sides. The back seam puckered, etc. She will charge. $1.00 for doing it. I shall be thankful to have anything.
       Your auntie has had a bad toothache and has gone twice to Doctor Smith. He is going to kill the nerve. She seems to like the little man.
I suppose any letters for you must have come straight for nothing has got here.
       There is great excitement in New York over the failure of the Equitable Mortgage Co., liabilities $16,000,000.
       Our vines were dreadfully whipped by the last storm. Bert Butler told the Captain that the reason there were no young men at Lake George is that this year none of them have any money to go anywhere. Frank Cuthbertson just back from Saratoga says there is no crowd there, and hotels are losing heavily.
       My dearest I shall be so glad to see you on Wednesday.
       Your Mama

Theme Music …

[Narrator]
I’m Pamela Bannos in collaboration with the Alice Austen House Museum, and this is My Dear Alice, a podcast series that explores the life of photographer Alice Austen through her photographs and these letters that were discovered decades after her death. You’ll find images of some of these letters, along with photographs referred to here at the website that accompanies this podcast. That’s My Dear Alice dot ORG.

Chapter 6

After Henry Gilman’s death, right before Christmas of 1893, his presence disappears from the letter collection, and he is never spoken of again. And other than Alice’s mother’s letter’s brief mention, there is no reference to the nation’s or New York City’s economic troubles. One resource says that New York’s unemployment rate was near 35%. And although history shows that America was in a depression from 1893 through 1897, there is no evidence of strife in the letters that came to Alice at Clear Comfort. But Austen’s photographs do take a shift.

Bessie Strong reported that Alice’s photographs of the Chicago Columbian Exposition were on display in a New Brunswick, New Jersey, bookshop, and they also drew the interest of a small group of women who lived near Washington Square in Manhattan. At the end of 1893, Austen had registered for the copyright of 25 of her Chicago photographs. A few months later a Miss Isabella King placed an extensive order for herself and her friends:

[Isabella C. King]
My dear Miss Austen. I have the following orders for some of your delightful photographs of the Fair.
Mrs. King wants
Nos. 2.7.8.9.10.24. soft finish like engraving & unmounted.
Miss Page wishes
Nos. 5.9.7.17.24. mounted & engraving finish (I do not know which you call it
technically) …

[Narrator]
This is the only reference in the archive that shows the extent and variety of printing that Austen did with the specific intention to sell her photos. These were all copyrighted photographs.

[Isabella C. King]
Miss Fanny Norris wishes
Nos. 7.9.10. unmounted & the same finish as Miss Page’s
I wish
Nos. 2.7.10.14. unmounted engraving finish &
Nos. 8 & 9 solid paper unmounted
Will you send me word how much they all come to & I will send over a cheque for the full amount. If you would specify each account it would be a great help to me in collecting from the others.
Miss Page’s address is
Miss Manuela Page,
Care Sir William Lane Booker,
Brevoort House, New York.
Then, Miss Fanny Norris,
30 Washington Sq. West.
Mrs King’s can be sent with mine to my address.
Very sincerely yours.
Isabella C. King
7 University Place

[Narrator]
A couple of weeks later, and a first for her, Austen became a New York Street photographer, wandering through lower Manhattan, photographing what she would eventually call “Street Types.”

Loaded up with 4×5 glass plates and a bulky camera – some say up to 50 pounds of equipment, she ferried over from Staten Island and sought out workers who plied their wares and services on the street: a knife sharpener, a flower seller, bootblacks at their shoeshine stands, a newspaper boy – meticulously annotating the plates’ envelopes that show she was at it for two hours.

She will continue with this work for several years, also visiting lower Manhattan, photographing Eastern European immigrants at street markets and other itinerant workers who would pose for her camera.

Austen’s friends’ families were wealthier than her own, and other than seasonal enterprises, her women friends mostly did not work. As this group of friends approached the age of 30, except for the few who had married, they each still lived in their family home. In 1894, Clear Comfort, Alice’s home, housed six members of her extended family, including her now elderly grandfather, John Hagerty Austen, who purchased the property fifty years earlier.

In a shrewd business move, in 1850, six years after that original purchase and just months before Austen’s family auction business filed for bankruptcy, the title to Clear Comfort was turned over in trust to his wife, Alice Austen’s grandmother and her namesake. This protected the real estate from any business creditors. It was a smart move also because another of John’s businesses went bankrupt in 1868. This did not prevent him from his yearly European holidays, but that following July, on the day he was leaving Paris for Switzerland, he wrote:

[John Haggerty Austen]
I have spent money here only for clothes, photographs & stereoscopes. In this last I have a full collection. I made it a point to obtain them of every object that has pleased me. There is nothing in my judgment so well worth the money.

[Narrator]
Alice was 3 years old that summer, and it may be no wonder that her interest in photography took hold. Incidentally, John Austen repeatedly referred to stereographs as stereoscopes in his letters. A stereograph presents two photos side-by-side, that when viewed through a stereoscope creates a 3-dimensional image – a sort of Victorian virtual reality experience.

By the time Alice Austen’s grandmother drew up her will in 1884 (she died 3 years later), more real estate had been bought and sold in her name. Her Will explicitly stated that Clear Comfort would stay in the family, naming Alice as the ultimate benefactor. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

In 1894, the same year she began photographing workers in Manhattan, and just months before John Austen’s death at age 83, Alice got interested in buying a piano. This gives us the opportunity to explore more aspects of this unique family and appreciate the nearly comical seriousness to her endeavor.

An 1860s vintage Steinway upright piano appears in a photograph of Clear Comfort’s parlor in 1887, but it’s gone in later pictures. An 1875 newspaper article references Alice’s Auntie Min and Uncle Oswald Miller and what sure sounds like this piano on an extraordinary voyage around the world:

[Reporter]
There is now lying in the port of New York the American ship Agra, in connection with which vessel there is an eventful history of an American piano. The vessel was owned by Captain Miller, who sailed her, and the companion of his long and arduous voyages was his wife, an accomplished pianist. In the month of April 1871, an American upright piano was placed in the cabin of the good ship Agra by her captain, for the use of his wife, to beguile the tediousness of the long sea voyages intended to be taken. In the latter part of the month the vessel sailed from New York direct for Melbourne, Australia; thence to China, Japan, and India, returning to New York after an absence of fifteen months.

[Narrator]
You might remember Auntie Minn’s poem, from the first chapter of this podcast, that she sent to her brother Pete, with a coin from Canton, signing off:

[Minnie Austen Hicks Miller]
And now dear Tim, keep a good lookout for me and I will keep my eyes skinned for thee. Your sister, Mrs. Oswald Miller, great on the pen but poor at the tiller. 19th of May 1872 “Hoop da doodle, doodle do”

[Narrator]
The article continued:

[Reporter]
In September 1872, she left again for another voyage round the world, going first to Melbourne a second time; thence direct to London, England, then to Norway, whence she returned direct to Melbourne; then to San Francisco and China, and then back to New York, after an absence of two years and five months, having traveled over 110,000 miles, having crossed the equator ten times and passed the Cape of Good Hope five times, and Cape Horn nearly as many, while enduring, as a matter of course, innumerable storms, and every vicissitude of climate changes.

During the entire period this American piano has remained on shipboard, screwed down to the floor of the Captain’s cabin, and has never left the ship until recently, when the vessel being sold, it was landed. During the whole time the instrument has been played upon by the Captain’s wife every fair day. It is almost needless to add that the instrument in question was one made by the most renowned piano-makers of the world, Steinway & Sons, whose instruments defy wind, weather, and climate changes. Captain Miller certifies his conviction that for use on shipboard there is nothing which can compare with a Steinway upright piano.

[Narrator]
The particulars of this newspaper article lead us to the letters that Alice saved from the piano tuner who was assisting her in the purchase twenty years later.

[Frederic E. Jones]
Dear Miss Austen –
       I called at Steinway’s on my way home tonight and after looking at the stock can find nothing to equal the one selected first.
It has received its final touches from the chief regulator and never was a piano more beautiful.
       I send you here an interesting piece of literature reserved by the firm which you may find interesting.
       Remember your piano has to live for all practical purposes, on the water so near is your residence to the sea.
Let me know your decision as soon as may be and believe me,
       Cordially yours,
       Frederic E Jones

[Narrator]
Two weeks later, she was apparently not convinced.

[Frederic E. Jones]
Dear Miss Austen.
       In order that you may clearly understand the difference between the Steinway, and all other makers of pianos, I venture to offer this suggestion.
       Ask them to take apart the piano and show you the Action.
       You will find that all the working parts of the Steinway rest on Square tubes of brass, solidly filled with wood, together forming with the metal brackets a rigid action frame of good strength, and one in which cannot warp with damp or change of temperature.
       No other piano has this metal return frame, and as the instrument you may select has to stand a larger variation of climate, you may easily understand why I mention this fact.
       I venture to write this because I know full well, how many different pianos one hears about when about to purchase. And how little the average musician knows of the intricacies of piano building.
       I can say no more. May your choice be wisely directed, and I hope to hear the tuning of the new piano, be what it may.
       Cordially yours,
       Frederic E. Jones

[Narrator]
He wrote again, following hers, three days later, sounding slightly exasperated:

[Frederic E. Jones]
Dear Miss Austen,
       I have just inspected the Grand.
       It is as fine a specimen of Steinway & Son’s work as I have ever seen, and I feel assured you cannot but feel pleasure therewith.
       It is a perfect piano. Again, I say, ask to see the action of the other pianos you may look at, and may you be wisely guided, even as I said before.
       Cordially yours,
       Frederic E. Jones.

[Narrator]
The following week, Alice’s grandfather died, and over the next days, Alice received multiple condolence letters:

First from Violet:

[Violet Ward]
351 Lexington
My dear Alice,
       I was so glad to receive your note. You know how deep my sympathy is for you and how much this means.
       With my best love for you and most heartfelt sorrow for you and yours.
I am
Your affectionate
Friend
Violet, M.E. Ward

[Narrator]
Then from Bessie Strong:

[Bessie Strong]
My dear Alice:
       Saturday’s Tribune brought us the news that your grandfather had passed away. From what you said when here I knew you thought the end not very far off, but death is always a shock, even though not entirely unexpected. I know what a gap this will make in your household, and how you will miss your grandfather, for he was so devoted to you.

[Narrator]
And Julie Bredt:

[Julie Bredt]
My dearest Lollie,
       Today I was so surprised to hear of your sad loss, I know it will be a relief to you all, but even then, death is always so sad, even when we can see how much better off the one that bears so is.

[Narrator]
And then Julia Martin:

[Julia Martin]
Dear Alice:
       I was indeed very sorry to hear of your Grand Father’s death & yet felt glad that the old man passed away so quietly and has not longer to linger on.
       Life to me is one great mystery of uncertainty. One minute we are here, the next away.

[Narrator]
And then Frederic Jones, after a nearly monthlong lull, wrote again:

[Frederic E. Jones]
Dear Miss Austen –
       Some day when you have time, I should be much pleased to hear which piano you selected – the Chickering or the Steinway – and your reasons, therefore.
       I have much faith in your own good senses but know how one’s ear is apt to be misled in these matters; especially when both instruments are new and in fine rooms (acoustically speaking.)
       However, whichever piano you chose, I wish you much enjoyment therefrom; and beg to remain,
       Yours cordially,
       Frederic E. Jones

[Narrator]
Alice filled Jones in on her family situation and made it clear that she still had not made up her mind, and she had further very particular questions, asking about Steinway’s pedal action, the “wolfing” or shivering effect in playing two notes together, and some details in regard to “muting.” In hearing the piano tuner’s response, I cannot help but think of the report of Auntie Minn’s Steinway’s impeccable sound after traveling at sea for several years:

[Frederic E. Jones]
Dear Miss Austen –
       Yours is at hand, and I can only sympathize with you in the passing of Mr. Austen.
       With regards to the questions you ask about the piano I will answer as follows: I have carried Steinway Grand pianos thirty-thousand miles in a single season concert tour and have never known the sustaining pedal to get out of order.
       In a piano, the adjustment thereof is so simple that the mere turning of a couple screws sets the metal bar immeasurably in position.
The “wolf” of which you speak is merely a matter of fine tuning and is therefore easily eradicated.
       With regard to the “muting” of which is called the duplex seals, I reply that occasionally a piano is found in which from (perhaps) a softness of the metal capo d’astro bar, or iron upon which the strings rest, a slight jingling will occur, and then the duplex has to be muted, but this is very rare.
       It is but reasonable that you should seek all possible knowledge as to the piano you purchase, and I am only too glad to answer to the best of my knowledge.
       As I said before, I have carried Steinway pianos thirty-thousand miles in a winter and have never had any trouble therewith.
       I think this covers all your inquiries and I can only say that if I can serve you any further, you may call upon me – even to again look at the piano before it is shipped.
       Cordially yours,
       Frederic E Jones

[Narrator]
Alice did end up buying the Steinway, a stout, baby grand piano that she photographed in Clear Comfort’s middle parlor.

In mid-July, Bessie Strong acknowledged the piano as they were again trying to negotiate a visit. She sounds notably contemporary in her mention of smallpox and getting vaccinated – and it is important to note that Austen’s home was very near to New York’s Quarantine Station. Actually, the nation’s quarantine station, as it was the place that stopped incoming ships in New York harbor. Austen would soon be hired to photograph the facilities and would continue doing so on and off for more than ten years. It is a particularly compelling and historically significant group of photographs. But more on that in a bit.

[Bessie Strong]
My dear Alice:
       Thank you for the invitation to visit you in August. I really think I can come this time, and about the middle of the month will be the most convenient for me.
       I will go to you for a week or ten days, that is provided the small-pox is not very bad near you. The papers are full of it, but I know those things are so often exaggerated.
       However, I suppose I shall have to be vaccinated, and I dread it like poison. I am in a run-down condition anyway, and I do not think vaccination will make me feel any better.
       Four of us had a delightful row on the river last night. The only drawback was the mist, which was highly suggestive of Malaria; but the moon was superb.
       Please, when I come to you, do not attempt anything for my entertainment. Just let me be quiet and enjoy your society.
       Am anxious to try that new piano; shall bring some duets, and we can practice together.

[Narrator]
By the end of summer the novelty of the new piano had worn off and a new bicycling craze was gripping the New York area, also grabbing Alice and her friends. She was spending time with Violet Ward, and the two of them being athletes and also very serious in their individual ventures, they decided to spearhead activities by teaching riding and forming a bicycle club.

Trude Eccleston was back in California with her sister’s military family, stationed now at the Presidio military post by San Francisco.

[Trude Eccleston]
       We are now arranging a party to go up to the Lick Observatory & spend a night. Papa of course is crazy to look through that wonderful telescope at Mars & he wants me to also, so we have decided to make up a party & have a jolly time as well as instructive.
       How I wish you were here to join us. I know of no one who would enjoy such a trip more.

[Narrator]
The first week of September, Trudie wrote Alice a ten-page letter, going on about all of her adventures; also describing the gorgeous ocean, tennis fun, and dances – leading to what I thought was a logical response:
Alice wrote to Trudie’s sister Edith, asking if she could spend the winter with them in California.
Edith wrote back with regrets that she really could not.

It was probably just as well because Alice was also busy with her new obsession. Trudy ended one of her letters:

[Trude Eccleston]
How do you succeed as a bicycle teacher?

[Narrator]
Alice was spreading the word on this new venture while she also continued to print and share her photographs of Chicago’s World’s Fair. At the end of August she received a letter from Thomas Browne – AKA Butterball – who she’d accompanied on the canal trip a couple years earlier. A sailor and adventurer, he wrote from Yellowstone Park in Wyoming. They had an unusually casual relationship, sharing nicknames and exploits; in one of the canal trip photos Alice appears to be blowing into a conch shell, apparently earning her the nickname Gabriel, the biblical horn blower.

He addressed his letter to Chere Mademoiselle Gabriel. He told her about camping in the snow and spoke in detail about the mountains and rock formations. He said that he had seen five large geysers. The main point of the letter was to thank Alice for sending him photographs. She had included at least three photos of Chicago’s World’s Fair. And she asked him what he thought of her bicycle club, to which he replied that it seemed to him “an excellent thing,” adding that he believed in “having girls do something more than sit in a rocking chair all day & eat sweets in the Spanish fashion.” He suggested that if she were to do any more sailing with Commodore Ralph Munroe, to let him know about it. He signed his letter, “D. Butterball, Ex. First Mate, Yacht Wabun.”

In fact, Alice was about to embark on another jaunt with Commodore Munroe – and this time, Violet Ward would be joining her. The two of them left in late-September, staying with one of Violet’s relatives in New Jersey near the point where they’d be disembarking. After receiving correspondence from Alice, her mother immediately returned a letter to her there.

The nonstop communication between everyone is striking. And with the time gap in transmission, there’s an elongation of time that echoes leisure. Today, our e-mails and text messages feel clipped and compressed; reiterating the speed and efficiency that feels chaotic in comparison.

[Alice Cornell Austen]
My dearest Lollie;
       I was so glad to get your note this afternoon, and to know that you find the trip so far pleasant.

[Narrator]
She caught Alice up on the mail she’d received and, of course, gave her the weather report, news surrounding Clear Comfort, complimented her, and encouraged further travel with Violet:

[Alice Cornell Austen]
       It has been very warm here. Today, hot and sticky and cloudy. The marigolds are a perfect show. And such a pretty pink Zinnia has come out.
       I see by the paper Lina Case and her husband, and Julia Crawford are all in Europe at Aix-les-Baines. I wish you and Violet would go to the other side together. You would do it up thoroughly.
       Of course, you must go on this trip as far as you find it pleasant; your hotel was very cheap. I was afraid you have not enough money, though, to go very far; but you are a wonderful manager.
       Good night, my dearest, your Mama
Regards to Violet.

[Narrator]
There are several mentions that indicate the Austen’s finances are strained – John Austen died without a will and with no possessions in his name since the property had long ago been signed over to his wife, whose own will had left everything to their children. And although Uncle Oswald was still working, the family was basically living on the estate she left behind when she died in 1887, including money set aside for the upkeep of Clear Comfort.

Alice and Violet sailed with Ralph Munroe and another man, along the same route as Alice had with her Aunt Nellie and first-mate, Butterball. Like before, they disembarked at Annapolis where this time Alice photographed the local oyster trade.

Trude Eccleston, still with her sister’s family in California, wrote:

[Trude Eccleston]
       What a lovely time you are having this summer. You always “fall on your feet” & have a good time every year. I wish I could have had some of those lovely sails with you & Violet; what gypsies you have become.

[Narrator]
Then a few days later, Julia Martin wrote in reference to Trudie:

[Julia Martin]
       Trudie wrote me a very nice letter in answer to one of mine. She wrote to me all Staten Island had gone “mad” over bicycling and she should have to go mad, too.
       You all must be having a great time & lots of fun out of it.
Give my love to Violet when you see her & remember me to her “pal.”

[Narrator]
Violet’s “pal” was likely Daisy Elliott, and the innuendo will soon be reinforced by Daisy’s letters.

One day in October, Alice made double self-portraits with Violet in their sailing outfits, which she called her “canal costumes” (pom-pom berets and dark woolen skirts and sweaters) and then in their bicycling outfits (belted skirts with white puffy-sleeved shirts and loose bow ties with straw boater hats.)

Alice, Violet, and Daisy would soon begin working together on a book that Violet would publish called Bicycling for Ladies.

You’ll recall the thoroughness of Violet Ward’s patent application for a modified bodkin. Her bicycling book demonstrates equal thoroughness. Here’s a preview from that book and an idea of what’s to come:

[Violet Ward]
Chapter 1: Possibilities
Bicycling is a modern sport, offering infinite variety and opportunity. As an exercise, at present unparalleled, it accomplishes much with comparatively little expenditure of effort; as a relaxation, it has many desirable features; and its limitless possibilities, its future of usefulness, and the effect of its application to modern economic and social conditions, present a wide field for speculation.

Bicycling possesses many advantages, and is within the reach of nearly all. For the athlete and the sportsman, it opens up new worlds; for the family it solves problems; for the tired and hurried worker, it has many possibilities. The benefits to be derived from the exercise cannot be over-estimated and the dangers that result from over-doing are correspondingly great; for it is easy to over-exert when exhilarated with exercise and unconscious of fatigue.

+++++++

[Narrator]
This episode featured the following voice talent in their order of appearance:
Reute Butler, Ella Stevens, Josh Ippel, Tom Bannos, Cristina Bragalone, Nicholas Kinney, Madeleine Bagnall, Natalie Welber, Sydney Hastings-Smith, Liv Glassman, and Rachel Hilbert.

Sound editor: Kendall Barron. Original music by Nicolas Rosa-Palermo. Other music from FreeSound, The Edwardian Pianist and other public domain and attributed sources – links are in the website that accompanies this podcast, where you’ll also find images of some of the letters and photographs that are referred to in each episode. That’s My Dear Alice dot ORG.

VOICE TALENT

Cast in the order of appearance:
Alice Cornell Austen: REUTE BUTLER
Isabella King: ELLA STEVENS
John Haggerty Austen: JOSH IPPEL
Newspaper reporter: TOM BANNOS
Minnie Austen Hicks Miller: CRISTINA BRAGALONE
Frederic E. Jones: NICHOLAS KINNEY
Violet Ward: MADELEINE BAGNALL
Bessie Strong: NATALIE WELBER
Julie Bredt: SYDNEY HASTINGS-SMITH
Julia Martin: LIV GLASSMAN
Trude Eccleston: RACHEL HILBERT

Voices in the introduction (in order):
Ella Stevens
Maya Slaughter
Ella Stevens
Kylie Boyd
Natalie Welber
Graham Goodwin
Madeleine Bagnall
Efren Ponce
Cristina Bragalone
Reute Butler
Ella Stevens
Benjamine Jouras
Kristen Waagner

MUSIC ATTRIBUTION etc.

MUSIC FILES USED IN THIS EPISODE:

Theme music by Nicolas Rosa-Palermo: Interpretation of the 1889 Santiago Waltz 

The Edwardian Pianist (Adam Ramet) by permission:
1879: Oscar Comettant, La Sympathie (valse sentimentale) Op.162
1890: Jean Darquier, Clairette Polka
1913: J.E. Peilgen, Violetta Danse Elegante
The Edwardian Pianist’s YouTube Channel

Sheet Music Singer (Fred Feild) by permission:
1846: Signor Blanco, Tu Sanduca (derived from)
1855: Richard Milburn, Listen to the Mocking Bird (derived from)
The Sheet Music Singer’s YouTube Channel

Musopen website:
1835: Frederic Chopin, Waltz in B minor, Op. 69 no. 2 (licensed under Creative Commons Public Domain Mark 1.0 license)

Freesound website music:
Migfus: Happy Background Music (licensed under CC Attribution 4.0 License)

Adobe Stock music:
Belvedere Castle (Agra piano music) Audio standard license, via Adobe Stock
Happy Orchestral Ballet (Bicycling for Ladies music)  Audio standard license, via Adobe Stock

NOTES ON THE GALLERY IMAGES

Alice Austen and Violet Ward spent a lot of time together at the end of 1894, leading to several collaborations in 1895. In September, they joined Ralph Munroe on his yacht, the Wabun, on a canal trip to Annapolis, Maryland. Alice had done the same trip with her Aunt Nellie (Ralph Munroe’s sister) in 1892. In October, Alice photographed herself with Violet (and two cameras) wearing their “canal costumes” and their bicycle outfits.

While in Annapolis, Austen photographed the sights, which include the local oyster trade.
September 24, 1894: sail boat
September 25: Naval cadets
September 25: Oyster heap
September 25: Men shucking oysters

Also, in 1894, Austen was selling her photographs from Chicago’s Columbian Exposition, and she began photographing on the streets of New York.  This work will lead to her 1896 portfolio called, Street Types (presented in Chapter 7.)
March 5, 1894: Shoe blacks & stand 4th Ave
March 5, 1894: Old man hand organ in cart
March 6, 1894: Flower stand

Alice’s quest to buy a piano gives us a glimpse into her meticulousness. Letters from piano tuner Frederic E. Jones have an almost comic thoroughness as he responds to her multiple questions.

The 1870s Steinway upright piano, as pictured in 1887, seems to be the same piano that Aunt Min played on the American ship, Agra, as detailed in the newspaper article. Minnie Austen Hicks Miller’s first husband was also a ship captain, which is how she met Oswald Otto Miller (also spelled Muller.) In a Chapter 1 photograph, she wears a hat that reads, Samar, on the hat band. The Samar is depicted in a painting by Antonio Jacobsen. It may have hung in Clear Comfort and was scattered with other items beginning in the 1940s.

The painting was sold at auction in 2018.

ANTONIO NICOLO GASPARO JACOBSEN (American 1850-1921) “The Clipper Ship Samar” Oil on canvas. 22 1/4 x 36 inches; Frame: 26 3/8 x 40 1/8 inches. Signed and annotated lower right: A. Jacobsen Hoboken NJ Palisade NYC. 

Alice’s grandfather, John Haggerty Austen, died in 1894. He purchased Clear Comfort in 1844, and moved his family there permanently a few years later.

Some photographs of Clear Comfort are presented in this episode.
Here are some examples:
1894: the bedroom Alice Austen shared with her mother.
1894: “Our parlor with Grandpa Austen’s portrait.“
1888: “Hall & staircase“
1887: “Interior of dining room“
1887: “Interior of kitchen with range“

Image attributions: (HRT) Historic Richmond Town archive; (AAH) Alice Austen House Museum collection.

Strong often mentions her cousin Jack Van Dyke, an art historian who taught at Rutgers University and gave public lectures to audiences upwards of 1,000 people. The emulsion peeled from the glass plate. (HRT)

Photographed by Alice Austen at Watkins Glen, NY. (HRT)

Clear Comfort was visible to passing vessels, which Austen photographed for many decades. This image shows a camera on a tripod, a telescope, and Violet Ward & Trude Eccleston viewing the passing boats. (HRT)

The journal published American Camera Club photographs. (AAH)

An uncharacteristic set of Austen’s photographs. (AAH)

Images from the 1892 canal trip and summer resorts. (AAH)

Strong would sometimes obscure her own writing by writing over it, making for challenging transcription. (AAH)

Munroe wrote from the yacht Wabun, filling in Alice on their activities since her departure. (AAH)

Aboard the yacht Wabun (HRT)

Alice Austen print of scene from the canal trip.  (AAH)

Alice Austen blowing into a conch shell, earning her the nickname “Gabriel” the biblical horn blower. Austen nicknamed Thomas Brown (pictured in Harvard sweater) Butterball. (HRT)

Daisy Elliott demonstrating an early athletic pose as described in the narrative. Carrie Ward on the mat at left, her sister Violet seated next to her. (HRT)

Daisy Elliot hangs, demonstrating her athletic prowess. (HRT)

Daisy Elliott on rings; Violet Ward holding football at left; Carrie Ward to right of Daisy. (HRT)

At the Berkeley Gymnasium.  (AAH)

Austen poses with her pug, Punch, at the front of Clear Comfort. (HRT)

A rare view of the Ferris Wheel. Austen stayed on campus at the University of Chicago, from which this photo appears to have been taken. (AAH)

Austen copyrighted 25 of her World’s Fair photographs. (HRT)

A very rare view of Chicago’s Lake Park (now Grant Park) and Columbus statue during the 1893 World’s Fair. (HRT)

Card from the U.S. Copyright Office.

Gilman wrote to Austen at Chicago during the Columbian Exposition. (AAH)

She tells of a big storm that ravaged Clear Comfort – as presented in this episode. (AAH)

Austen posed Trude Eccleston to obscure her face with her hat, while reflecting it in the rock’s puddle. (HRT)

This is the only photo in the archive that shows Henry K. Gilman. (HRT)

Austen referred to Henry Gilman as Mr. Gilman, and she was Miss Austen to the end. (AAH)

Opening music …

[Bessie Strong]
My Dear Alice,
       “Many happy returns of the day” to you and St Patrick. With this I send you three photographs. Two of them I am quite ashamed of, but as I had no others ready and wanted them to go at once, I concluded to send them with an apology. I do not like them, but there has been no time since Monday to do any others. So please accept these with my love, and trust to getting some better specimens one of these days.
       Have not heard from you in an age, but as I am becoming a poor correspondent myself, perhaps I had better not say much.
Mother joins me in love and best wishes,
       Always affectionately, Elisabeth B. Strong

+++++++

[Narrator]
I’m Pamela Bannos in collaboration with the Alice Austen House Museum, and this is My Dear Alice, a podcast series that explores the life of photographer Alice Austen through her photographs and these letters that were discovered decades after her death. You’ll find images of some of these letters, along with photographs referred to here at the website that accompanies this podcast. That’s My Dear Alice dot ORG.

Chapter 5:

In the early 1890s, when photography’s popularity mixed with festive parties and outdoor recreation and people began performing for the camera and joining camera clubs to share, exhibit, and win prizes for their efforts, several of Alice’s friends and acquaintances also shared her enthusiasm for the medium. But none of them had quite the passion – or by the evidence – the skill and talent that she had. Austen’s photos show a technical prowess and aesthetic sensibility that stand out, even among other published photographs of the time. In 1894, ten of her photos would appear in the journal, Camera Mosaics, billed as “A Portfolio of National Photography – a collection of Camera Club Photos.” There were no galleries or exhibition opportunities outside of the Camera Club exhibitions – Alice belonged to the Jersey City Camera Club and her Uncle Peter, a chemistry professor at Rutgers University, was the president of the New Brunswick Camera Club.

Violet Ward is often holding a camera in Alice’s photos of her, and the loquacious Bessie Strong often shared her photographic escapades:

[Bessie Strong]
I wish you could see some of the photographs I took last Tuesday. Eleven in one afternoon. My “Rogues Gallery” is going to be a work of art.

[Narrator]
Here’s Julia Martin:

[Julia Martin]
I am awfully sorry my picture faded out. We thought it was a very good likeness. Mrs Snively would take very good photographs if she had the patience to wait for proper development; but she is in such a hurry, she never takes time and it is a wonder she gets any result at all.

[Narrator]
Earlier, Violet had written from Washington DC:

[Violet Ward]
Dear Alice,
       The top of the morning to you these fine days, and may you not rest in tranquility until Ash Wednesday.
       Here I am with my Aunt to enjoy all the delights of the Capitol. I only wish you were along,
what fun we would have together.
       My camera is here, and I hope to take back some work with me. Undeveloped of course.
Did you succeed in securing some snow plates this year? What opportunities you must have had with this season of cold.
       There are no end of things to take here.
Send me a line to learn of the absent ones. Where is Julia Martin all this time? And why don’t she look me up in New York?
       Think I am to have a 6-by-8 camera and want you to come and spook round with me, looking up the right thing
when I return to New York.
       With kindest regards to your mother.
       Ever thine, Violet M.E. Ward

+++++++++++

[Narrator]
In October 1892, Alice joined her Aunt Nellie, Nellie’s older brother Ralph Munroe, and another man, Thomas Brown, on an adventurous excursion that took them 185 miles by boat from New Brunswick, New Jersey, to Annapolis, Maryland. Sailing for ten days on a two masted sloop designed by Munroe, and called The Wabun, which was the name for the east wind from Longfellow’s Hiawatha, the foursome alternately sailed wide rivers and were pulled through narrow canals. In Alice’s photographs of the event, we see the older, bearded Munroe and Brown, who wore a Harvard sweater in all the pictures. Alice nicknamed the physically fit Brown, Butterball, as he is noted on all her negative sleeves. It may have been because of his appetite – they were the same age. The playfulness is striking in contrast to Henry Gilman’s one-sided formality.

After Alice and Nellie disembarked at Annapolis, the men continued on to Biscayne Bay, Florida, where the yacht had originated. Five years earlier, Munroe had purchased 40 acres in Coconut Grove. The home he would soon build there remains as the oldest standing house in Dade County and is now part of Barnacle Historic State Park.

Ralph Munroe is best known today as a designer of more than 50 sailing yachts, but he was also a serious photographer. Years earlier, Alice’s mother wrote he had been photographing Clear Comfort:

[Alice Cornell Austen]
Ralph’s new photos of the house are very pretty, indeed.

[Narrator]
Fifteen years older than Alice, Ralph Munroe was clearly taken with her. He took her seriously as an individual and also as a photographer. After she and Nellie left the sailing excursion, and while still on the vessel, the widowed Munroe wrote Alice a 1000-word missive.

[Ralph Munroe]
Aboard the Yacht Wabun, 8.30pm November 26th, 1892
My dear Alice,
       We have just had supper, (Corned beef hash, rice cakes & tea) & Butterball’s life is saved for we had gone two hours past the regular mealtime in order to make a harbor & save all of the ebb tides towards Tyler, and his condition was critical.
       I was delighted to get your nice long letter at Charleston in company with a jolly one from Nellie. I wrote you from Southport North Carolina when we had the pleasure of doing the town and getting acquainted with pretty nearly everyone in it. Almost a week was fooled away there. We made our start out …

[Narrator]
He went on to describe, in detail, the weather and how it affected their travel – including how they had outrun a hurricane. And he went on…

[Ralph Munroe]
Went ashore, took a walk in the pine woods, called on some of the farmers, picked some peanuts & concluded we were lucky chaps.

[Narrator]
He described towns where they stopped along the way, as well as their preparations for Thanksgiving Dinner:

[Ralph Munroe]
Charleston is always an interesting place for me. So many quaint old buildings & objects & I should like some time to spend a week or so there. Butterball was especially desirous to linger but the detention at Bogue & Southport had made sad inroads into our allotted time. So next morning, Butterball went looking up films & maps & Joe & I went marketing for our Thanksgiving dinner: Turkey, cranberries, & plum pudding, & by 9:30 we were off again through the inside passage of Beaufort.

[Narrator]
He went into greater detail on the components of their dinner, and then launched into a weird dream he had about Alice, and which give us another glimpse into her character as others experienced her:

[Ralph Munroe]
String beans, carrots, & a bottle of Claret completed the feast which we got away with in good shape & then turned in to dream; in my case, of things delightful in the extreme. One of the events of the night being a stroll on some beach with you & witnessing the landing of pirates in canoes after the manner of Captain Kidd in the last century. One of the gents had a finger growing from his nose and you got very much provoked with me because I did not call them all by name & introduce you. Explanations on my part as to my never having met the gentlemen before being of no avail. Hope you have forgiven me by this time.

[Narrator]
He went on in detail about the next day’s adventures, the weather and Butterball’s travails at photographing and running out of film – which were individual glass plates:

[Ralph Munroe]
You would enjoy this part of our trip, I know; but the number of plates required would be something awful. Poor Butterball hasn’t any. Fired at everything in sight expecting a supply at Charleston, but they had not arrived & he could not buy any.
Good night.

[Narrator]
Continuing his writing for two more days, he ended his letter with an invitation:

[Ralph Munroe]
You must take the Sea Island trip some time but earlier in the season. We will figure it out somehow. My next address I hope will be Cocoanut Grove, Dade Co. Florida. Give my best regards to the family.
       Sincerely yours, Ralph
Arrived here at 5 am this morning. Slight frost.

+++++++++++

[Narrator]
In the meanwhile, Alice was back spending time with Violet Ward, who had introduced her to Daisy Elliot, the director of the gymnasium at the Berkeley Ladies Athletic Club in Manhattan. The Club just had their 4th annual open exhibition, which consisted of

[Reporter]
“…marching and calisthenics and dumbbell work, and the work at the weights and swingings and twistings and gyrations on horizontal bars, parallel bars, trapezes and flying rings…”

[Narrator]
Daisy Elliot, who was nine years older than Alice, was among the earliest American women who identified as an athlete. A newspaper article from 1889, reporting on a summer course in physical training at Harvard, in which women from across the country participated, illustrates Daisy’s prowess:

[Reporter]
“Miss Elliott took the prizes in dumbbell, club swinging, vaulting and climbing exercises. She went up a long rope extended from the ceiling hand over hand like a sailor, clean to the top, winning great applause.”

[Narrator]
The 5-foot-2 Elliot was bad-ass. She never smiles in photographs, taking physical fitness – and herself – very seriously. In one of Alice Austen’s photographs of a small group of women in the Berkeley Gymnasium, including Violet and Carrie Ward, Daisy Elliott stands on a tall platform, one knee forward resembling a yoga warrior stance, the skylight spot-lighting her. She poses dramatically in her voluminous bloomers, pointing toward the upper corner of the photo – the other women sit casually on floor mats, deep in shadow.

An even earlier newspaper article sheds some light on Daisy’s pose.
Here’s an excerpt from a report on the 1887 showcase at the Adelphi Academy in Brooklyn:

[Reporter]
“The next number on the program was received with rapturous applause. Led by Miss Elliott, the young women assumed various graceful and picturesque poses. First, they stood with folded arms; then, after appearing to point out some intensely interesting object miles and miles away, they put up their arm as though shielding off some deadly sword stroke; then they assumed attitudes which appeared pantomimically to picture defiance, abhorrence, beseeching and prayer.”

[Narrator]
I’m not sure what any of this had to do with athletic prowess, but Daisy’s pose for Alice’s camera captured her mastery, still effective six years later.

+++++++++++

By the middle of 1893, Alice’s friends’ thoughts were on Chicago’s Columbian Exposition. Some were making plans to go, and others were lamenting that they couldn’t. In mid-June, while Alice was visiting her Aunt Nellie and Uncle Pete in New Brunswick, she was invited to go to Chicago with Effie Emmons’s family. Soon thereafter, she heard from Trudie:

[Trude Eccleston]
       How perfectly lovely it is for you to be able to go to Chicago with Mrs. Emmons – you are a very lucky girl, but I must say they have picked out a very hot time to go. Why, you will die with the heat. They say it is frightful there now. You must make time to tell me all about your good times, past and to come.
       I live on ice cream and lemonade these days. Remember Me to your aunt with lots of love. Trude Eccleston

[Narrator]
The next day, Henry Gilman wrote:

[Henry K. Gilman]
Dear Miss Austen.
       I am delighted to learn by your note this morning of your good fortune in regard to going to Chicago. My only regret is that some way could not be arranged so that you could go with us.
       But I don’t doubt you will thoroughly enjoy it. All the accounts I have heard agree that it is worth almost any sacrifice.

[Narrator]
Alice left for Chicago on July 1st, and Mr. Gilman wrote again a few days later, lamenting over the lovely moonlit nights he was missing – and also acknowledging how difficult it was to have a late evening with Alice in her Rosebank neighborhood on Staten Island:

[Henry K. Gilman]
Dear Miss Austen.
       I meant to send you a line with the photos but found I had no letter paper at the office – forgot to get some Friday; and so postponed writing until today, hoping I should hear from you with your Chicago address.
       Please don’t aggravate me by prating of your lovely moonlight nights. I am just dying for one on your piazza with the moonlight on the water and all. – I don’t know how I shall get it unless I find a boarding place in Rosebank and take up a residence there for a few weeks.
       Today I suppose you are enjoying the fair – I wish I were there – If I could get a pass I would run out even if only for a day — I have a good mind to do it, as it is.

[Narrator]
And she heard again from Trudie:

[Trude Eccleston]
My dearest Alice;,
       I was so glad to hear from you & think you are a brick to find time to write me. What a lovely time you are having. Mrs. Emmons seems like almost as much of a fiend as you are at seeing things. I don’t believe there will be anything left for you to see when you get through. That is a very Irish way of putting things, but it is just what I mean.
       My! What a lot. I shall take two days off, for I mean to hear about everything you both have seen & done. That is the privilege of a stay-at-home lady like myself.
       I have done very little since you left, but slave, nearly every morning. Mother & I devote to sewing, I am helping her finish off her things as well as my own. Our plans at present are to go to Lake George the last two weeks in August & the first in September.
       I played croquet with Effie at the Clifton Club on Saturday – all the dirt courts are now in full play.

[Narrator]
And then she heard again from Henry Gilman:

[Henry K. Gilman]
Dear Miss Austen –
       I was delighted to receive your letter this morning. Of course, you are having a beautiful time – how could you help it. I wish I were there to enjoy the music.
       From present appearances I shall have four female relatives to look after without other male assistance when we go; so that I fear I shall not have what is vulgarly known as a “picnic.” However, they are all persons who are abundantly able to look after themselves, if need be, so perhaps I am borrowing trouble.
       I am glad you are coming home so soon. Shall I have the pleasure of seeing you on say Tuesday evening the 18th? Drop me a note or a telegram and name some other night if that doesn’t suit.
Hastily, yours, HKG

[Narrator]
Austen was gone for two weeks, returning in the middle of July.
Julia Martin, who had been writing regularly, learned that Alice had returned home from Bennington, Vermont.

[Julia Martin]
Dear Alice:
       I see by the paper that you have returned from Chicago and I am waiting to hear your account. I know you must have been perfectly delighted. Miss Sanford, you remember her: she is quite masculine & lives in the summer in the yellow house near Mrs Cooper’s. She takes photographs. Well she said she would never forget the sights of those huge buildings.
       I am going to the Adirondacks on Saturday with Mrs. Wellington, her mother & a Miss Wellington for ten days. I will be fourteen miles from anywhere & I expect to sleep, drink milk & get some flesh on my bones.

[Narrator]
In a couple of weeks, Alice would also be in the Adirondacks. She stayed with Trude Eccleston’s family at Lake George. A New York Times article reported that Alice and Trudie won 2nd place in doubles in the canoe sailing race. Her photographs include light hearted pictures of others rowing long canoes and posed groups of smiling people.

As often seemed to be the case, Henry Gilman’s words to Alice present a stark contrast:

[Henry K. Gilman]
Dear Miss Austen,
I was very glad to get your letter several days ago.
       I have left it unanswered solely for the reason that I have been so blue & worried & generally out of sorts that I had no wish to inflict myself on anyone.
       I have done nothing interesting – have been nowhere except to Bayhead for a Sunday or two and have spent all my spare time on our own piazza with a pipe and doleful thoughts for companions.
       As to the World’s Fair – I have serious doubts whether I will be able to go at all.
       If business conditions don’t change pretty soon, I don’t see how I can get away at all. I have neither had quite so hard & worrying a time as in the last five or six weeks – If it lasts much longer, I think the top of my head will fly off.
       Everybody has been away from Flushing & it is duller than I ever saw it. Please write me again unless you are afraid of getting another stupid letter.
       I am sorry I can’t write more clearly, but I really don’t feel it.
Yours as always HKG

[Narrator]
The next week Alice’s mother wrote of a great storm that likely also affected Mr. Gilman’s mood:

[Alice Cornell Austen]
My dearest Lollie,
       I hope the storm we had here last night did not reach Lake George, for it was most violent. The wind was tremendous, and the old house fairly rocked with it. The rain came down with a rush inside our window. I had to get up in the night and place the usual basin, which was overflowing this morning. The Captain was up at 2 o’clock carrying in the plants from the roof, they were being blown about in all directions, then he had to go to the middle room for a rope to tie on the awning which threatened to fly off altogether. He had on this long India rubber coat as if he was at sea. The waves dashed quite over the bulkhead, gullied out the corner, went to Ives, and this morning the grass below is coated with refuse, sticks, straw, etc.. No end of branches are broken from the trees and the vines are badly whipped.

+++++++

[Narrator]
Clear Comfort, the Austen family home, with its enviable waterfront location, also made it vulnerable to the elements and sometimes difficult to visit. The busy lives of Alice’s friends, compounded by Staten Island’s somewhat challenging travel route, led to plans being made and broken. In June, Bessie Strong wrote:

[Bessie Strong]
       I hear you want a visit from me this summer. Shall be delighted to, provided we can agree upon the time. You must arrange to come here also.

[Narrator]
But she never made the trip:

[Bessie Strong]
       It seems to be decreed that I shall never get to Rosebank anymore, certainly not on Monday, much as I should like to.
       It is very kind of you to ask me over, and if you still want me two or three weeks hence, provided no more company turns up, I may be able to come. But it is all doubtful, and if you have other plans, please say so frankly.
       Mother joins me in love. Thank you ever so much for your kind invitation, but you see, I cannot come now.
Yours, Elisabeth B Strong
       How is Mr Gilman? I hear he is all devotions still.

[Narrator]
Two days after Bessie asked about Henry Gilman, he also wrote Alice with regrets that he couldn’t make it out for a visit:

[Henry K. Gilman]
Dear Miss Austen –
       I was sorry about not to be able to go to Staten Island on Thursday, particularly as it seems to be my last chance of seeing you until I get back from Chicago.
       I really think there is some chance of my going. Our plans have been rearranged so many times that it is quite bewildering. It is settled at last that we are to leave New York on Tuesday evening at six.
       I expect to leave the family out there, returning to New York by the fast train Sunday afternoon.
       I have been so busy & bothered during the last few weeks & particularly the last few days that I hardly know where I am.
I think a day’s travel will be a real rest.
I will see you as soon after I return as possible.
As always, Yours, HKG

[Narrator]
In October, Bessie Strong tried again:

[Bessie Strong]
My dear Alice,
       There seems to be no reason why I should not now accept your invitation, and unless something unforeseen happens I think I can go over to Staten Island on Thursday.

[Narrator]
It’s not clear if she made it out; Thursday was October 5th and Alice was photographing boats at the first race for the America’s Cup. On the evening of the final race, in her first letter to Alice, Daisy Elliot, who was apparently with Violet Ward, wrote from Brooklyn, with apologies that they, too, could not make it out to Staten Island:

[Daisy Elliott]
My dear Miss Austen:
       I had thought to write tonight that Violet and I would go down by the ten o’clock boat if it did not rain and was not too windy. Since supper, however, I think it would be foolish to attempt it, for it is raining and looks as if it might all night, and the road will be in no condition for a ride.
       I hope we shall have a good chance soon. I will let you know when we think of going.
       How I should like to have seen the race today; it would have been exciting. And how fine is it that the cup stays with us!
       I suppose you know the Wards have moved to town; I shall hope to see something of you then this winter and shall be happy to see you here at any time if you can get as far off as Brooklyn.
Sincerely, Daisy M. Elliott

[Narrator]
In November, Bessie Strong gave up:

[Bessie Strong]
I am too busy to think of going away but thank you just as much for holding the invitation open.

[Narrator]
And a couple days later, again, Henry Gillman:

[Henry K. Gilman]
Dear Miss Austen,
       I received your note several days ago, but delayed answering, hoping I would be able to select a night when I could surely get down to see you —
       I have been in such a rush ever since the first of September that I haven’t had any pleasure in life. I have so many things to tell you about that I am afraid I shall never catch up.
       So far as I now know, I have nothing at all on for next week and any night that you are disengaged, I can probably come down.
       I am writing in great haste as I am just about going out to a dinner party – may I ask you to let me know two or three evenings when you will be at leisure
Hastily yours, Henry K Gilman

+++++++++++

[Narrator]
Although not directly acknowledged by Alice Austen’s circle, in May of 1893, the New York stock exchange crashed, setting off what is now known as the Panic of 1893. Some of this may be reflected in Henry Gilman’s letters. In December, as Christmas approached, some of Alice’s enterprising friends prepared to sell some wares. Julia was peddling bottles of ink, and much earlier in the year, Violet had filed a patent application for a modified Bodkin – a needle-like threader to pull ribbon or for lacing corsets.

[Violet Ward]
To all whom it may concern:
       Be it known that I, Maria E. G. McK. Ward, a citizen of the United States, residing in the city, county, and State if New York, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Bodkins, of which the following is a specification.
My invention relates to a new form of bodkin having spring ends or tails adapted to keep the path of the ribbon open and flat.
       So far as I am aware the earlies form of bodkin used for drawing ribbon, tape, &c., through fabric or loops of fabric, consisted of a piece of rounded steel or ivory, pointed at one end and having an eye by which the ribbon or tape to be drawn is fastened.

[Narrator]
Violet received a patent for her newly designed bodkin on December 19.

Julia apparently had recently met Violet and mentioned her and the bodkins and gave an update on her ink enterprise.

[Julia Martin]
When you write will you send me Violet’s address as I lost the scrap on which I wrote it. I wish Violet had sent the bodkins before Christmas.
Ink orders keep coming in & so far it has given entire satisfaction.

[Narrator]
Even Bessie Strong’s annual Christmas letter suggests this new trend of economic self-sufficiency as she refers to Alice’s photography sales. It is unclear what exactly she is referring to here, but they may photos from the World’s Fair. And of course she lists her Christmas presents…

[Bessie Strong]
       So, you are making money and getting rich?! Will you not take me in when you open your studio?
       I did have a long list of Christmas gifts as you imagine, some of them are: A silver mounted pocketbook; a glove buttoner; set of silver studs; seven books, four beauties from Jack Van Dyke, two from Allen DeLaney, and one from Etta Parker, the last on “Photography.” Then I had money, two bottles of cologne, a glove box and two pairs of gloves, an exquisite handkerchief, cup and saucer, and several other little things.
       When can you come and make me a visit?

[Narrator]
Weeks earlier, Henry Gilman wrote Alice his final letter. He is particularly agitated with her and seems overwhelmed with his business affairs:

[Henry K. Gilman]
Dear Miss Austen –
       Of course, you have never approached the infernal regions nor ever will, so it is impossible that you should be able to realize the condition I have been in for the last three months.
       It was uncertain whether I should go to the fair, up to three o’clock on the day we went. It was only at that time that I found I could tear myself away at six and then I simply had to drop everything & run.
       I was gone from Tuesday night to Monday morning and had a fine time but returned to find things here worse than when I went away. And from that moment up to now I have hardly had any real peaceful moment. Even when my other senses had succumbed to Morpheus, my brain has been toddling bravely on.
       I have been in town most of the time. – During October I was only home four or five nights.
       My labors have not been so severe as they have been worrying and continuous. Several changes have occurred which alter the outlook somewhat (whether for better or worse remains to be seen) and which result in keeping my nose to the grindstone, so that I never know when I shall have a free evening.
       I want to see you – there are lots of things to tell you.
       Some night next week – Thursday? I will come down if I may.
       Don’t think I have forgotten –
       I have begun two or three letters to you – each has been interrupted & destroyed.
       This barely escaped same fate.
       Hoping to see you.
Hastily yours, Henry K Gilman

+++++++

[Narrator]
On December 22, 1893, Henry Gilman was found unconscious in his apartment with an open gas jet running. On December 28th, the New York Times reported:

“Henry K. Gilman, manager of the Rutland apartment house on West 57th Street, died at 1PM yesterday at Roosevelt Hospital, from pneumonia.

Mr. Gilman retired last Friday night, and in the morning did not appear at the usual time. At 8am Saturday a bell boy went to his room and found him lying on the bed unconscious from the effects of inhaling illuminating gas, which was pouring from an open burner in the room.

Mr. Gilman was removed to Roosevelt Hospital, and after a hard struggle, was restored to consciousness. He entirely recovered from the effects of the gas, but typhoid pneumonia set in, and he steadily grew worse.

Mr. Gilman’s assistant, Mr. Heath, says there are no grounds for the rumor that Mr. Gilman tried to commit suicide. Mr. Gilman came in feeling ill, he says, threw himself on the bed, and fell asleep. The room occupied by him was of peculiar shape and under certain circumstances a strong draught of air is drawn through the room.

Mr. Heath thinks that Mr. Gilman left the door open, and that a draught of air slammed it shut, at the same time blowing out the gas. He also says that Dr. Carter, the house physician at Roosevelt Hospital, thinks pneumonia had started before Gilman was overcome with gas. Dr. Carter had retired when a reporter for the New York Times called at the hospital last evening and could not be seen.

Mr. Gilman’s father, who is a clergyman in Flushing, Long Island, was present when he died.”

+++++++++++

[Narrator]
If you or anyone you know is struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts, help is available.
For 24/7 confidential support in the United States, call or text 988.

+++++++++++

[Narrator]
In the next episode, more life changes, Alice Austen becomes a New York street photographer, she embarks on a quest to buy a piano, and begins collaborating with Violet Ward as a new recreational obsession replaces tennis:

[Julia Martin]
Trudie wrote me a very nice letter in answer to one of mine. She wrote to me all Staten Island had gone “mad” over bicycling and she should have to go mad, too.

+++++++++++

[Narrator]
This chapter featured the following voice talent in their order of appearance:
Natalie Welber, Liv Glassman, Madeleine Bagnall, Reute Butler, Charlie Niccolini, Tom Bannos, Rachel Hilbert, Benjamin Jouras, and Kristen Waagner.
Sound editor: Kendall Barron
Original music by Nicolas Rosa-Palermo and me, Pamela Bannos.
Other music from FreeSound, MusOpen and other public domain and attributed sources – links are in the website that accompanies this podcast, where you’ll also find images of some of the letters and photographs that are referred to in each episode. That’s My Dear Alice dot ORG.

VOICE TALENT

Cast in the order of appearance:
Bessie Strong: NATALIE WELBER
Julia Martin: LIV GLASSMAN
Violet Ward: MADELEINE BAGNALL
Alice Cornell Austen: REUTE BUTLER
Ralph Munroe: CHARLIE NICCOLINI
Reporter: TOM BANNOS
Trude Eccleston: RACHEL HILBERT
Henry Gilman: BENJAMIN JOURAS
Daisy Elliott: KRISTEN WAAGNER

Voices in the introduction (in order):
Ella Stevens
Maya Slaughter
Ella Stevens
Kylie Boyd
Natalie Welber
Graham Goodwin
Madeleine Bagnall
Efren Ponce
Cristina Bragalone
Reute Butler
Ella Stevens
Benjamine Jouras
Kristen Waagner

MUSIC ATTRIBUTION etc.

MUSIC AND SOUND FILES USED IN THIS EPISODE:

Theme music by Nicolas Rosa-Palermo: Interpretation of the 1889 Santiago Waltz

The Edwardian Pianist (Adam Ramet) by permission:
1893: Alan Macey, Impudence Schottische.
1881: G.D. Wilson, Moonlight on the Hudson. 
1884: Paul Lacombe, Aubade Printaniere,  Op. 37. 
The Edwardian Pianist’s YouTube Channel

Sheet Music Singer (Fred Feild) by permission:
1855: Richard Milburn, Listen to the Mocking Bird (derived from)
The Sheet Music Singer’s YouTube Channel

Musopen website:
1835: Frederic Chopin, Waltz in A flat major ‘Farewell,’ Op. 60 No. 1, played by Olga Gurevich. (licensed under Creative Commons Public Domain Mark 1.0 license)
1890: Enrique Granados, 12 Danzas Españolas, Op. 37 – X. Danza Triste, Melancolica, played by Monica Alianello. (licensed under Creative Commons Public Domain Mark 1.0 license)

Lucas Gonze:
1854: D.E. Jannon, Carrie Waltz. Played on 1890 parlor guitar.
(licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0)

FreeSound
Lizziam, Autumn Leaf. (licensed under Creative Commons 0 license)

Pamela Bannos
Lilty Waltz – Variations (opening music)

Adobe Stock
Music:
Happy Orchestral Ballet, Audio standard license, via Adobe Stock
Who We Are, Audio standard license, via Adobe Stock
Sound Effects:
Weather Ambience Rain Thunderstorm Thunder 01, Audio standard license, via Adobe Stock
Weather Ambience Storm Sea Rain Thunder Waves Ocean Wind 01, Audio standard license, via Adobe Stock
Human Crowd Cheer 04, Audio standard license, via Adobe Stock

NOTES ON THE GALLERY IMAGES

This episode begins with talk of photography and its popularity, including among Alice Austen’s friends and correspondents.

The image of Bessie Strong with her cousin Jack Van Dyke was taken on Alice Austen’s 26th birthday in 1892. It shows the emulsion peeling from the glass plate negative. John Charles Van Dyke was an art historian who taught at Rutgers University and also gave hugely popular lectures. In one of Strong’s letters she writes, “Jack had about a thousand people at his lecture on Monday, in Philadelphia notwithstanding the awful storm, and on Wednesday, 1,300. Shall not see him again for some time as he goes to Washington and Boston this week.”

Mr. Hopper and his camera. A. Minshall Hopper was 18-years-old the summer he hung out with Alice and Trude Eccleston at Watkins Glen, NY. Chapter 4 details the fun they had taking pictures and corresponding.

Clear Comfort front lawn with flag, camera, telescope, and picnic. This photo’s view of the Narrows shows how close the Austen house was to passing vessels. Violet Ward and Trude Eccleston sit with their back to the tree, watching the boats. Alice Austen shot hundreds of photographs of boats and ships from the front lawn. Here is one from 1893.

Camera Mosaics was a venue that shared camera club photographs through contests and submissions. Alice Austen was a member of the Jersey City Camera Club.

Alice Austen accompanied her Aunt Nellie (her Uncle Peter’s wife), Nellie’s brother Ralph Munroe, and another man named Thomas Q. Brown on a canal excursion. Nellie and Alice disembarked at Annapolis, Maryland, and the men continued on to Biscayne Bay, Florida. Ralph Munroe was a yacht designer and an original settler in Coconut Grove, Florida. His home remains as part of Barnacle Historical State Park.

Ralph Munroe and Thomas Brown both corresponded with Alice Austen. Brown is always referred to as “Butterball” – it may have been because of his voracious appetite, which Munroe alludes to in a letter to Austen. Brown nicknamed Alice “Gabriel” in his letters, which may have referenced the biblical horn blower – she blows into a conch shell in one photo.

Austen made many photographs along the way from New Jersey to Maryland, and she sent some of them to Brown and Munroe, who thank her for them in their letters.
Some examples:
“Canal stern of Wabun Ralph & Butterball taking photo“
“Four mules & Wabun“
“Interior of Wabun cabin” (Butterball & Nellie Austen)
“Lock gates opening Wabun inside of deep lock 11 ft.“
“Nellie & I returning laden from Chester“
“Naval launch towing Wabun to anchor“
“Our party in stern of Wabun guns“
“Our party in stern of Wabun” (Alice blowing conch shell)
“Wabun in first lock“
“Tug boat in deep Lock & Butterball“

Daisy Elliot was one of America’s first women who identified as an athlete. She became the athletic director of the Berkeley Ladies Athletic Club in New York City. Violet and Carrie Ward appear in some sort of athletic “uniform” in these photos.

An 1889 newspaper passage about a summer course at Harvard University (referred to in the audio narrative) states, “Miss Elliott took the prizes in dumb bell, club swinging, vaulting and climbing exercises. She went up a long rope extended from the ceiling hand over hand like a sailor, clean to the top, winning great applause.”

The photograph, “Miss Elliott on rings.”
The photograph, “Miss Elliott in pose.”
The photograph, “Group apparatus.”

In July 1893, Alice Austen spent two weeks at Chicago’s Columbian Exposition, taking many photographs on 4×5” glass plate negatives. She copyrighted 25 photographs. It is unknown if her intention was to publish them as a book or portfolio, but she make and sell many prints. Chapter 6 tells of an extensive order from some women who lived around Washington Square in Manhattan.

Some World’s Fair photographs:
“Administration dome & chair house“
“Art Building & three guards“
“Big Fountain McMonnies“
“Golden door Transportation Building“
“Peristyle & golden statue of Liberty“
“Statue of Columbus with flag in front of Administration“
“The Ferris Wheel from Chicago University“
“The three Caravels“

As in earlier summers when they went elsewhere, Austen accompanied the Eccleston family in 1893 to Lake George in the Adirondacks in upstate New York. She creatively photographed Trude Eccleston in a position meant to portray her face in reflection while also obscuring it with her hat.

Violet Ward applied for a patent for her improved design of a “bodkin,” which is a needle-like threading object for hems or corsets. See her entire patent application here.

Henry Gilman began writing to Alice Austen in 1889, inviting her to an outing that she declined because of her tennis matches. The next Gilman letter in the collection appears nearly two years later. His letters are a notable contrast to the fun and lightness that are evident in Austen’s photographs and in her other correspondences. He always calls her Miss Austen, and as is evident in her negative sleeve, Alice called him Mr. Gilman. While many of Gilman’s letters are negotiating visits, it is hard to imagine what kind of relationship they may have had. The only photograph of Henry K. Gilman shows him playing cards with Alice and Julie Bredt and another man. 

Image attributions: (HRT) Historic Richmond Town archive; (AAH) Alice Austen House Museum collection.

Alice Austen on Clear Comfort’s piazza in September 1892 (HRT)

Julie Bredt on Clear Comfort’s piazza in September 1892. (HRT)

Trude Eccleston on Clear Comfort’s piazza in July 1892. (HRT)

Julie Bredt did not favor punctuation. (AAH)

(L-R) Alice Austen, Julia Martin, and Julie Bredt. (HRT)

(L-R) Alice Austen, Julia Martin, and Julie Bredt. (HRT)

Letter from Henry K. Gilman, as presented in this episode. (AAH)

Violet Ward, standing at back; Carrie Ward, middle seated, at the front of Oneata.  (HRT)

(L-R) Trude Eccleston, Violet and Carrie Ward, Miss Jenkins. (HRT)

(L-R) Violet Ward, Trude Eccleston, Miss Jenkins, Carrie Ward. (HRT)

Studio portrait by Staten Island photographer, Isaac Almstaedt. (HRT)

Valentine’s Day gathering. Julie Bredt, third from left; Alice Austen, far right. (HRT)

Tea party at Bethlehem, PA. Julie Bredt pouring tea; Alice Austen, second from right. (HRT)

A rare smile from Alice Austen, second from right; Julie Bredt to her right. (HRT)

Alice Austen, seated far right; Julie Bredt, standing center. Bethlehem, PA. (HRT)

Julie Bredt appreciating Alice’s photos of their gathering. (AAH)

Alice’s Uncle Peter’s wife Nellie Austen, with their children William, Lysbeth, and Oswald, and their nanny Miss Butler. (HRT)

Julia Martin introducing “the two Marys.” (AAH)

“The two Marys” grave in Lucerne, Switzerland. (see notes) (photo credit: Philipp Lustenberger)

Letter sent from Flushing, NY, to Clear Comfort; forwarded to Alice at her Uncle Peter’s house in New Brunswick, New Jersey. (AAH)

Nellie Austen with her Uncle Alfred Munroe on the Assabet River in Concord, MA. (HRT)

Excerpt from Trude Eccleston letter, referring to Mr. Gregg, to whom she was to become engaged. (AAH)

Exquisite landscape photograph by Alice Austen. (HRT)

Titled, “A lunch at the ‘San,'”Mr. Hopper & Alice Austen pour each other a drink. (HRT)

Mr. Hopper opens a bottle of wine. (HRT)

1892 dramatization at Watkins, NY.

1892 dramatization at Watkins, NY.

1892 dramatization at Watkins, NY.

1892 dramatization at Watkins, NY.

1892 dramatization at Watkins, NY.

1892 dramatization at Watkins, NY.

Sent from the Springs at Watkins, NY – as presented in this episode. (AAH)

Alice accompanied noted amateur photographer Browne on a nature walk – his correspondences offered her photographic advice. (HRT)

Opening music …

[Henry K. Gilman]
Dear Miss Austen.
I enclose a few stamps which I have collected for you. Perhaps some of them will be new ones to your collection.
The reception at the “Players” is to be on Friday, April 22nd and not Saturday as I thought.
When I come down next Tuesday, I will bring the tickets, which I truly hope you and your mother will find agreeable to use.
As always, yours, Henry K. Gilman

Theme music …

[Narrator]
I’m Pamela Bannos, in collaboration with the Alice Austen House Museum, and this is My Dear Alice, a podcast series that explores the life of photographer Alice Austen through her photographs and these letters that were discovered decades after her death.
You’ll find images of some of these letters, along with photographs referred to here, at the website that accompanies this podcast.

Chapter 4:

We left off with a litany of glimpses into the parties, dances, and fashion as conveyed by the three main correspondents of 1890 and 1891: Julie Bredt, Julia Martin, and Bessie Strong, who relayed their doings from beyond Staten Island’s social scene. The letters also show how relationships may or may not be different from today.

Inexplicably, we last heard from Henry K Gilman in 1889. He is the gentleman who wrote from the Players Club in Gramercy Park and was disappointed when Alice chose her tennis tournament over his suggestion to go on some kind of wild spree. In his last letter, he had asked for directions to visit her at Clear Comfort. It is unclear why his next letter shows up nearly two years later – they don’t appear to know each other much better. Alice had just weeks earlier been making enigmatic double-portraits with Trude Eccleston, had since been at Bayhead, and was now vacationing at Lake Mahopac with Trudie’s family.

[Henry K. Gilman]
Dear Miss Austen – Many thanks for your little note received this evening.
Howard showed me today the photos he took on the sailing party – they are amusing and some of the likenesses of your back & hair are very good, but unfortunately there is none of your face by which you could possibly be recognized.
I am promising myself the pleasure of seeing the ones you took as soon as you will let me come to see you –
I can come almost any evening next week so far as I now know.
I went to Bayhead again last Saturday and succeeded in getting in three sea baths, notwithstanding the rain, which made things rather moist for a while in the PM Sunday.
We are all going down tomorrow night to hear the Seidl orchestra at Madison Square Garden – & wish you could join us. It is about the only amusement of that kind I allow myself in these days.
Won’t you suggest an evening next week when I can come down and make a call? – don’t say Monday or Saturday.
As always. Truly yours. Henry K. Gilman

[Narrator]
That same day, Julie Bredt wrote Alice that a male friend of hers was interested in meeting Alice.

[Julie Bredt]
… he is an awfully nice fellow. Be sure & be nice to him, he has heard a lot about you and is quite anxious to meet you.

[Narrator]
Within days, Austen was in New Jersey photographing the light house and surroundings at Sandy Hook, busy with her camera as always. In the middle of October she set up two portraits of Julie Bredt, Julia Martin and herself dressed as men. All three wear suits, hats, and mustaches; and one of the pictures shows Austen in a rare smile. Two weeks later Alice composed The Darned Club photograph of the women who were said to have excluded men from their circle. And then, days later, she received this letter from Henry Gilman, in jarring contrast to all the fun and lightness that are apparent in her photographs.

[Henry K. Gilman]
Dear Miss Austen – I think a sight of you would help me to shake off a desperate attack of the blues which seems to have fastened their demoralizing clutches upon me, and I wish you would drop me a line to say which evening this week I shall find you disengaged – either Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday.
I am living at 103 Montague Street, Brooklyn now, and my evenings are free to the pitch of absolute loneliness.
In fact, I feel like saying with our friend “Bunthorne”
“Oh to be wafted away
From this bleak of sorrow
Where the dust of an earthy today
Is the earth of a dusty tomorrow”
       So do take pity on a poor, grubbing, desolate soul, and lay up for yourself treasures in Heaven by a charitable action – and experience the highest pleasure in life, by making another’s lot in life less dreary –

[Narrator]
That summer, Alice and Trude had been hanging out with Violet …

[Violet Ward]
Maria Emily McKnight Ward

[Narrator]
… and her sister Carrie

[Carrie Ward]
Caroline Constantia Ward

[Narrator]
The same day that Mr. Gilman wrote his heavy and dramatic letter, Alice was on a wild spree with Trudie, Violet and Carrie Ward, and another woman only noted as Miss Jenkins. The group had started out the day at the Ward’s estate in Tompkinsville where they, along with the Wards’ large dog and Alice’s camera equipment, loaded into the Ward family’s wagonette, an open carriage pulled by two horses.

One of them led the horses, while in the back, the other four passengers faced each other on padded benches. The women ambled along the entire fifteen-mile length of Staten Island to the Richmond Valley woods at its southernmost tip, where they unpacked a picnic.

In the first of two photographs, the women are seated in a semi-circle and Austen’s shadow is visible as she photographs with the sun behind her. In the second photo, noted as “Party on steps of wagonette,” Miss Jenkins pours herself a glass of wine; behind her Trudie drinks straight from the bottle; Carrie stands on the wheel axel, drinking from a tumbler, and Violet, looking drunk, leans jauntily on a bench at the back of the wagon.

A few days after this fun outing, the infamous French actress Sarah Bernhardt arrived in New York City and Trudie and Alice went to see her. Then, together, they attended their friend Lou Alexander’s wedding in Staten Island, which was their circle’s big social event of the season. Mr. Gregg, who Trudie was seemingly engaged to, was then traveling in Europe, to return in December.

On December 2nd, Henry Gilman wrote to Alice – apparently they had plans, but it appears that something came up at Austen’s end:

[Henry K. Gilman]
Dear Miss Austen, I was very much pleased at receiving your note last evening and was promising myself the pleasure of spending Friday evening at your house, but your “second edition” which has just come in, puts a different complexion on the affair and puts my expectation under the head of “hopes deferred” until Monday evening when I hope to be with you.
       I look forward to it (as a weary traveler in the desert night to a cool shady spring) as one of the few pleasures in a life full of trouble and worry and annoyance –
       There are many things to tell you – though really when I come to enumerate them, I am bound to admit that most of them are about myself or rather closely concerning me, and therefore not concerning of the most interesting character to you – but egotism seems to be as natural to some people as being attractive is to others!
Till Monday, then, believe me
Truly yours, Henry K. Gilman

[Narrator]
The night he wrote that letter, Alice went to a big dance at the Clifton Boat Club.

Henry Gillman knew Alice’s Uncle Peter, and he often mentioned Peter’s wife Nellie, who seems as fun as Alice’s friends. Nellie and Uncle Pete have three children and, similar to Alice’s adventures with Trudie and the gang, it seems like there’s never a dull moment. In Nellie’s letter, she’s building a doll house, her boys are having trouble with a neighbor lady, and she describes an action-packed outing in New York City, part of which she was apparently joined by Alice. Some of what Nellie is saying is hard to decipher, but it adds to the color of her character – I think she’s sent ink blotter paper along with her letter.

[Nellie Austen]
My dear Loll,
       You will think I have inflicted a tremendous missive upon you before you have opened this letter, and how relieved you will be to find it is mostly paper. I sent on to Concord and got all there was in the store, eight sheets. Sending you three & wish you joy making them up.
You ought to see the doll’s house, it has grown two stories; has a kitchen & a basement now. As soon as I get a chance am going to fix it up fine.
       Invested in a kitchen stove, dining room stove, kitchen table and dustpan. Good beginning! Have lots of ideas, wonder if I work them all out.
       The boys have not killed anyone yet and are not likely to. A woman came to the door last week and asked if our boys fired bullets, as she had seen them near her place, and someone had killed her pet goat.
So glad “Pot of whiskey” was a success. Hope you had on your swell pink bonnet while under the fire of the sister’s glasses. What fun, wish I could have been with you in the background.
       After I left you on 22nd Street, I went into Miss Butler’s and then did one errand & got out on the 6 train. Home at 7:30, had tea and went down to rehearsal more dead than alive. My feet were so tired. We had been on pretty steady trot all the time, but I enjoyed it so much. Let’s try it again before many moons. Saw more that day than I would in a lifetime alone.
       I was in town last week staying with a cousin from Boston. She had come on for just a week & was doing New York up brown.
We went to “As you like it” with your Uncle Monday night.
Tuesday, we spent at the “Met” Museum, and in the evening, we went to “Alabama” at the Palmer Theatre by ourselves, as independent as two “toughies.”
Wednesday, I spent with the Fultons. Frank is as happy as a clam at high water.
Thursday, I came back to town and did some shopping and come home a total wreck, and until today have been good for nothing.
       How I must quit this chattering & go to bed. Make use of some of those blotters & write me soon & tell me all the latest.
Love to all. As ever, yours, Nellie.

[Narrator]
Alice and her Auntie Nellie will be traveling later this year on a noteworthy excursion with Nellie’s brother Ralph who was a yacht designer and one of the original settlers in Coconut Grove, Florida.

+++++++

[Narrator]
In February, Julie Bredt convinced Alice to visit her again in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. They were together for two weeks and attended some raucous co-ed parties with local Lehigh University men. The evidence is in the multiple group photos, including one on Valentine’s Day. In a photograph from February 20th, Alice and Julie are surrounded by six men – two, who are on the floor, one of them laying on pillows. They seem to be dramatizing some sort of wild tea party that’s gotten out of hand.

And on the 21st of February, Alice appears in a big mixed group where she was unable to have stopped from laughing when the camera’s flash exposed the picture: a man is on one knee, looking up at her, his hands over hers.

A couple nights earlier, Henry Gilman wrote to Alice:

[Henry K. Gilman]
Dear Miss Austen,
       Little bit of a line just “to say that I am well and hope you are the same.”
       It seems a long time since you went away, but I suppose you are enjoying life in Pennsylvania. It looks as though you might be getting some good skating there. Lovely moonlight nights. Don’t let any of the freshies trifle with your young affections under the plea of the moonlight.
       I hope to have the pleasure of meeting you on your return if you will let me know what train you are coming by, so I can escort you across the river – Will you please?
Don’t stay too long.
As always, Yours sincerely, Henry K. Gilman

[Narrator]
It’s not exactly clear what is going on between Alice and Henry Gilman because there is such a disparity between her playful activities and his formal letters.

In her ten days away, Alice received two letters from Julia Martin and three letters from her mother, the last one from her mother acknowledging Alice’s postcard that said she would be staying an extra day.

And then another letter from Mr. Gilman:

[Henry K. Gilman]
Dear Miss Austen –
       I was very glad to receive your note and to learn that the classic atmosphere of the Moravian town is agreeing with you.
I hope, however, that you won’t forget that there are persons in this vicinity who will welcome your return to “our midst”… once more, whenever it may be.
       Don’t forget to drop me a line to say by what train you will come if you will allow me to meet you.
Hoping soon to see you.
I am as always, truly yours, Henry K. Gilman

[Narrator]
Upon her return, Austen seems to have gone straight to her darkroom to develop and print the group photos. She immediately sent a batch to Julie Bredt, and then was on her way to a ten-day jaunt to New Brunswick, New Jersey:

[Julie Bredt]
O! Lollie the pictures are simply fine, O!, they are really the best I have ever seen.
       But really it is awful, you cannot print them all. What is to be done? Everyone cannot have one. But Mr Ordway has begged so & Mr Buell will be wild.
       That George Booth! He was here night before last, but I was out with Jim & I saw him later, walking up to Chaps.
       Little John brought me a perfect song. He wants to be remembered, so does Mr Wade.
       What are you up to in New Brunswick? Having a good time of course.

[Narrator]
Alice had gone to New Brunswick to attend a wedding, but while she was there she had arranged to photograph some sort of factories; both her mother and Trudie mentioned the factories in the letters they sent there during her stay.

Also, apparently, Mr. Gregg was back in Staten Island, a point that, it seems, Trudie used to needle Alice.

[Trude Eccleston]
       If you go through all those factories and digest all you see, I am afraid we will appear very stupid to you on your return. You will be so wise. Well, you will have to try to impart some of your knowledge into our dormant brains.
       Mr. Gregg was here Thursday evening and we decided that as you were not at home, we would give up our calls & stay quietly at home in front of a big wood fire, which we did. Now do come home soon and help me do my Lenten duties.
       Remember me kindly to your aunt and don’t get wound up in any of the machinery of the factories.

[Narrator]
These letter snippets that acknowledge Austen’s photographing factories (of which there is no remaining evidence) are surrounded by other amusing tidbits as in other of her mother’s free-thought missives:

[Alice Cornell Austen]
       I am sure you must learn a great deal at the factories but do be careful near the machinery. It always alarms me.
       So, you wore the grey gown, after all. It seems destined to be worn at weddings.
       Nellie, the girl, tells me she has been using “Trichopherm” and her hair has grown so thick she does not know what to think of it. A little while ago she had not enough to hold a hairpin.
       It has been very cold here. The wind very high until today.
Stay as long as you like my dearest, there is nothing going on here.
Give my love to Nellie. Goodnight, my precious one,
from your Mama.

[Narrator]
While Alice was staying away as long as it suited her, she also hadn’t let Henry Gilman know of her plans.

[Henry K. Gilman]
Dear Miss Austen –
       I have waited in vain for an indication from you that you are at home again, but all signs seem to fail in damp weather, as well as in dry; and it looks as though in the language of scripture,
“there shall no sign be given, hence there tears.”
       Won’t you let me know if I can’t come down and see you, and when?
Please let me hear from you, and believe me,
As always, yours, H. K. Gilman

[Narrator]
It seems that Alice responded to his letter, and it further provoked him.

[Henry K. Gilman]
Dear Miss Austen,
       You didn’t mention your address in New Brunswick and I don’t like to send letters ‘at large’, so I will send this to Clifton and hope your thoughtful family will forward it to you.
       I am very much disappointed in not seeing you before this and shall hold myself in readiness to come to you any evening after Wednesday, next.
       I am glad you think I have been having “gayety in the big city” — Gayety and I are strangers – these many moons – we don’t speak as we passed by.
       There was one referred to in the Scriptures described as a “man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” – In this one particular I can claim a resemblance to him.
       I am sorry I can’t write a more cheerful letter – I don’t like to write letters when I am blue – do you?
Let me hear from you how soon I can come down.
As always, yours, HKG

[Narrator]
Alice eventually returned to Clear Comfort.

[Henry K. Gilman]
Dear Miss Austen.
       I had almost despaired of hearing from you this week when your note was put into my hands at dinner time this evening. I don’t like to think how long it is since I last saw you and I look forward to Tuesday evening with great anticipation.
       I take this opportunity to redeem my promise by enclosing a few postage stamps which I have collected for you, and which I hope will turn out to be new ones to your collection.
Until Tuesday, believe me as always,
Sincerely, yours, Henry K Gilman

[Narrator]
In between Henry Gilman’s letters, Alice received one from one of the Bethlehem men – apparently there were more cameras recording the group hijinks than just hers. And the letter shows that even though men were more formal in their correspondence, they could also be casual and even jokey – and we’ll see that the men’s correspondences that she later kept up had interests more aligned with her own:

[George Rodney Booth]
My dear Miss Austen.
       I sent you a package by mail yesterday containing the three plates and one of each set of pictures. I hope the plates will reach you unbroken.
       By the way, your mind and Julia Bredt’s, run in remarkably similar channels. Sometime, about two weeks ago, Julia took up the thread of your discourse, almost, one might say, where you dropped it.
       In the face of it all, however, Julia insisted that there was absolutely no collusion. It seems strange how two minds should be so in sympathy.
       In half an hour I am due in Bethlehem to have a hearing and take testimony in a divorce case, which will probably result in my recommending the court to grant a divorce.
       So, you see, I am doing some good to my fellow creatures.
Believe me, very truly yours. George Rodney Booth.

[Narrator]
And in other glimpses into relationships, some of the letters reveal histories that open up new ways of thinking about what Queerness may have looked like in the early 1890s. Here’s Julia Martin talking about the occasion surrounding a popular opera singer:

[Julia Martin]
       I think I am going to hear Adelina Patti on Friday evening. Some friends have an extra ticket and if their friend who is visiting them does not remain over Friday, I am to go.
       I must tell of these friends. 
Miss Tibbits and Miss Richards. Age questionable; commonly known as “The Two Marys.” They met a good many years back and took the greatest fancy to one and another; so, decided to try living together, and it met with so much success that they have lived with each other ever since. Both have a little money, and they keep house in a most delightful way. I have been to one or two of their small lunches, which are always most pleasant.
       They are always together & I believe sleep in each other’s arms, and both are great friends of Mrs Coopers. Perhaps you and I might sometime set up such an establishment* (*only I speak for a bed for myself.)
       Please remember these “Two Marys” as you may hear of them later. When I have time, I go & sing for them & we have great fun & in many ways they are very kind to me.

[Narrator]
I researched these Two Marys who were twenty years older than Julia and Alice – born in the mid-1840s – and found that they remained together for the rest of their lives; travelling frequently to Europe, and then moving to Switzerland, permanently in 1910 where they lived in the Grand Hotel in Lucerne until their deaths. One died in 1927, the other in 1939, and they were buried in the same grave in Lucerne’s English cemetery, marked with a still-prominent tombstone showing both of their names.

There’s a common misperception that lesbians didn’t exist before our modern era – and in fact, women of the 19th century were presumed as to not have any sexuality at all, which would support the idea that when two women became partners, they weren’t paid any particular attention. Just five years before Julia Martin’s letter, Henry James’s book The Bostonians, portrayed two women who lived together and, as written, may or may not have been in a sexual relationship. Such arrangements, typically among independently wealthy women – perhaps like the two Marys – came to be known as Boston Marriages. Sometimes also referred to as Romantic Friendships, there was no acknowledgement of sexuality. In a few years another novel would introduce the term Bachelor Maid, which identified single women who chose to live independent of men. All these 19th century terms, and including Old Maid and Spinster show a grappling with how to classify an unmarried woman; which led to another name, The New Woman, which at this juncture came to describe pretty much any single woman who strove for independence – like Alice Austen.

And all of this goes to say that Henry Gilman seemed horribly mismatched for Alice.

No sooner than she had returned home, Alice was planning another trip – this time with her fun Aunt Nellie, who in this letter is also inviting her to join to Madison Square Garden to see Barnum & Bailey’s Greatest Show on Earth, and she tells of her travails to hire a cook.

[Nellie Austen]
My dear Loll,
       I have just ten letters that I ought to write, and no nonsense about it. But on the strength of it all, I am going to chatter to you instead. Plague take dirty letters!
       Would you like to go to Barnum’s at Madison Square Garden when we take the tots? I propose an adult to each child. Then I think we might all enjoy it.
       The Cook question is not decided yet. Miss Butler brought one home the evening after you left me wrestling with the kitchen fire.
And such a daisy, as she proved. Made that bread with baking soda and it all had to be thrown away.
       Set the chickens on the table with their arms and legs playing “Simon Says, thumbs up.”
       Altogether, she was a treasure and I wept when she left last Thursday.
       Do hope your photos are good. Let me know as soon as you devil them up.
Love to all and come again when you can; more factories waiting to be appreciated.
Yours affectionately, Nellie.

[Narrator]
Alice continued with her travels and was soon off to Massachusetts with her Aunt Nellie, traveling between Cambridge and Concord, and staying for nearly the entire month of June.

In the middle of the month, she received a letter from Henry Gilman, whose note began on a typical downbeat.

[Henry K. Gilman]
Dear Miss Austen, there has been “a silence that could be felt” since you went away. I hope it is because you are having an extremely good time and not because you are ill.

[Narrator]
And then a few days later, a somewhat typical letter from Trudie:

[Trude Eccleston]
My dearest Alice,
       I had just sent you off a long letter the day yours arrived, and find to my horror that instead of Concord, I put Cambridge on the envelope. have sent a postal card to the postmaster at Cambridge asking him to forward the letter to you at Boston; but goodness knows if he will. I simply cannot write all that stuff again; so, I’ll wait and tell you all about what has happened since your departure.

[Narrator]
And then she spoke of loyal Charlie Barton, who is often gazing admiringly at Trudie in photographs:

[Trude Eccleston]
       I went over to the fair last night at the New Brighton Tennis Club with Charlie and Ellie Barton. I just made up my mind that if he wished to be useful, I would use him. He was very nice and presented me with a beautiful Japanese teacup & a big bunch of roses.
       The grounds were beautifully illuminated and the night perfect. All the girls were in pretty light costumes & looked so sweet.

[Narrator]
And then, in a ribbing personal slight, we get a little insight into Alice’s opinion of Trudie and Mr. Gregg:

[Trude Eccleston]
       Well, I must stop and do one million things. I have asked Fannie Roberts, Mr Lassiter & a friend of Fannie’s down for the boathouse dance Monday eve. I will ask Mr. Gregg down to go to the next one with us if I have your kind permission.

[Narrator]
In the middle of August, Mr. Gregg wrote Alice a terse and cryptic little letter:

[Mr. Gregg]
Dear Miss Austen.
       I received your note and I’m glad the little picture reached you all right.
       I shall be very glad to come down Tuesday afternoon for a good talk.
Expect me about 5:00 PM.
Sincerely yours, John C. Gregg. Willetts Point

[Narrator]
And… this is the last we hear of Mr. Gregg.

+++++++

[Narrator]
That summer Alice went with Trudie and her family to Watkin’s Glen, New York, where Trude’s mother was admitted to a spa-like resort, then known as a sanitarium, for doctor-prescribed rest. While there, Alice and Trude took up an acquaintance with an 18-year-old boy that they referred to as Mr. Hopper. A playful and funny young man, he accomplished the feat of having Alice break into a full smile in a dramatized photograph where he struggles to open a bottle of wine, and then they simultaneously pour each other a drink.

In another, more extravagant dramatization that takes place in a cemetery, Trudie, Alice, and Mr. Hopper take turns standing in front a large tombstone with the family name “Noyes,” spelled N O Y E S, which someone realized could also be read as “no” and “yes.” In the six photographs that altogether took one hour to shoot, they act out an elaborate courtship, with alternating variations showing Mr. Hopper choosing or being rejected by each woman by covering half of the name. The sequencing can be varied to tell different stories, but in the order that Alice shot the photos, it ends with both women turning away from the dejected Mr. Hopper, who blocks part of the tombstone to say, “No.”

After Alice left the group, returning home, Mr. Hopper wrote to Clear Comfort with all sorts of news and information about his own photographs. Apparently Alice had included a note to him in the letter she wrote to Trudie. And there’s talk of having submitted some of their photographs to Life Magazine.

[Mr. Hopper]
My dear Miss Austen.
       I got the message you sent me in Miss Eccleston’s letter and have only waited to answer it until I could have the print, and so know what I was writing about.
       This morning I got them – and I’m sorry to say – with one exception, they are poor, very foggy, and gray, but still very funny.
But such is life, and you know the trials of a photographer.
I expect to leave here Saturday morning and so cannot have other prints made until I get home. I should like awfully much to send them to “Life Magazine”; but really, after thinking it over, am skeptical as to whether they would take.
       As soon as I can get them printed, I will send a set with the others, I promise you.
       I hope you will have the set you sent to “Life” accepted. But of course, don’t count me in. The proceeds are indubitably intended for you and Miss Eccleston, and my reward will be in knowing two people who have been published.
       This place has been horribly slow without you, and I did wish you could have gotten back; but do not now, for I leave, as I previously remarked, on Saturday.
       “Trudie” – Scuse me, Miss Eccleston – says she is writing you to believe only half of what I say. – Don’t you do it.
       And now begging your pardon for these brief notes & assuring you that I love you more than ever –
Believe me. Very affectionately, your own, Willie

+++++++

[Narrator]
Austen had left the company of young Mr. Hopper and returned to the elderly Denning sisters’ compound at Presqu’ile, and where she accompanied the much older John Coates Browne on a nature and photography walk, and where she photographed him by a small waterfall. Browne was a well-known amateur photographer, whose work today is in several museum collections, including the Getty Museum in California, which has an album of photos that he shot of Presqu’ile and the surrounding area.

Alice Austen turned 26 in 1892 and was hitting her stride as a serious photographer. This idea of separating amateur from professional photographers of the day doesn’t really translate the same way as we think of those terms. Today, amateur seems pejorative, as a hobbyist, and perhaps a lesser practitioner. We use that word as an insult to someone who doesn’t do something well. Professional photographers in the 1880s and 1890s were those who had portrait studios or who worked for hire to document architecture or interiors. So when John Coates Browne suggested to the Denning sisters that Austen’s work was so good that she should have her own studio, he meant that she should become professional and get out of her second-floor closet darkroom at Clear Comfort.

Alice Austen’s photography practice varied – and will change more in the coming few years. She was a meticulous practitioner who left detailed notes on each glass negative’s paper sleeve – all while she left behind no personal correspondence, diaries, or even any thoughts or impressions of her circumstances or surroundings. Or at least they weren’t saved with the boxes of letters that supplement her photos and scrapbooks.

+++++++

[Narrator]
This episode showed a variety of relationships among Alice and her friends, which will continue to change, especially as athlete Daisy Elliott enters the picture.

[Reporter]
“Miss Elliott took the prizes in dumb bell, club swinging, vaulting and climbing exercises. She went up a long rope extended from the ceiling hand over hand like a sailor, clean to the top, winning great applause.”

[Narrator]
In the next chapter…focus is on the Chicago World’s Fair and everyone seems to be taking up photography.

+++++++

This episode featured the following voice talent in their order of appearance:
Benjamin Jouras, Sydney Hastings-Smith, Madeleine Bagnall, Maya Slaughter, Kylie Boyd, Rachel Hilbert, Reute Butler, Nicholas Kinney, Liv Glassman, Charlie Niccolini, Efren Ponce, and Tom Bannos.

Sound editor: Kendall Barron
Original music by Nicolas Rosa-Palermo and me, Pamela Bannos.
Other music from FreeSound and other public domain and attributed  sources – links are in the website that accompanies this podcast, where you’ll also find images of some of the letters and photographs that are referred to in each episode. That’s My Dear Alice dot ORG.

VOICE TALENT

Cast in the order of appearance:
Henry Gilman: BENJAMIN JOURAS
Julie Bredt: SYDNEY HASTINGS-SMITH
Nellie Austen: KYLIE BOYD
Trude Eccleston: RACHEL HILBERT
Alice Cornell Austen: REUTE BUTLER
George Rodney Booth: NICHOLAS KINNEY
Julia Martin: LIV GLASSMAN
Mr. Gregg: CHARLIE NICCOLINI
Mr. Hopper: EFREN PONCE
Reporter: TOM BANNOS

Voices in the introduction (in order):
Ella Stevens
Maya Slaughter
Ella Stevens
Kylie Boyd
Natalie Welber
Graham Goodwin
Madeleine Bagnall
Efren Ponce
Cristina Bragalone
Reute Butler
Ella Stevens
Benjamine Jouras
Kristen Waagner

MUSIC ATTRIBUTION etc.

MUSIC AND SOUND FILES USED IN THIS EPISODE:

Theme music by Nicolas Rosa-Palermo: Interpretation of the 1889 Santiago Waltz

The Edwardian Pianist (Adam Ramet) by permission:
1882: De Soulles Folcardet, Felicite Polka Brillante
1887: Meyer-Helmund, Aeolian Grand Ballet Music: Tanzweise in A minor.
1890: Jean Darquier, Clairette Polka
The Edwardian Pianist’s YouTube Channel

Sheet Music Singer (Fred Feild) by permission:
1855: Richard Milburn, Listen to the Mocking Bird (derived from)
1896: Harry Greenbank & Sidney Jones, from the musical play, The Geisha, The Amorous Goldfish (derived from) 
The Sheet Music Singer’s YouTube Channel

Musopen website:
1835: Frederic Chopin, Waltz in A flat major ‘Farewell,’ Op. 60 No. 1, played by Olga Gurevich. (licensed under Creative Commons Public Domain Mark 1.0 license)

Incompetech website:
“Thinking Music” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

“Sonatina in C Minor” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

“Divertissement – Pizzicato (from the ballet Sylvia)” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

Pamela Bannos:
Lilty Waltz (opening & Henry Gilman music)
Bassoon Beat with Organ (Henry Gilman music)

Free Sound website sound effects:
Zemidlo: Snare Roll Hit Crash (licensed under CC 0 license)
Werra: Vintage camera flash powder and shutter (licensed under CC 0 license)
Craig Smith: medium group talk and cheer (licensed under CC 0 license)
Craig Smith: medium group talk and cheer 2nd version (licensed under CC 0 license)

NOTES ON THE GALLERY IMAGES

Alice Austen photographed herself and Julie Bredt on the piazza at Clear Comfort. The photos were shot on 6.5 x 8.5″ glass plates and required a 3-second exposure. Several months earlier, she had photographed Trude Eccleston in the same position at the same spot. These photographs will be duplicated with Gertrude Tate around 1897.

Transcribing the letters was sometimes challenging when handwriting was nearly illegible or as in this case with Julie Bredt, the script lacked punctuation.

Austen photographed herself with Julia Martin and Julie Bredt, all dressed as men. It is one of a handful of images that shows Alice Austen smiling.

The letter from Henry Gilman illustrates the contrast between his messages and the fun and lightness as evident in Austen’s photographs and letters from the women.

Group in front of Oneata, the Ward family’s home on Grymes Hill in Staten Island. The photo shows the two-horse-drawn wagonette with the Ward family’s driver at the reins. Carrie Ward is seated behind him and Violet Ward stands behind the carriage with their family dog. The other woman is identified as Miss Miller.

Party at lunch, Richmond Valley Woods, and Party on steps of wagonette, as titled by Alice Austen on her negative sleeves.

Four different evenings of fun with the men of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and Julie Bredt.
February 14; February 20; February 21; February 22.

Letter from Julie Bredt after Alice sent photos from those evenings – partially stating, “O! Alice the pictures are simply fine, O they really are the best I have ever seen now look here I want them all & O! the men are perfectly wild about them …”

Portrait of Alice Austen, Julie Bredt, and Trude Eccleston. From the studio of Isaac Almstaedt, noted Staten Island photographer of the time.

Nellie Austen (wife of Alice’s Uncle Peter) with her three children, William, Lysbeth, and Oswald. The family was living in New Brunswick at this time, they would soon move to Brooklyn. They are pictured with the children’s nanny, Miss. Butler

Letter snippet from Julia Martin, introducing “the two Marys,” who she believed “slept together in each other’s arms.” The following photograph shows the women’s single grave in the English cemetery in Meggen, Switzerland (just outside of Lucerne.) Mary Edith Treat Richards (1845-1939) and Mary Bleecker Seymour Tibbits (1846-1927) lived together in Albany, NY, until they moved permanently to Lucerne, after traveling there often.
A 1918 newspaper article written during the First World War stated, “Former Albany Women are in Switzerland. Miss Mary Tibbits and Miss Mary Richards write from Luzerne – Winter Unusually Sever.
Among the Americans at Luzern, Switzerland are Miss Mary Tibbits and Miss Mary Richards, well known to old Albanians. Miss Tibbits and Miss Richards made their home in Dudley Row of South Hawk street here and were prominent in social life here for many seasons. They were connected with many well known and influential Albany families. After leaving Albany they traveled much abroad.
Finding the hotel at Luzerne a delightful location, Miss Tibbits and Miss Richards settled there a few years ago, intending to pass some little time in the Swiss lake region. Since that time they have been unable to leave.
Word comes to Albany friends from time to time and recently they wrote that the winter had been unusually severe and that they welcomed the approach of spring. The food is of the plainest and the greatest economy is exercised in the hotels. Fuel, too, is scarce. Miss Tibbits and Miss Richards are not optimistic about be able to leave Luzerne.”

Envelope from a letter from Henry K. Gilman, sent from Flushing, Long Island, to Clear Comfort, then forwarded to New Brunswick, New Jersey, where Alice was staying with her Uncle Peter and Aunt Nellie.

Aunt Nellie and her Uncle Alfred Munroe on the Assabet River by Concord, Massachusetts.
Alfred Munroe was also a photographer. His archive is held at the Concord Free Public Library.

Letter snippet from Trude Eccleston referencing Mr. Gregg – Trude states: “I will ask Mr Gregg down to go to the next one [dance] with us, if I have your kind permission.”

Alice Austen accompanied the Eccleston family to Watkins Glenn, where Trude’s mother was staying at The Glen Springs Sanatarium, a medical facility. There they met 18-year-old Mr. Hopper, who helped enact dramatizations for Alice’s and his own camera.

“A lunch at the San, Mr. Hopper pulling cork,” shows Austen with a rare smile.

The NOYES cemetery pictures dramatize two courtships. Austen’s order of photographing ends with both women walking away from Mr. Hopper, with the tombstone reading, “No.” (Order as shot, below)
Tombstone Trude & Mr Hopper “yes” (9:35)
Tombstone Trude & Mr Hopper approaching (9:45)
Tombstone, Myself & Mr. Hopper approaching (9:50am)
Myself and Mr. Hopper, Yes (10am)
Trude Ec. & Mr Hopper “No” (10:15)
Tombstone Trude Ec. Mr Hopper & self (10:30am)
Mr. Hopper wrote to Alice from the facility after she had left.

After leaving the company of the young Mr. Hopper, Alice Austen accompanied the older John Coates Browne on a photography hike. She photographed him seated by a waterfall. Browne wrote to Austen, giving tips on developing and toning – offering chemical formulas and other photography advice.

Image attributions: (HRT) Historic Richmond Town archive; (AAH) Alice Austen House Museum collection.

Bessie Strong lived in New Brunswick, New Jersey. (HRT) (see notes)

Julie and Alice at Clear Comfort on Hallooween, 1890 (HRT)

Julia Martin (right) wrote the most letters in the collection – 87. (HRT)

Alice’s mother with their cat, Tristan, perhaps named for a character from the opera she saw as in this episode’s narrative. (HRT)

Alice Cornell Austen tells of the opera Tristan & Isolde. (AAH)

Theatre & concert tickets that Alice saved and donated to the Staten Island Historical Society at her eviction from Clear Comfort. (HRT)

Emily, Emmie, and their dog Beauty – referenced in a letter from Jane Denning in this episode. (HRT)

The Denning sisters family home Presqu’ile stood on this peninsula  on the Hudson River. (AAH)

July 2022. Photograph by Pamela Bannos.

Jane Louise Denning and sister Emily Denning Van Rensselaer’s house at Fishkill on Hudson. (AAH)

Alice made many photographs of this house and its grounds. (AAH)

Captured with flash, this group gathered to witness the flower that blooms once a year, at night. (HRT)

Alice, Mrs. Snively, Mary Sanford & others at a village fair. (HRT)

Mary Sanford and her partner Helen Stokes would become part of the early socialist movement in Greenwich Village (see notes for this chapter.) (HRT)

Alice spent part of the summer with Julia and Mrs. Snively in Bennington, Vermont. (HRT)

The envelope does not divulge the intention of this portrait. (AAH)

Alice Cornell Austen borrowed her daughter’s tennis stationery. (AAH)

Only spoken of as Mr. Gregg, he and Trude were engaged, but did not marry. (HRT)

Trude tells of meeting Mr. Gregg. (AAH)

Alice titled the photo during this summer of dramatized photographs. (HRT)

This enigmatic portrait was shot at 11pm on an August night. (HRT)

Alice noted the portrait as “Trude & I masked, short skirts.” (AAH) (see notes) 

An enigmatic portrait, taken the same night as “Trude & I masked.” (HRT) (see notes)

Alice, Trude Eccleston, Julia Lord, and Sue Ripley. (HRT) (see notes)

Opening music …

[Trude Eccleston]
My dear Alice;
You are quite the meanest girl I know. Why haven’t you written to me when I know you have lots more time for it than I have. I am pining and homesick for some news of Staten Island. Do write & tell your famishing friend all you can.
It seems useless to say I am having a gorgeous time as I don’t see how anyone could help it down here.
If this is not the place to turn a girl’s head in, “so help me gracious.” Last night I went on a moonlight sail – Oh it was scrumptious.
Now Alice, do write me one letter before I leave here.
Love to all inquiring friends & yourself. Ever your loving friend, Trudie

+++++++

Theme Music …

[Narrator]
I’m Pamela Bannos, in collaboration with the Alice Austen House Museum, and this is My Dear Alice, a podcast series that explores the life of photographer Alice Austen through her photographs and these letters that were discovered decades after her death.
You’ll find images of some of these letters, along with photographs referred to here, at the website that accompanies this podcast.

Chapter 3:

It’s tricky to tell Alice Austen’s story through the letters she received because basically everyone is always asking Alice to join them or they are thanking her for sending them a photo or are relaying the time they’re having while they’re away from her. So we don’t exactly know what happens when they’re together unless Alice photographs the gathering – but which she does mostly seem to do. And yet, like any archive, we only know about what is there, not so much about what is missing. Just as there are gaps in these letters that were returned to Clear Comfort forty years after they were found in a closet there, from the thoroughness of Austen’s photography, it seems certain that there should be more pictures.

And even so, Alice is mostly behind the camera, and when she’s in the picture, she is sphynx-like, her expression, deadpan. In the handful of images where she is smiling or laughing, it is because someone is provoking her and she’s having trouble containing herself. My guess is that her own letters have a dry or wry humor.

At any rate, the collection of letters residing at today’s Alice Austen House Museum, where they were sent in the first place, do reveal more about the correspondent, even as they also help illustrate Alice’s relationship with each of them.

Here’s Julie Bredt in January 1890, asking Alice to visit her in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where there are going to be numerous gatherings – things are always fun with Julie Bredt:

[Julie Bredt]
O! I am so glad you can come. Yes, I will expect you on the train that gets here at 4 on Friday the 24th, rain or shine.
On the 31st, the boys had promised an Assembly & Saturday a tea, so please remember you will not be home before that.

[Narrator]
For whatever reason, Alice didn’t respond, so Julie wrote again:

[Julie Bredt]
My dear Alice,
This is an extra letter, but I am going to ask you if you won’t come and stay a week or so with me. Now please say yes. I want you to come on the 24th on the 12:20 train. I hope that it will be jolly. There is to be an assembly, I hope, and I expect to have a little dance on the 24th.
We are bound to have fun, for there is a card party Thursday and a Tea and another card party. So be sure and come and bring two or three party dresses. Be sure and let me know right away, tomorrow if you can. But please come Alice dear, as I want you so much and Lent comes in February and there will be no more fun, until about June.
So, you must come; it is not far and I have set my heart on you
As breakfast is ready, I must say good bye.
In haste, Julie Bredt
Be sure and let me know as soon as possible.

[Narrator]
Alice did go to Bethlehem, joining Julie at her party – and letters to her followed. She apparently wrote home letting her mother know of her arrival, and immediately received a reply, filling in on the doings of the previous three days.

[Alice Cornell Austen]
Well, on Saturday I went to town, got the feather trimming, pocket comb, and stockings, of which there were only two pairs left, which were found after a long search, they said at first all were gone.
I had a great struggle at Mary’s for lunch first to get my order taken, then to have it filled, then waiting for change. I got quite wild and could not get into the street until a quarter to two. I was afraid I would be late at the Opera – but as I climbed the first stairs, I heard the first sound of the Orchestra. It was a magnificent performance in every respect.
There is no chorus in ‘Tristan,’ and no overture, but a long orchestral prelude before each act. I never heard such tremendous waves of sound, the orchestra seemed like one great instrument, the scenery very good, especially the moonlit garden of the love scene.
The enormous audience shouted & stamped till worn out, the curtain was raised 3 times after the first act, and three times the singers came before the Curtain.
Trudie & Edith were there. It was not over until 5 minutes to six, all but four hours. I got the book for you.
Take care of yourself my dearest Babe, and give my kind regards to Mrs Bredt.
From, Your Mama

[Narrator]
And then she heard from Trudie, who also spoke of the opera but didn’t mention seeing anyone. Alice had a subscription to New York’s Metropolitan Opera for many years – the season’s tickets are in her scrapbooks.

[Trude Eccleston]
I suppose you will be on hand for the opera this Saturday, will you not? Effie Emmons is going to have an at homes these next two Saturdays and I believe she is going to ask you to pour tea for her this Saturday. She asked me your address & I told her I would give it to her if she would come to the house, & I also told her that we had an Opera every Saturday and that I should not be able to come to her teas, which of course made her feel very sad.
“Tristan & Isolde” was simply magnif & I did wish you could have seen it. Last Saturday you did not miss anything as it was a repetition of the “Barber etc,” I did not go as I was sick & did not care enough about it to make the effort.
There is nothing going on down here this week strange to relate. I shall be away having some clothes fixed up, I must have a pink dress for the last Assembly on the 13th.
Now then Alice, remember me to Miss Bredt and with lots of love for yourself. I remain as ever your loving friend.
Trude Eccleston

[Narrator]
In mid-April, Trudie went with her sister Edith’s family to Fort Douglas in Salt Lake City, Utah, where her army Lieutenant brother-in-law was transferred. Alice photographed the family on their front porch in Staten Island and titled the picture, “Moving Day.”

Trudie’s first letter to Alice arrived a month later, acknowledging that it was the first she’d written …

[Trude Eccleston]
… so I hope you feel properly complimented. I have grown so lazy since my arrival here that I do nothing but loaf.

[Narrator]
Trude seems pretty carefree, conveying to Alice all her new experiences. I can’t help but think of Alice’s feelings in reading of the excitement of new surroundings. She had not yet traveled beyond the Northeastern states.

[Trude Eccleston]
The post is beautifully situated right at the foot of the Snow Mountains – we have an exquisite view of the Valley & the City below, and also the Lake, which is like an ocean & as blue as a sapphire.

[Narrator]
And what she must’ve thought at hearing about Trudie’s expanded social life…

[Trude Eccleston]
The girls who are visiting here now I do not like very much, they are too free & easy for my style – decidedly fast.
So much for the girls; now for the men. I like all the officers so far; I could not very well help it as they have all been so polite to me. If I have any preference, it is for the older bachelors with perhaps one exception; Mr. Gregg. We have had quite a flirtation in a mild way.

[Narrator]
In a subsequent letter, she wrote:

[Trude Eccleston]
I am having two very flourishing flirtations with Dr. Edie & Mr. Gregg. I like the latter best, but I don’t let on I do. Mr. G is much younger & handsomer, by far. The Dr. is an old hand at flirtation so is more exciting, but I have wisely decided to let up a little now as things are getting too hot for me.
Mr. G gets mad whenever I am with the Dr & vice-versa & that making up business gets to be too tiresome after a while.

[Narrator]
Trudie’s letter went on for twenty pages – 10 double-sided two-page spreads – providing details including of her dancing activities:

[Trude Eccleston]
The band here plays splendidly; I never danced to better music, and the floor is fine.
They have these informal dances every Friday eve. The band plays selections between the dances & we all go home at eleven.
Tomorrow night we are to have a big dance.

[Narrator]
And from a subsequent letter:

[Trude Eccleston]
This eve we are all going up to the hop room to raise Cain. One of the girls knows a whole lot of new dances and she is to teach us all how to dance them. We will also have the “song & dance” & “Razzle Dazzle” and end up with a ballet in which Mr. Gregg always excels as the highest kicker.

[Narrator]
She conveyed her sporting activities:

[Trude Eccleston]
I am gradually waking them up to tennis. The court was in a dreadful condition, so I woke the Colonel up to the fact that I was very anxious to play; so he has had a lot of soldiers fixing it up in fine style. So that now we are all tennis crazy, and we are going to begin operations tomorrow. I have been challenged by all the officers, so mean to have some fun and plenty of exercise to keep from getting too enormous.

[Narrator]
She spoke of going to the big Salt Lake, meeting one of the Brigham Young family, and gave her general impressions of the Mormons.

[Trude Eccleston]
I went to the Lake with “the gang” as they call themselves on Saturday and enjoyed it immensely. It takes about two hours to go from here on the train. The salt is so thick that one can’t sink. It is impossible to swim any way but dog fashion & floating is what everyone has to do as you can’t sit at the bottom.
I ate four bags of popcorn that day and a ham sandwich large enough to feed a Mormon family.

[Narrator]
Trudie is funny and fun and a lot about Trudie.
Near the end of the letter Alice’s presence shines through, alongside Trude’s younger brother, who also misses her:

[Trude Eccleston]
Tell Sam, the crushed morsel of rose is pressed in my bible, and your forget-me-not shall be put in even a safer place.

[Narrator]
Alice speaks the language of flowers here – as she will again, later in this story.
Trude ended her first letter encouraging Alice to send gossip and more letters, and finished in her particular way:

[Trude Eccleston]
Give my love to Julia and tell her not to try to comfort my friends for me. It is much better to let them forget me in a measure than to keep my memory so green all the time. Give lots of love to all my friends when you see them and write again soon.
With piles of love for your own dear self, I am your loving friend. Trudie Eccleston
I cannot write to anyone first – haven’t got the time – my friends must good & write me
first.

+++++++

[Narrator]
That summer, instead of joining the Ecclestons in the Hudson Valley, Alice visited Bessie Strong and her Uncle Pete’s family in New Brunswick, New Jersey; she attended July tennis matches; and also went to a place called Denning’s Point, by Fishkill on the Hudson, where she would repeatedly photograph the home of the elderly Denning sisters, who were distant relatives of her maternal grandmother. Jane Denning, her sister Emily Denning Van Rensselaer, and Emily’s daughter Emmie – lived on an estate called Presqu’ile.

Alice photographed the estate grounds, as well as the women and the rooms of the house.
Her interior photographs are exquisite in their light and clarity.

Each of the three women wrote to Alice over the years, in thanks and praise for her photographs. In one letter, well-known amateur photographer John Coates Browne is noted as recognizing Austen’s talent, suggesting that she leave her home darkroom and get a studio.

[Jane Louise Denning]
Mr. Browne says without any flattery, the interior of the church is one of the best interiors he ever saw. And he would be proud to have done any as well – and that the artist must be good indeed to be entrusted with such a Lens. I was telling him of your small accommodations, and he said tell Miss Austen she ought to make her work pay for a studio. That her photographs would pay well and satisfy any customer.

[Narrator]
Later, Alice sent John Browne some of her landscape photographs and he shared instructions on how to mix developer and other chemical formulas with tips for printing and toning.

The elderly Jane Denning would also praise Alice:

[Jane Louise Denning]
I think my dear Lolla you are a wonderful specimen of the girls of the present age.

[Narrator]
And she commented on Austen’s portrait of her sister and niece, with their dog, Beauty:

[Jane Louise Denning]
Emmy is delighted with Beauty and I am equally pleased with Emmy. Her downcast smiling face conceals the strong lines of thoughtful meditation on the misfortunes of others which characterize her life. Cousin Emily looks like herself.
And now I must thank you again in the name of the Presqu’ile trio.
Do give our love to your mother and aunt.
Ever yours affectionately, Jane Louise Denning

[Narrator]
The photo of mother and daughter Van Rensselaer were among others of the Presqu’ile estate that were separated from a bound album and sold on eBay last year. It is not clear from which collection they were derived.

In July 1890, Alice photographed Emmy and Emily and some local women and children who had come inside to witness the annual night-time bloom of the cereus plant. Seated in darkness, the group is lit by magnesium powder flash. Smoke from the little flash explosion veils the side of the photograph.

+++++++

Austen spent the rest of her summer in Bennington, Vermont, where Julia Martin was staying with the elderly Mrs. Cooper, who she would soon begin working for.

During her Vermont visit Alice photographed covered bridges, waterfalls, and vistas as she traveled by donkey cart – which she also photographed – and upon her return mounted large prints into a photo album – some of which also sold on eBay last year.

While staying with Julia, Alice met Mrs. Snively, Mrs. Cooper’s daughter, who Julia often mentioned in her letters. Alice photographed them all.

Altogether, Julia, Alice, Mrs. Snively and whoever else they could round up, had loads of fun. They went to a village fair and put their faces in the cutout holes of a painted backdrop of a group called the Simpkins Family, with Alice assuming a male role, and all the faces deadpan serious.

One night Alice photographed herself with Mrs. Snively and Julia Martin, the three of them in bed together, each with their nighties buttoned to their chin and an arm overhead. Julia feigns she’s asleep, while Mrs. Snively and Alice gaze off in different directions. Who really knows what is going on in this heavily staged picture.

Earlier that same day, a smiling Mrs. Snively arm-in-arm with another woman, pulled up their skirts and kicked their legs can-can-style, scandalously revealing their black stockings. That other woman, Mary Sanford, deserves a history of her own. In fifteen years, she and her life partner Helen Stokes would be living in Manhattan’s Greenwich village, active in the burgeoning socialist movement. Helen Stokes would become one of the founding members of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Mrs. Snively is a different sort of compelling character, being the wife of an episcopal minister with two small boys. She was nearly a decade older than Julia and Alice, who were both twenty-four during that summer of 1890. Julia was smitten with Mrs. Snively and Alice teased her for it. After their extended visit, they both wrote to Alice:

[Julia Martin]
Woe be, I have not been to see my “Idol” as you call her, so I have to content myself with looking at her photograph, for which I am greatly obliged to you. It is not bad, neither is it Mrs. Snively at her best. I suppose Mrs. Snively has written thanking you for the pictures, & I am overcome with jealousy. She is a trump & no doubt about it.
As I cannot get a letter from her, I have been to Mrs. Cooper’s & gotten a hat box of hers & shall keep it always with most tender care. And seeing it has belonged to her, I know it will preserve my hat from harm.

[Narrator]
Alice could be counted on for recapping visits by sending photos. The only letter from Eliza Snively confirms every photo of her that remains in the archive.

[Mrs. Snively]
My dear Alice –
Thank you so much for the charming photographs which reached me safely Friday afternoon. They are certainly lovely & I cannot tell you how much pleasure they have given me.
The picture of Laddie & myself are the very best we have ever had taken. I am very much pleased with Mother’s – it is a great thing to have her just as I see her every day – I really don’t understand how they all could have turned out so well.
Miss Sanford & I have enjoyed the Simpkins family & our dance greatly – the “Sleep babies sleep” is fine.
I can’t tell you how I miss you girls, I have been as blue as possible ever since you left.

+++++++

[Narrator]
Alice had started making dramatizations for the camera, and her subjects contributed with their own quirkiness. In group photos, they’d look in different directions or present a particular object to the camera. These seem to have been late-19th century ploys, as other group photos from the time show similar posing and gestures, some of which may have been left over from painted portrait conventions, others from the lingering novelty of the camera.

Today we have an impression of Victorians as being stuffy, humorless, and lacking color – literally – sometimes we forget that some of what we know of that era is through the limitations of photography. They had to stand still for the camera – sometimes for longer than felt natural. Early flash pictures feel more contemporary in the way they capture a moment. And the monochrome, or sepia toning, today used to convey the past or nostalgia – muted the colorful clothing and interiors, which from the patterns and textures, show fashion and rooms as nearly visual overloads – effectively dulled in every way through photography and the passage of time.

Alice Austen’s dramatizations for the camera remain enigmatic because their immediate context has been lost. We’re left with sometimes stunning images that resonate because they give us a glimpse into not just another time, but into the private lives of people so unlike ourselves. Or are they?

Here’s Julie Bredt:

[Julie Bredt]
Alice, do you know I am crazy to travel – also I seem to be possessed with the idea lately; it is so strange you should be, also. I wish we could go together – can’t we? Maybe you can propose something.
How lonely you must be without Gertrude. Is it not strange, everyone seems to be away traveling around the country. It is the strangest thing. A friend of mine sails on the 19th. I would have loved to go to Europe with them, but they are going to make quite an expensive trip of it, so my Mamma said no. I did not mind so very much.
Still, I do want to go somewhere, don’t you? To see something of the world; you know we are so young, and would like so much to see something of the world you know?

[Narrator]
Trudie Eccleston’s last letter from Utah, months before Julie Bredt acknowledged how lonely Alice must be without her, spoke of her flirtations with two men who were competing for her attention. One of those flirtations may have resulted in the officer’s transfer to New York. This man, only ever referred to as Mr. Gregg, appears in Alice’s photographs on Staten Island in the summer of 1891. He’s at the beach with a group of Alice’s crowd – and Trudie. He’s dressed finely, posing in the front of Clear Comfort – alone and with Trude. And Alice’s photographs in which she appears with Trudie take a decided turn.

In what, today, might be her most famous photograph, Alice and Trude Eccleston pose for the camera in a curtained and stage-like setting. Theatrical like Victorian burlesque, they stand facing each other in white corseted undergarments, black stockings, and white half face masks. Their hair is down – the only such picture in the entire collection, and alarmingly, Alice’s hair is almost to her knees. They lean toward each other, faces nearly touching, holding cigarettes to their mouths. The scene could only be more scandalous if it was taken from within a church rectory, which, in fact, it was, because that’s where Trudie lived, her father being the church minister.

Another photograph from that same August evening shows the two women in bed, gesturing toward the camera at the foot of the bed. Each has a hand open, palm forward, and Trudie holds up her other hand between them gesturing the number “two.” It reads as if they’re signaling 5-2-5. The meaning is lost.

Honestly, I’m a little lost as to how these photographs were even made. Both photos were shot with a flash, which still consisted of lighting a wick to ignite magnesium powder, creating a burst of light. Camera self-timers would not exist for another ten years, at least that’s when the first patent was applied for. So perhaps Alice was able to modify her camera somehow to delay triggering the shutter, or there was a very long wick leading to the flash ignition.

All of this is to say, things are always more complicated than they first appear.

A couple of months after these puzzling photos were made, Austen composed another of today’s most popular photographs from the collection, and which in this case, she titled or captioned, by writing on the glass negative, merging the image with text. Called “The Darned Club,” the picture features Alice and Trude, along with friends Julia Lord and Sue Ripley (who were cousins.) The women are divided into face-to-face pairs in profile to the camera. Trude and Alice stand close, their hands clasped with fingers interlaced around each other’s waist; Julia and Sue are in the same position but standing further apart – Sue with a stifled smile. Alice is the only one taking her position with total seriousness, standing so close to Trude that their bodies fuse, her shoe nearly on top of Trudie’s. Earlier in the summer, in another titled photograph, Alice and Trude appear facing the camera holding hands, while struggling to balance in the water in beach innertubes. Alice’s script says, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the twin characters from Alice in Wonderland.

The Darned Club, said much later to have been named by the men who were excluded from the women’s activities. The name also seems to have been a play on words.

Earlier in the summer, Alice’s mother had written:

[Alice Cornell Austen]
Sue Ripley came here to say that her Darning Club would be put off till Tuesday and would take the form of Tennis.

[Narrator]
These same women also had a cooking club, which met regularly, and was also photographed by Alice. There are a few letters that reference darning socks, which is to say, mending holes in fabric.

By the time Alice photographed The Darned Club, Trude Eccleston and Mr. Gregg’s engagement had been announced. With this information, it’s not difficult for me to read further into Alice’s presence in her portraits with Trudie. Still, there’s no indication or acknowledgement of this engagement anywhere in Austen’s archive – I found it in a two-sentence announcement in a San Francisco newspaper.

+++++++

Austen’s photographs and scrapbooks illustrate what was important to her. They give visual, albeit cryptic, glimpses into her 19th century life. The letters that she saved further illuminate the distant past, which is why they have such an aura to them.

Here’s Julia Martin, Julie Bredt, and Bessie Strong bringing life to activities that defined these young women of the late 19th century: horses – parties – dances – and fashion.

[Julia Martin]
The sleighing is fine & yesterday afternoon I had a splendid sleigh ride with my friend Mr. Durant. Two horses & a cutter & at the rate of “a mile a minute.”

[Julie Bredt]
The day I left you, I went up to Uncle’s first, and he was not down so I went uptown and got a dandy cape. Black Sable, just like Russian, only black. I am sure you would like it. Ask them to show them when you get yours.

[Bessie Strong]
Wish you could see my three hats. I have trimmed my evening bonnet: black velvet with gold trimmings and pink orchids; it is a thing to be proud of.

[Julia Martin]
This summer, Mrs. S has invested in a pole for her buckboard, and sometimes she drives two horses, and one goes like the wind.

[Bessie Strong]
For the last two Saturday evenings we have had choir meeting here and after the practice was over, we played “ring a peg” and last night, Whist. We had very good fun.

[Julie Bredt]
Last night we went to a spider party at Dodson’s. It was the greatest fun – they had twine run all over the house, a ball for each person. And then we had to untwist it and at the end win a prize. Then we danced afterwards.

[Julia Martin]
The ice is splendid, and we had a fine skate yesterday. The thermometer was eight below zero, but it was cold! I slept with all my underclothes on.

[Bessie Strong]
We had a most delightful time at the phantom party at Mrs. Wells’, and the Thursday evening, we all met again at a “Progressive Euchre” party at the Deshlers’.
Our last gaiety was a “dove” or “hen” tea – party. It was very small, only about fourteen girls being invited, but we had a very pleasant time.

[Julie Bredt]
I have been having a most hard question to decide; it is whether to have a pale pink mull, or a white and green for a ball dress. I have two whites, so I rather think it will end in me getting the pink. What would you if you were me?

[Bessie Strong]
Cousin Evie sent me one of the Staten Island papers containing an account of the “Cricketers’ Ball.” From it I learned that “Miss Austen was attired in white nun’s-veiling, profusely trimmed with lace, a pearl necklace and pearls on her hair.” Did you have a good time? Mr. Baldwin told me he went with your party and was dancing with Miss Eccleston when she sprained her ankle. It must have somewhat spoiled the fun for all of you.
I told Charlie Ludlow that you would probably be here for some of the dances – he seemed very much pleased.

+++++++

[Narrator]
In the next episode, all kinds of relationships take center stage – and Henry Gilman is back in the fray:

[Henry K. Gilman]
Hoping to see you in the not distant future. I am Truly Yours, Henry K Gilman

[Narrator]
This episode featured the following voice talent in their order of appearance:
Rachel Hilbert, Sydney Hastings-Smith, Reute Butler, Penelope Bannos, Liv Glassman, Ella Stevens, Natalie Welber, and Benjamin Jouras.

Sound editor: Kendall Barron
Original music by Nicolas Rosa-Palermo and me, Pamela Bannos.
Other music from FreeSound, MusOpen, and other public domain sources – links are in the website that accompanies this podcast, where you’ll also find images of some of the letters and photographs that are referred to in each episode. That’s My Dear Alice dot ORG.

VOICE TALENT

Cast in the order of appearance:
Trude Eccleston: RACHEL HILBERT 
Julie Bredt: SYDNEY HASTINGS-SMITH
Alice Cornell Austen: REUTE BUTLER
Jane Louise Denning: PENELOPE BANNOS
Julia Martin: LIV GLASSMAN
Mrs. Snively: ELLA STEVENS
Bessie Strong: NATALIE WELBER
Henry K. Gilman: BENJAMIN JOURAS

Voices in the introduction (in order):
Ella Stevens
Maya Slaughter
Ella Stevens
Kylie Boyd
Natalie Welber
Graham Goodwin
Madeleine Bagnall
Efren Ponce
Cristina Bragalone
Reute Butler
Ella Stevens
Benjamine Jouras
Kristen Waagner

MUSIC ATTRIBUTION etc.

MUSIC AND SOUND FILES USED IN THIS EPISODE:

Theme music by Nicolas Rosa-Palermo: Interpretation of the 1889 Santiago Waltz 

The Edwardian Pianist (Adam Ramet) by permission:
1890: J.E. Peilgen, Danse Elegante
The Edwardian Pianist’s YouTube Channel

Sheet Music Singer (Fred Feild) by permission:
1846: Signor Blanco, Tu Sanduca (derived from)
1896: Harry Greenbank & Sidney Jones, from the musical play, The Geisha, The Amorous Goldfish (derived from) 
The Sheet Music Singer’s YouTube Channel

Musopen website:
1830: Frederic Chopin, Waltz in G flat major, played by Olga Gurevich. (licensed under Creative Commons Public Domain Mark 1.0 license)
1892: Isaac Albeniz, Asturias (Leyenda), from Suite española Op. 47, performed by Gordon Rowland. (licensed under Creative Commons Public Domain Mark 1.0 license)

Freesound website music:
Ohrwurm: Chordephon – mechanical zither (licensed under CC Attribution 0 license)
Sentuniman: nostalgic finale (licensed under CC Attribution 0 license)
Avnonsen: Aksamin Vakti Gecti (licensed under CC Attribution 0 license)

Free Sound website sound effect:
Werra: vintage camera flash powder and shutter (licensed under CC Attribution 0 license)

Adobe Stock music:
Two Souls (Jane Louise Denning Music) Audio standard license, via Adobe Stock.

NOTES ON THE GALLERY IMAGES

1887 Alice & Bessie Strong: Elisabeth Briard Strong is a main correspondent. She lives in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where Alice’s Uncle Peter and Aunt Nellie also live. Strong plays the piano and guitar; Alice played the banjo (as also referenced in a Trude Eccleston letter.) Clear Comfort’s piazza often contained the elements seen here: a hammock, birdcage, telescope, and rocking chairs.

1890 Alice & Julie Bredt in Clear Comfort’s front yard: Julia Frederica Bredt was three years younger than Alice. She once lived across the street and her father bought the New York Yacht Club’s villa, next door to Clear Comfort. Julie was fun-loving and living in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania by the time of this photograph.

1890 Julia Martin with the Sibleys: the women appear to be wearing mourning clothing. Julia Taber Martin was Alice’s childhood friend. She wrote 87 letters in the collection – she will soon move to Santa Barbara, California. In 1890, she is living in Albany, New York, and spending time in Bennington, Vermont, with the elderly woman she is working for.

1887 Alice Cornell Austen with Tristan, the cat. According to a 1951 Life magazine article, Alice Austen named the cat after seeing the opera Tristan & Isolde, the opera her mother references in a letter in this episode. The Austens had two dogs and several cats throughout the years.

1890 letter read in this episode from Alice Cornell Austen referring to the opera Tristan and Isolde.

Metropolitan Opera season tickets and other tickets that were part of the items that the Staten Island Historical Society received as Clear Comfort was emptied in haste during the 1945 eviction.

1888 Emily Dening Van Rensselaer, her daughter Emmie, with their dog Beauty – a photograph referenced in this episode by Emily’s sister Jane Denning, who died in 1889 at age 80. (My mother Penelope Bannos, age 92, read for Jane Denning in this episode.)

1888 Denning’s Point and Presqu’ile: Alice Austen photographed the home (Presqu’ile) and grounds many times. These exterior and interior photos are on mounted pages that were removed from an album and sold on eBay in 2021.

1890 nighttime bloom of the cereus plant. Austen shot this photo in the dark, lighting the room with the flash from magnesium powder. She photographed the once-a-year night blooming plant more than once – there’s another reference that a bloom occurred at Clear Comfort at a later date.

1890 Bennington, Vermont photos: Austen spent part of the summer with Julia Martin who was working for Mrs. Snively’s mother, Mrs. Cooper. Together with another family, and Mary Sanford, they went to a village fair and there’s reference to a house with a bowling alley. Austen photographed Julia, Mrs. Snively, and herself in bed together.

Mary Sanford (who kicks up her leg Can-Can-style with Mrs. Snively in Austen’s photo) was a resident of Bennington, VT. She was also a photographer (Julia Martin references her in a letter in a future episode as photographing Chicago’s Columbian Exposition in 1893.) Her archive is at the Bennington Museum in Vermont. Sanford’s longtime partner, Helen Stokes was a founding member of the ACLU and the women were early socialists. They lived in New York’s Greenwich Village in the 1910s.

The intention behind Alice Austen’s dramatized photos from 1891 is unknown. Her negative sleeves go no further than descriptive notations of the photo process. Two photos: “Trude & I masked, short skirts,” and “Trude & I in bed,” were taken in Trude Eccleston’s bedroom in the church rectory on the same August night.

1891 Trude Eccleston & Mr. Gregg at Clear Comfort. Trude met Mr. Gregg while she was in Salt Lake City, Utah, with her sister’s military family at Fort Douglas. He was transferred to Fort Totten at Willets Point (now part of Flushing, Queens) by this time. This photograph was taken three days after the dramatized photos, above. Trude and Mr. Gregg’s engagement was announced in a San Francisco newspaper in October.

1891 The Darned Club (Alice, Trude, Julia Lord, and Sue Ripley.) Many years later said to be so named by the men who were excluded from the women’s activities, the name also seems to be a play on words. Alice’s mother refers to Sue Ripley’s “darning club” and the women also had a “cooking club.”

1891 Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee. As a smaller image, I had seen the two women as trying to balance in beach inner tubes, but the larger image reveals they are inside barrels.

Image attributions: (HRT) Historic Richmond Town archive; (AAH) Alice Austen House Museum collection.

1888 portrait by Austen’s Uncle Oswald Muller. (HRT)

The opening letter from this episode. Bradish Carroll danced the Santiago Waltz with Alice – it is the music from which this podcast theme music was derived. (AAH)

Carrie Ward (top row, left); Nellie Janssen (top row, right); and Bradish Carroll (seated with cane.) (HRT)

Dance card showing Alice danced the Santiago Waltz with Bradish Carroll. (AAH)

Alice’s tennis doubles partner with his wife, who wrote Alice congratulating her on winning her tennis match. (AAH)

Fragment from letter from Emily Babbitt, as part of this chapter’s narrative. (AAH)

Alice & Trude Eccleston dressed as  nuns, advertising Pear’s Soap. Charlie Barton seated in military costume. (HRT)

Detail showing Alice & Trude Eccleston dressed as nuns, with Charlie Barton on the floor. (HRT)

(HRT)

Published in Outing Magazine, Alice Austen is standing at far right in the top row. (AAH)

Alice Cornell Austen often wrote of Katie, the Austens’ live-in helper who, among other duties,  tended to the dogs. (HRT)

Alice Cornell Austen with Tristan, the cat. (HRT)

Alice’s scrapbook showing 1887 & 1888 tennis news, obituaries, and other items. (AAH)

Detail showing Alice’s tennis results, her grandmother’s obituary, and her aunt Mary Austen’s obituary. (AAH)

Facing pages showing membership receipts for the Staten Island Ladies Club & the SI neighborhood club, Ladies Tennis Club of Clifton. (HRT)

The photo Nellie Janssen asked for – she is seated at top right. Bradish Carroll is at middle left with striped beanie. (HRT)