My Dear Alice
Chapter 4: Relationships
(male interactions / hijinks with the ladies / queerness)
Image attributions: (HRT) Historic Richmond Town archive; (AAH) Alice Austen House Museum collection.
1892 Alice Austen
Alice Austen on Clear Comfort’s piazza in September 1892 (HRT)
1892 Julie Bredt
Julie Bredt on Clear Comfort’s piazza in September 1892. (HRT)
1892 Trude Eccleston
Trude Eccleston on Clear Comfort’s piazza in July 1892. (HRT)
1890 letter from Julie Bredt
Julie Bredt did not favor punctuation. (AAH)
1891 Alice, Julia, and Julie
(L-R) Alice Austen, Julia Martin, and Julie Bredt. (HRT)
1891 Alice, Julia and Julie
(L-R) Alice Austen, Julia Martin, and Julie Bredt. (HRT)
1891 letter from Mr. Gilman
Letter from Henry K. Gilman, as presented in this episode. (AAH)
1890 Ward family’s wagonette
Violet Ward, standing at back; Carrie Ward, middle seated, at the front of Oneata. (HRT)
1891 Richmond Valley Woods picnic
(L-R) Trude Eccleston, Violet and Carrie Ward, Miss Jenkins. (HRT)
1891 Party on the steps of the wagonette
(L-R) Violet Ward, Trude Eccleston, Miss Jenkins, Carrie Ward. (HRT)
1892 Alice Austen, Julie Bredt, and Trude Eccleston
Studio portrait by Staten Island photographer, Isaac Almstaedt. (HRT)
1892 February 14 gathering with Julie Bredt
Valentine’s Day gathering. Julie Bredt, third from left; Alice Austen, far right. (HRT)
1892 February 20 gathering with Julie Bredt
Tea party at Bethlehem, PA. Julie Bredt pouring tea; Alice Austen, second from right. (HRT)
1892 February 21 gathering with Julie Bredt
A rare smile from Alice Austen, second from right; Julie Bredt to her right. (HRT)
1892 February 22 gathering with Julie Bredt
Alice Austen, seated far right; Julie Bredt, standing center. Bethlehem, PA. (HRT)
1892 letter from Julie Bredt
Julie Bredt appreciating Alice’s photos of their gathering. (AAH)
1892 Nellie Austen with her children and their nanny
Alice’s Uncle Peter’s wife Nellie Austen, with their children William, Lysbeth, and Oswald, and their nanny Miss Butler. (HRT)
1892 letter from Julia Martin
Julia Martin introducing “the two Marys.” (AAH)
The Two Marys
“The two Marys” grave in Lucerne, Switzerland. (see notes) (photo credit: Philipp Lustenberger)
1892 envelope from Henry K. Gilman
Letter sent from Flushing, NY, to Clear Comfort; forwarded to Alice at her Uncle Peter’s house in New Brunswick, New Jersey. (AAH)
1892 Concord, Massachusetts
Nellie Austen with her Uncle Alfred Munroe on the Assabet River in Concord, MA. (HRT)
1892 letter from Trude
Excerpt from Trude Eccleston letter, referring to Mr. Gregg, to whom she was to become engaged. (AAH)
1892 Watkins Glen, NY
Exquisite landscape photograph by Alice Austen. (HRT)
1892 Watkins Glen Sanitarium, Mr. Hopper
Titled, “A lunch at the ‘San,'”Mr. Hopper & Alice Austen pour each other a drink. (HRT)
1892 a rare smile from Alice Austen
Mr. Hopper opens a bottle of wine. (HRT)
Trude & Mr. Hopper approaching
1892 dramatization at Watkins, NY.
Tombstone Trude & Mr Hopper “yes”
1892 dramatization at Watkins, NY.
Tombstone Myself & Mr Hopper approaching
1892 dramatization at Watkins, NY.
Myself & Mr Hopper “yes”
1892 dramatization at Watkins, NY.
Trude Ec. & Mr Hopper “No”
1892 dramatization at Watkins, NY.
Tombstone Trude Ec. Mr Hopper & self
1892 dramatization at Watkins, NY.
1892 letter from Mr. Hopper
Sent from the Springs at Watkins, NY – as presented in this episode. (AAH)
1892 John Coates Browne
Alice accompanied noted amateur photographer Browne on a nature walk – his correspondences offered her photographic advice. (HRT)
Opening:
[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
[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.
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[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.
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 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)
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.
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