My Dear Alice
Chapter 9: 1898 and beyond
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Chapter 9: 1898 and beyond
(introducing Gertrude Tate)
Image attributions: (HRT) Historic Richmond Town archive; (AAH) Alice Austen House Museum collection.
1901 Alice Austen & Gertrude Tate
Pickard’s penny photos studio portrait – at least 4 known copies. (AH)
c 1896 Alice Cornell Austen
Alice’s mother at Clear Comfort’s front path. (HRT)
1885 Austen’s live-in helper, Katie with Chico & Punch
Katherine Wertz was with the Austens for more than 10 years. (HRT)
1897 Oneata
Violet & Carrie Ward’s house. (HRT)
1897 stairway in Oneata
Inside Violet & Carrie Ward’s house. (HRT)
1897 letter from Daisy Elliott
Presented in this episode. (AAH)
1889 Amy Martin with baby at Clear Comfort
Julia Martin’s brother’s wife. She writes to Alice in this episode. (AAH)
1889 Julia Martin (right) at Clear Comfort
Martin is with her sister-in-law Amy (left), and the children’s nanny. (HRT)
1898 letter from Eleanor Coleman
Relating to Julia Martin’s illness; presented in this episode. (AAH)
1898 draft for telegram by Alice Austen
A rare note by Austen, found in an envelope with Eleanor Coleman correspondence. (AAH)
1898 draft of letter by Alice Austen
A rare note by Austen, found in an envelope from Eleanor Coleman. (AAH)
1898 letter form Julia Martin
The final letter in the Alice Austen House letter collection. (AAH)
1897 or 1898 portrait of Gertrude Tate at Clear Comfort
Taken before her 1899 hair loss. (HRT)
1897 or 1898 Gertrude Tate dances
On Clear Comfort’s front porch. (HRT)
1897 or 1898 Gertrude Tate on Clear Comfort’s piazza
Taken before her 1899 hair loss. (AAH)
1899 receipt for Catskill Mountain House stay
Alice Cornell Austen stayed here, not far from Twilight Park. (AAH)
1899 Catskill Mountain House
Not far from Twilight Park, Austen’s mother stayed here in 1899. (AAH)
1899 Alice Cornell Austen at Catskill Mountain House
Alice Austen’s mother stayed here while everyone else was at Twilight Park. (AAH)
1899 photo album inside cover
Inscribed to Gertrude Tate by Alice Austen. (AAH)
1899 Alice and Gertrude at Twilight Park
The earliest known photo of them alone together. (AAH)
2022 Twilight Park porch with view
Photographed in July by Pamela Bannos.
1899 Gertrude dances
Alice (seated, left) looks up at Gertrude. (AAH)
1899 Gertrude Tate without her wig
A startling and intimate portrait. (AAH)
1899 Gertrude Tate wearing a wig
Gertrude’s hair loss was due to Typhoid Fever. (AAH)
1899 group portrait at Twilight Park
Alice will insert herself into the group alongside Gertrude. (AAH)
1899 group portrait at Twilight Park with Alice Austen
After photographing the group, Alice stood alongside Gertrude in the back row. (AAH)
2022 Twilight Park cottage
Photographed in July by Pamela Bannos.
2022 view from Twilight Park
Photographed in July by Pamela Bannos.
1899 group on Twilight Park porch
Gertrude Tate’s mother is at far left. (AAH)
2022 Twilight Park gazebo and Santa Cruz Falls
Photographed in July by Pamela Bannos.
1900 Gertrude Tate at Clear Comfort
An intimate portrait by Alice Austen. (HRT)
1901 glass plate envelope
Austen photographed the Hoffman Island steerage dormitories in April. (AAH)
1901 dormitory for quarantined steerage passengers
Austen photographed the quarantine station for NY’s health officer. (HRT)
1901 James S. Wadsworth steamboat
Gathering emigrants onto the disinfecting boat. (HRT)
1901 Collier’s Magazine quarantine article
By Dr. Alvah Doty, NY Health Officer, llustrated by Alice Austen.
1901 Collier’s Magazine quarantine article
By Dr. Alvah Doty, NY Health Officer, illustrated by Alice Austen.
1901 Alice Austen at the reins, with Gertrude Tate
At Dingman’s Ferry en route to the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, NY. (HRT)
1901 Austen & Tate at Dingman’s Ferry detail
A rare photo of them alone together. (HRT)
1901 Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo, NY
Austen is said to have taken more than 130 4×5 photographs here. (AAH)
1901 Pan-American Exposition at night
Austen hauled 4×5 glass plates and her camera through the exposition. (AAH)
1901 Gertrude Tate portrait detail
Tate waits for Austen to finish photographing. (HRT)
1901 Gertrude Tate at the Japanese pavilion
At the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, NY. (HRT)
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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.
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 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
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.
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