My Dear Alice

This is a story of home, history, celebration, and reclamation. Clear Comfort, now known as the Alice Austen House Museum, sits on the north bank of Staten Island with a sweeping view of the Manhattan skyline. Victorian photographer Alice Austen (1866-1952) lived here her whole life, until she was evicted in 1945. Decades later, boxes of letters that had been found in a closet were returned to the house that had been restored to its 1890's appearance, when the letters first arrived. The letter collection serves as a portal to photographic, women's, and LGBTQ history. Alice Austen and her life partner Gertrude Tate were together for more than 50 years.