Chapter 1: Introductions
Description
Chapter 1: Introductions
(the story / the house / the characters / the letters)
Image attributions: (HRT) Historic Richmond Town archive; (AAH) Alice Austen House Museum collection.
Letter album at Historic Richmond Town Archive
Album of 1830s through 1870s letters written by Sarah Ann & John Haggerty Austen
Sarah Ann Austen Townsend in 1832
John Haggerty Austen’s 17-yr-old sister. Portrait, courtesy of the Frick Art Reference Library. (AI colorized)
Alice’s grandmother, Elizabeth Alice Townsend Austen
Alice Austen’s maternal grandmother, painted circa 1840 (HRT)
David Austen
Alice Austen’s paternal great-grandfather, painted in 1846 (HRT)
Alice Cornell Townsend
Alice Austen’s maternal great-grandmother, circa 1835. (HRT)
Alice’s Book circa 1877
Book given to a friend by Alice Austen as she was leaving her home. Returned to Clear Comfort decades later. (AAH)
Peter Townsend
Alice Austen’s maternal great-grandfather, painted circa 1840 (HRT)
1870 painting of Clear Comfort
circa 1870 painting by William Hart (HRT)
3 year old Alice Austen in 1869
Studio portrait re-photographed by Alice Austen in the 1890s (HRT)
1883 letter from Auntie Min
Minnie Austen Hicks Miller letter from Hong Kong – earliest letter in the collection. (AAH)
1884 envelope from Brooklyn
Envelope for Bessie Hazard’s letter – a fragment of it showing a child’s scribbling from decades later. (AAH)
1884 letter fragment with more recent scribbles
Evidence of the Mandia family’s children’s interactions with the letters they kept for 40 years. (AAH)
Clear Comfort in 1885
19-year-old Alice Austen on the house’s piazza (AAH)
Julia & Alice at 19 in 1885
Julia Martin and Alice Austen with Chico & Punch (AAH)
Auntie Min, Uncle Peter & Alice in 1885
19-year-old Alice with her aunt and uncle (AAH)
1885: Alice and Her Friends
Alice (far left) and Trude Eccleston (2nd from left) and friends in their bathing suits at Clear Comfort. (HRT)
1887: View from Clear Comfort’s front lawn
View of the Narrows from Clear Comfort’s front lawn. (AAH)
2021 View from Clear Comfort’s front lawn
A cruise ship passes by Clear Comfort in 2018. Photograph by Pamela Bannos.
Chico & Punch in 1887
Chico the chihuahua and Punch the pug on Clear Comfort’s piazza (AAH)
1887 Scrapbook page
An article about Clear Comfort in one of Alice Austen’s scrapbooks (AAH)
Aunt Min, Uncle Oswald & Alice Austen
18-year-old Alice with Aunt Min & her husband Uncle Oswald (AAH)
Elizabeth Alice Townsend Austen
Alice Austen’s grandmother in 1885 (AAH)
Alice Austen in 1887
Dunn studio portrait taken in New Brunswick, New Jersey. (AAH)
Minnie Austen Hicks Miller
Alice Austen’s Auntie Minn, circa 1885 (AAH)
1888 Tennis Group
Alice in tie, middle in bottom row. Trude Eccleston, 2nd from left top row. (HRT)
Contemporary panoramic view of Clear Comfort
Photograph by Pamela Bannos.
Opening music…
[Bessie Strong]
1885, July 19, New Brunswick:
My dear Alice – Perhaps when you discover that this letter was written on Sunday, you will hesitate about reading it. New Brunswickers are never troubled with such compunctions, but with Staten Island people it may be different.
You began your letter with a slurring remark about our “metropolis” or rather our weather, which was unjust, and words cannot describe the pain it caused me. However, I will try to forget and forgive.
Have you heard the song “Forget, Forgive” by the same composer as “Some Day”?
[Narrator]
This is one letter among hundreds that were sent to 19th century photographer Alice Austen. 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
United States
