Photographer Alice Austen was the queer star of the Gilded Age
Alice Austen, far left, and other members of The Darned Club on Oct. 29, 1891.Courtesy Collection of Alice Austen House Born into Victorian tradition in 1866, Alice Austen enjoyed a position in Staten Island society that gave her freedom to pursue what she dubbed “the larky life,” a whirlwind of fashionable gatherings and mischief that challenged social norms. But it was the gift of a wooden box camera from her uncle — and a chance meeting in the Catskills — that set the course for how Austen would be remembered beyond Gilded days: as one of America’s earliest and most […]