Alice Austen was a prominent American photographer, and the first woman who took her photography out to NYC’s streets. She is known for taking thousands of bold pictures capturing the lives of the city’s immigrants, her upbringing in Staten Island, and her own relationships, like that with her lifelong partner Gertrude Tate.
After looking through Austen’s work, I noticed how truly versatile her art is. Alice Austen was known for being extraordinarily independent and progressive for her time. She owned a car, knew how bike, and never ceased to move around. This constant movement and willingness to take her art to the streets is evident through her photographs, as they capture nature, buildings, homes, and all kinds of people in all kinds of locations, which makes her albums very engaging. Since every image has such different subject matters, I had a lot of fun browsing through her work.
The photo above, Street Sweeper, stood out to me. A lot of Austen’s work reminded me of the current “Humans of New York” initiative that’s been happening in NYC through social media platforms for the past couple of years (for instance, theres Humans of Macaulay). Even though Austen was brought up in an upper class environment, I love how she consistently captured the lives of ordinary NYC workers and immigrants, on whose hard-work the city was built. This is similar to what “Humans of New York” and so many other artists do now, which is capturing the beauty and the details of the simple lives of ordinary people. Not only does this make art feel more accessible to all, but it also makes the average New Yorker feel as if they themselves are a part of NYC’s beauty, like everyone, no matter your background or socioeconomic standing, has a role in making art.
In general, Austen’s art still serves as a little peephole into our city’s history. For instance, looking at the photograph above, one immediately notices the stark contrast between the sweeper’s bright white uniform and the city’s dusty, grayish streets. It turns out that in 1895 NYC got a new commissioner of the Department of Street Cleaning, Colonel George E. Waring Jr., who decided to fix NYC’s sanitation crisis by sending out street cleaners wearing bright white uniform (to symbolize cleanliness), which got them the nickname “White Wings.” Austen took this picture in 1896, which shows how Waring’s initiative was still alive and well after a year of successful street cleaning.
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