Dagelijks archief: dinsdag 26 februari 2008

New York 1896

Street views of New York City (1896)
van Alice Austen 1866-1952

Eerder schreef ik iets over de stadsfotografen Jacob Olie (Amsterdam), Johannes Leendert Scherpenisse (Amsterdam), Max Missmann (Berlijn) en Heinrich Zille (Berlijn). Ze fotografeerden het leven op straat eind negentiende-begin twintigste eeuw. Deze week ontdekte ik in de schatkamers van digitalgallery.nypl.org een aantal unieke straatfoto’s van Alice Austen. Terug naar het New York van 1896.

Alice Austen
Street views of New York City (1896)
Alice Austen, one of the first American women to become a photographer, lived the life of an independent, genteel woman during the Victorian age. She also defied conventions and challenged stereotypes in nearly every aspect of her life. She was born Elizabeth Alice Munn on March 17, 1866 to Alice Cornell Austen and Edward Stopford Munn, who married in 1863. The future photographer’s father abandoned her and her mother around 1869. Her mother then reclaimed the surname of her birth and, with Elizabeth Alice, moved into her upper class family’s Staten Island home, called Clear Comfort.
 
Bron: glbtq.com
Alice Austen
Alice Austen captured a visual record of elegant family life during the Gilded Age. While wonderful images of friends and family at home, in private clubs, on picnics, sailing, lounging in gardens, and living the refined life resulted, Austen was not satisfied with documenting her life of privilege. She also captured sweeping views of New York harbor, recorded some of the earliest automobile trips, traveled into Manhattan to take photographs of commuters, immigrants and laborers, and recorded historic events.
 
Bron: glbtq.com
Alice Austen
Street views of New York City (1896)

Streetscape and Townscape of Metropolitan New York City, 1860-1942 [ digitalgallery.nypl.org ]