Humans of (Old) New York
Documenting the street life of Victorian NYC
Amanda Uren
1896
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In 1896, New York photographer Alice Austen traveled the streets of the city, photographing the working people there. City employees, policemen, postmen, firefighters, street sweepers, cab drivers – Alice found citizens whose work contributed to making the city habitable and functioning.She also captured the people forced to make their living on the street, including peddlers and vendors, knife grinders, bootblacks and news boys (and girls). She photographed the newly arrived immigrants, hoping for a new and better life in America.When Alice was 10 or 11, her uncle, a Danish sea captain, gave her a camera he had acquired during his voyages. She proved to be a gifted photographer, and she was taught how to use the camera to its full potential and to develop her own negatives in a specially adapted darkroom. Alice was inseparable from her camera equipment, taking it everywhere on her travels around the U.S. and Europe. The first woman on Staten Island to own a car, Alice took many photographs of her family and society events. Her decision to photograph the ordinary people of New York was unusual for the time.She had these photographs copyrighted at the Library of Congress, and the "street types" were published as a small portfolio by the Albertype Company of New York.
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