These vintage photos by Alice Austen depict queer life and breaking with gender of norms

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These vintage photos by Alice Austen depict queer life and breaking with gender of norms

TOO GOOD TO GET MARRIED: The Life and Photographs of Miss Alice Austen

Alice Austen and Gertrude Tate

Alice Austen House via Fordham University Press

Game-changing early 20th-century photographer Alice Austen’s life and work are garnering the attention they deserve in the new biography TOO GOOD TO GET MARRIED: The Life and Photographs of Miss Alice Austen, by art historian and curator Bonnie Yochelson. A trailblazer, Austen is the first known woman photographer to venture outside of her studio to take her photographs, often carrying heavy equipment on her bike for miles in her native Staten Island, New York, according to AliceAusten.org.

An ardent tennis player and cyclist, Austen’s photographs reflect her worldview. She often photographed men and women who disrupted gender norms of the time and women in intimate poses. Among the photos in TOO GOO TO GET MARRIED are a few of her with her companion of 50 years, Gertrude Tate.

In the book, Yochelson “describes how a woman who grew up in the Gilded Age, when the term 'lesbian' did not yet exist, challenged and conformed to the conservative ideals of high society,” according to a release.

The title of the biography derives from an interview Austen gave at 84. “I guess I was too good to get married,” she told a journalist when asked why she never married.

To coincide with the release of the biography, Yochelson will be in conversation with the Executive Director of the Alice Austen House, Victoria Munro, on June 21, at Staten Island’s Historic Richmond Town. The event also celebrates the return of Austen’s collection of more than 7,000 photographs to the Alice Austen House Museum.

Enjoy a selection of Austen's landmark photos included in the biography below.