Alice Austen (1866-1952) was a prolific amateur photographer from a well-to-do family whose Victorian cottage, called Clear Comfort, overlooks New York harbor and is a National Historic Landmark and LGBTQ Historic Site. Today Austen is best known for a group of humorous photographs in which she and her friends challenged gender norms—dressing as prostitutes or in men’s clothing—and for “Street Types of New York,” a portfolio depicting people who worked on Manhattan’s streets. She took these photographs in the 1890s, and in 1899, she met Gertrude Tate, who became her life partner of more than 50 years. When in 1951 a young journalist asked her why she never married, the 84-year old Austen replied, "“I guess I was too good to get married.”

Too Good To Get Married: The Life and Photographs of Miss Alice Austen (Fordham University Press, 2025) 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 Staten Island high society, and it deciphers the role photography played in her journey of self-discovery. It is the first in-depth study of Alice Austen since 1976.

“Bonnie Yochelson traces the extraordinary story of how a nineteenth-century upper-class social butterfly became a pioneering woman photographer who lived most of her life in a loving lesbian partnership. Alice Austen, with all her complexities and remarkable talent, comes alive in these engaging pages. Too Good To Get Married is a wonderful read.” Lillian Faderman, author of Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in 20th-Century America

“This engaging biography is an incisive social history, ranging from the Gilded Age to feminism. The protagonists and the period come to life vividly as a result of extensive primary research, while Yochelson also encourages the reader to think about what went unspoken: views that were simply assumed to be shared by all, or feelings for which direct language didn’t exist.” Britt Salvesen, Curator and Head, Wallis Annenberg Photography Department, Los Angeles County Museum of Art

“An engaging, lively, and insightful look at the life and work of photographer Alice Austen, a pioneering figure in women’s and lesbian history whose story has not been well-told until now. Yochelson carefully and thoughtfully assesses Austen’s life as a moving and revealing lens on the place of women in the United States and New York in a period of dramatic change.” Stephen Vider, author of The Queerness of Home: Gender, Sexuality, and the Politics of Domesticity After World War II

“A sensitive portrait of a prolific photographer.” Kirkus Reviews

“An assiduous, revealing biography of a complex early feminist photographer who carved her own path.” Foreword Reviews

“Copiously illustrated, extensively researched, and highly entertaining.” The Eye of Photography