It's the early 1950s, and a journalist named Oliver Jensen is deep in the archives.

He is rifling through files at the Staten Island Historical Society.

Jensen is working on a book called The Revolt of American Women. It's about

women who broke the mold of the prim and proper Victorian era. And while looking through these archives

in Staten Island, Jensen comes across this collection of photos that stops him in his tracks.

Here's just one of these to give you an idea.

It's a photo from the 1890s of two women who are facing each other.

With their hair down, wearing masks, smoking cigarettes, and in their petticoats,

and it's all taken with the backdrop of the rectory

of the local Episcopal Church. So it's naughty upon naughty upon naughty. There were hundreds of

these photos with women smoking, dressed up in men's clothing, showing their legs, their ankles, their hair.

You know, all of the things that good Victorian girls weren't supposed to do.

And there was something about the vibe. These photos were playful, not pornographic.

They did not seem staged, titillate a male viewer. It felt like

the photographer had just captured women hanging out together, dressing up, having fun.

Jensen scrambled to find out anything he could about the person who took these images.

A woman named Alice Austin.

He'd never heard of her before.

So he approached the Staten Island Historical Society for more information.

He attended a board meeting and he said,

wouldn't it be incredible if Alice Austin was alive today?

And they said she is, you know, she's in the poor house.

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