Her great-great-grandfather, Peter Townsend, was the owner of Sterling Iron Works famous for forging the Hudson River Chain used to thwart British ships during the American Revolutionary War.

[9][8][6] Austen is notable as one of the first female photographers to work outside of a studio and was known to transport up to fifty pounds of camera equipment on her bicycle.

From the mid-1890s to 1912, Austen worked for Alvah H. Doty photographing the equipment and conditions at the Quarantine Station of Ellis Island.

[6] Many of her photographs from this time were featured in an exhibit at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, and published in Harpers Weekly Magazine and Medical Record.

The majority of her work was intended for private viewing, as they depicted intimate relationships between Victorian women and scenes from a non-traditional lifestyle, which including smoking, cross-dressing, and biking.

[7][9] Austen's work is today considered significant for providing a rare look into the private lives of queer Victorian women.

Austen continued to take photographs of her home and friends, and of her travels in Europe with Tate, though many of her film negatives from the 1920s and 1930s were never printed.

[5][13][14] In 1929, Austen lost her savings in the Wall Street crash, and she and Tate financially struggled throughout the Great Depression.

[9][10][15] In 1951, historian and former LIFE magazine writer Oliver Jensen discovered her photographs, which had been transferred to the Staten Island Historical Society.

[15][10] In the 1960s, when the opening of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge made waterfront property in Staten Island more valuable, a group of concerned citizens formed The Friends of Alice Austen to save her former home from demolition.