Winners of the Victorian Society New York’s annual Emerging Scholars contest will speak on a fascinating array of topics. Margaret Simons, a collections and development specialist at the Alice Austen House on Staten Island, earning her master’s degree in design history and curatorial studies in the Parsons School of Design/Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum program, will explore the life and career of enigmatic photographer Alice Austen (1866-1952). Alexis Fair, a university administrator earning her master’s degree in design history and curatorial studies at Parsons, will discuss how fashions in Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence in the novel and film versions reveal identity, character, Victorian cultural ideologies, and women’s plight asserting independence in an oppressive society. Lara Damabi, the Tiffany & Co. Foundation curatorial intern in American decorative arts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (a recent NYU master’s degree recipient in costume studies), will cover how late-19th-century societal changes, such as evolving gender relations, growing interest in sport and exercise, and technological advancements, were reflected through ice skating and fashion.

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