Aline Bernstein was an American costume designer

Costume Designer

A costume designer or costume mistress/master is a person whose responsibility is to design costumes for a film or stage production. He or she is considered an important part of the "production team", working alongside the director, scenic and lighting designers as well as the sound designer. The...

. She and Irene Lewisohn

Irene Lewisohn

Irene Lewisohn was the founder of the Neighborhood Playhouse and the Museum of Costume Art.-Biography:She was the daughter of Rosalie Jacobs and Leonard Lewisohn. In 1905 she and her sister, Alice Lewisohn, began classes and club work at the Henry Street Settlement House in New York. They produced...

 founded the Museum of Costume Art.

Early life and family

She was born in 1880 in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 to Rebecca and Joseph Frankau, an actor. By the time she was 17, both of her parents had died and she was raised by her aunt, Rachel Goldsmith. Goldsmith had a theatrical boarding house on West 44th Street in New York City. Aline married Theodore F. Bernstein, a Wall Street broker, on November 19, 1902. Bernstein and her husband had two children: Theodore Frankau Bernstein (1904-1949), and Mrs. Edla Cusick (1906-1983). She died on September 7, 1955 in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, aged 74.

Career

Bernstein was a writer, with two books published by Knopf. She was personal friends with Arthur and Blanche Knopf

Blanche Knopf

Blanche Wolf Knopf was the president of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. and wife of publisher Alfred Knopf, with whom she established the firm in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled the world seeking new authors. Blanche was especially influential in having European and Latin American literature translated...

.

Thomas Wolfe

From 1925 to 1929, Bernstein was romantically linked to Thomas Wolfe

Thomas Wolfe

Thomas Clayton Wolfe was a major American novelist of the early 20th century.Wolfe wrote four lengthy novels, plus many short stories, dramatic works and novellas. He is known for mixing highly original, poetic, rhapsodic, and impressionistic prose with autobiographical writing...

, who based the character Esther Jack on her, in his novels Of Time and the River

Of Time and the River

Of Time and the River is a 1935 novel by American novelist Thomas Wolfe. It is a fictionalized autobiography, using the name Eugene Gant for Wolfe's, detailing the protagonist's early and mid-twenties, during which time the character attends Harvard University, moves to New York City and teaches...

, The Web and the Rock, and You Can't Go Home Again

You Can't Go Home Again

You Can't Go Home Again is a novel by Thomas Wolfe. It was published posthumously in 1940 from the October Fair manuscript. The novel tells the story of George Webber, a beginning author, who writes a book that makes frequent references to his home town of Libya Hill...

(1940). At the time of his death in 1938, Bernstein possessed some of Wolfe's unpublished manuscripts.

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