American Girl in Italy (1951)
Photo by Ruth Orkin
Commentary by John Loengard
In the same year Ruth Orkin won third prize in LIFE's contest for young photographers, she made friends in Florence with a New York model named Jinx Allen. They decided, with tongues in cheek, to act out the hazards facing a single American woman traveling in Europe in 1951.
"I'd had this photograph in my mind for years," says Orkin, "ever since I had been old enough to go through the experiance for myself." All the pieces fell into place in the Piazza della Repubblica, where Orkin asked one of the men on the scooter to help. He understood English and explained things to his countrymen. They- quite grafefully-displayed their native "charm."
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