Ruth Orkin

Ruth Orkin was the only child of Mary Ruby, a silent film actress and Samuel Orkin, a toy designer. She grew up in Hollywood during the heydays of the 1920s and 1930s. At the age of 10, she received her first camera, a thirty-nine cent Univex. Orkin moved to New York City in 1943, where she worked as a nightclub photographer and shot baby pictures through the day to buy her first professional camera. In 1951, LIFE magazine sent Orkin to Israel with the Israeli Philharmonic. She then went to Italy and it was in Florence, where she met Nina Lee Craig, an art student and fellow American, who became the model for American Girl in Italy, a woman walking down a street past a group of men. The photograph was captured while Orkin was doing a series originally titled "Don't Be Afraid to Travel Alone" about what they encountered as women traveling alone in Europe in the 1950s. Orkin also went to Venice, Rome, Paris and London where she photographed alone.

Ruth Orkin Images:
American Girl in Italy
American Girl in Italy, 1951