Perhaps you saw, a couple of weeks back, an obituary for Ninalee Allen Craig, who died in Toronto at the age of 90. If the name isn’t immediately familiar, one photograph of her is very famous indeed. It's generally known as "American Girl in Italy."
It was taken in 1951 in Florence by Ruth Orkin. The two women were staying in the same cheap hotel, and Orkin was working on a piece of photojournalism about American women traveling alone in Europe. She enlisted Craig (who was known at that time as Jinx Allen) to be her model. The end result appeared in Cosmopolitan the following year. Some sources say the title of the piece was, “When you travel alone … tips on money, men, and morals,” others say it was “Don’t Be Afraid to Travel Alone.” I’ve not been able to locate the interior of the Cosmo in question and look inside, but I think it’s this one:
Of course the very fact that single women were being offered advice about traveling alone in Europe in 1952 is some indication of female freedom and independence, even if it was surely a minute number of women who actually did it.
The Orkin photograph seems easy enough to interpret from our current perspective: an attractive single women can’t walk down a street in Florence without being hassled by lecherous Italians, although in fact the magazine caption rather contradicted that. It read, “Public admiration . . . shouldn’t fluster you. Ogling the ladies is a popular, harmless and flattering pastime you’ll run into in many foreign countries. The gentlemen are usually louder and more demonstrative than American men, but they mean no harm.” Well …
In later interviews Ms. Craig also felt the picture showed an essentially benign interaction. “Women look at that picture and feel indignant, angry,” she said. “They say, ‘That poor woman. We should be able to walk wherever we want to and not be threatened.’ As gently as I can, I explain I was not feeling fear. There was no danger because it was a far different time.”
No doubt it was, but there are other issues here too, I think. The image may not strictly speaking be “staged,” but some of those men certainly appear to acting up for the camera. But the real problem is the expression on Jinx Allen’s face. She looks at best uncomfortable and pained, and at worst frightened. And this too may be put on for the sake of the picture – but that only reinforces the problem. Was she actually feeling comfortable but the photographer asked her to look pained for the sake of a good picture?
I don’t know, neither did I know until very recently that there’s a whole bunch of other pictures by Ruth Orkin that show Jinx Allen being a solo tourist. And the fact is she doesn’t look very comfortable in most of them, but again whether this is “natural” or a pose I can’t tell.
You can see some of the other pictures for yourself on this website run by Ruth Orkin’s daughter:
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