One other thing to mention is that Ms Pleasant, in her first cataloges - which I received! - was very explicit that the dolls were for girls age 8, no younger (the back of the catalog had baby dolls for any age). She said she felt this was a sort of magic age for girls, when they were old enough to care for their doll (absolutely just one, that was important) but not too old to play with their doll. And it is remarkably authentic, I would argue, and not cut-throat business at all, to say in her own catalog that she was selling to the few, not the many. I have a soft spot for Ms Pleasant.
So I had the catalog every year (it was an annual) for three years before I finally had the much anticipated birthday present of my very own Kerstin doll (being a Swedish immigrant myself), at last being 8. And every year after I would carefully budget and save to buy her kit and books myself, or I could ask for ONE thing for Christmas or birthdays. And it was the same for all my friends too. So... I think the dolls made us all better people, in a way.
It was all so well made, and I did take care of my doll. I still have all of it, put away in her convenient Swedish trunk, waiting for a granddaughter I guess as I didn't get any girls myself. And I totally would make the granddaughter wait until 8 too.
I was heartbroken to see the dolls ruined by Mattel, the mass production and so on. The first time I met someone with more than one, it was like meeting a pervert. Like, they didn't GET IT about the dolls.
Thank you for the comment, I really appreciate the first-hand insight, it's both interesting and enlightening. I read plenty of anecdotes that ring similar to yours while doing research but it feels different to actually get a personal account in the comments of my own piece. It also makes me feel even more... disappointed, I suppose, in reading about the decline of the brand under Mattell's watch. It doesn't really affect me, obviously, but it isn't fun to read about something that was obviously so special treated so poorly and callously by corporate interests in order to milk it for everything it's worth. I hope you return to read the second (and third) installments - I'm happy to receive feedback to correct any mistakes I made about the history of the line.
Hey, I'd DM you if Substack had such a feature, but would you mind if I screencap your comment and use it in my final piece in this series? Your comment really gets at the heart of the matter of the final point I'm trying to make about the series, and it'd be great if the readers could see someone with the lived experience of it.
Some years back, I had occasion to replace my then-girlfriend's teddy bear, which was eaten by our dog. It was just any old teddy bear, it was some special Blah-de-blah original model teddy bear.
Looking around for a replacement, I stumbled into the Stuffed Animal Internet. I felt the abyss open beneath me. I estimate that there are at least 10,000 people around the world for whom teddy bears and stuffed animals are -their entire lives.- Even more eerie than the teddy websites was the feeling that, just around the corner, there were doll websites run by people with abnormal interests.
I got the required replacement and got out, and never looked back.
Have you ever seen the people that collect life-like baby animal dolls and treat them like they're real babies? Those were probably the people you could sense lurking around the periphery. It's... honestly kind of dark, because you know that, for those people, it isn't just harmless fun or even eccentricity, but untreated and deep-seated mental-illness.
They really were astoundingly high-quality books for being an accessory to a doll; when I was a kid I thought it was the other way around and that the dolls were there to complement the books.
My daughters (ages 6 and 8) are really into the Walmart knockoff "My Life As" dolls, which are the same size and can wear the American Girl clothes. A different approach to the opening up of AG to the masses.
As to Molly being "your type" when you were young . . . for me it was Samantha. Especially on the cover of "Samantha Saves the Day." She gets a lot of grief in your essay, but . . . I am unrepentant. I was always too much a lover of fancy things.
Looking back, it's funny you say that, because I kind of had the same opinion about the dolls complimenting the books rather than the other way around, though I assume that's because I only ever saw the books in person and was only tangentially aware of the dolls. You could really make the argument that the Pleasant Company was really doing a multimedia affair where both were equally important to driving the IP as a whole, even more so if you factor in the movies (which I'll get to), and that no one piece was really ancillary to another. Until recently, but, again... we'll get to it.
And, hey - if I sounded like I was being hard on Samantha, it was all in good fun. Friendly ribbing, that's all. It comes from a place of fondness. Truth be told, I remember her books fondly, and, to be honest to a fault, for as much as I clown on it, I think her relationship with Nellie is sweet. And, her period of American History - the late Gilded Age, early Progressive Age, Edwardian-era America - is probably my favorite, at least aesthetically; the architecture and fashion of the time I find inexplicably appealing. It was the era where the great American cities like Saint Louis, Detroit, Cleveland, and New York were arguably at their peak, and, in part, I think my fascination with the period is how things could go from what they were to where they are today in such a (relatively) short amount of time. In a way... you could say that some of those jokes at Samantha's expense might be rooted in a kernel of envy. But I also remind myself that A) it's a fictional nine year old that was B) also an orphan who was fortunate enough to be adopted by a wealthy family member which leads to me to the point that C) it was a time when a whole lot illnesses and diseases that can be cured with a shot today were death sentences, so... it's all a matter of perspective. After all, I'm not one to be one of those "historical cynics" who's like, "Everyone before now was depressed and miserable and lived in filth and squalor and everything was terrible literally all of the time", but, realistically speaking, there were more Nellie's than there were Samantha's back then... but damn did they go off when it came to building cool buildings.
This is all to say that I have the utmost respect for Miss Parkington and all the other American Girls, haha.
Great article. Finally took the time to sit down and read it. My girlfriend had two AG dolls, one of them a somewhat cheaper customizable line. She was complaining about how inaccurate the costumes are for the modern dolls. Even the one from the 90s is in clothing that would not be worn by a 9 year old. Historical accuracy makes people feel "excluded" and not diverse. We are in the era of yeast life indeed.
Thank you! I noticed that while doing research myself. Being a product of that era myself, I was like... I don't ever remember seeing other kids dress like that. I did on, like, Disney Channel movies, which seems to be the filter we're just going to look back forever through, but, realistically, I remember you'd be lucky if you could get the average 9 year old girl to wear more than a t-shirt and jeans on the average school day.
Looking forwards to part two. I always enjoy your dives into pop-culture
I want to say that it's hard to believe that there's such a deep community surrounding what is ultimately niche subject like American Girl dolls, but A. I'm too busy staring at horses to say that with a straight face and B. what doesn't have a shockingly deep and abnormal community of terminally-online weirdos surrounding it these days? Even we, who write about what are easily considered serious matters or interests (though not in the depressingly dour manner so common today), are in some ways not exempt from this phenomenon, placed as we are in what is still a fundamentally online sphere. It seems that a fundamental reality of the digital world; as we become more atomised in the real world, we are drawn ever deeper into these strange relationships in the online world. Mostly, it's community building with some brand (the only truly acceptable identity for the masses to-day) as the excuse to associate, but for some poor souls they let the brand truly become their identity. The results are always frightening - and demonic.
P.S: if you need a nigh-inexhaustible content hole to distract you and fill your head with useless knowledge, have I got the fandom for you
That's kind of the absurd paradox we find ourselves in, isn't it - the internet has blurred the boundaries between observer and subject, participant and audience, and forced us all into engage in this strange sort of performance art, in which the only real way to disengage is simply to log off, go outside, and, as they say... touch grass.
I will say, though, I don't think there's much demonic activity in the American Girl fandom. I don't think. It's a bit absurd but, compared to what I've seen even from other toy fandoms, they seem content to be weird in their own little corner of the internet and, really - I respect that. But, I could have not dug deep enough. And if that's the case? I'm not sure I want to.
If you have any fandom recommendations, too, I'm open to hear them.
I was just jokingly tempting you with going off the deep end with cartoon horses (I wonder if there's a Faust and the Devil joke to be made here. Though in this case, it would be Faust, first name Lauren, tempting the Devil). There's near infinite content to be found there, and some of it's even good - although most of the really good stuff is either written or music, which doesn't really fill the slot you're looking to fill I suppose.
On a completely separate note, your aside about those children's magazines that used to be big really hit home. I vividly remember the feeling of coming home from school and seeing that a new issue of Nat Geo (I was a precocious child) or Cricket was sitting on the kitchen table, waiting to be devoured. There was nothing quite like just grabbing it and sinking into a couch or your favourite chair to devour it all, especially on a day in late fall or early winter when you felt like you had just run through all of the interesting books in the school library. Kind of like getting a crop of good substack poasts in one's inbox now, but much more real
You're just reminding me that I need to finally get around to finishing the last (for now) entry into my brony trilogy... it's taken a lot longer to wrap up than I ever anticipated, but it's like, every time I think I've said all I can say on the matter, I'm proven miserably wrong.
I also feel the same way about not having every show on demand via streaming. Watching new episodes of Pokemon exclusively on Saturday mornings made the whole thing feel like a special event in a way that I feel like you just wouldn't get today, with streaming being what it is. Convenient as it is, if something is easy to watch, easy to obtain, easy to understand, so on and so forth... it's not really all that special anymore, is it? That's kind of the issue with the American Girl dolls - and exclusive and distinctive toy line that was watered down for the lowest common denominator, until it's most defining features were sanded down and shaved away. I recently saw a quote that said, "Every generation is convinced their childhood is better than the next's, and every generation is correct." There's wisdom to that, I think.
I appreciate the recommendation, but I'm already familiar with Bob Gymlan. He's definitely a stand-out in the genre, field, whatever you want to call it. I don't always agree with him but I've never encountered someone in the pro-cryptid camp (which, I'll admit, I am in to a degree) that is as consistently thought-provoking and challenging as he is. I would agree that he's the best around.
I'm familiar with the name, but not his books. He was mentioned and cited quite a bite by John Keel in his works, so I'll definitely check them out. Thank you for the rec.
Wild West Extravaganza and Ancient Life Coach are great podcasts. Very entertaining material but they may deserve more direct attention than I can give them while working. I like them while driving or doing chores though.
Hey, nothing's inherently wrong with fandom, or using one's adoration of a piece of media as a means of self-expression. Like, when I harp on a lot of these people, it usually comes from a place of sympathy, if not empathy. If anyone ever saw how much fanfiction I've written over the course of my life... well, let's just say it's concerning. But, it also helped me cut my teeth with words, so, I can't fault anyone who gets their start that way, you know? It's only when people start threatening to kill each other over it that things get out of pocket.
That being said, a lot of what I'm reading from fans and in the feedback to this post is people fondly remembering the books. We'll touch on what happened to them in the next part, but reading all this only makes their eventual fate all the more disappointing. This might be a stretch, but I think the American Girl books were a proof of concept that girls could be just as interested in history as boys. Now, they might be interested in different aspects of history, but it's history all the same. It's sad to see that, these days, most material for girls is all pandering to the most base level iconography and symbology of being a woman; cosmetics, clothes, tech gadgets, basically all that pink glitz and glamour shit. American Girl - at least, in its original state - kind of served as a counter-balance to a more sensible, universal, and fundamental type of femininity rather than the crass and boorish, crude and cartoonish caricature that is peddled to young girls these days. A lot of the material talks about "what it meant to be a girl" in those time periods. Not to say women didn't always like those things, but... it's just there's a lot more to being a woman than what you BUY, just like t-shirts with beard iconography or bacon-scented soap makes a man more a man. Of course, though, just like everything else, masculinity and femininity have been hollowed out and reduced to costumes that can be bought and sold - which is very convenient for the powers that be. Point is, compared to then and now, I feel like the line, the IP, the toys, whatever, engaged with children in a way that was more respectful than a lot of what you see today and, in regards to girls, treated them with a lot more respect, as well. It really does feel wholesome. Mostly.
I like that theory. I'm not entirely sold, either, but it would explain a lot. I know that's often the reasons parents that shower their kids with gifts do what they do.
I would also agree with you. That's kind of what makes the American Girl line so interesting, in a lot of ways. Samantha, being from the Progressive Era/Edwardian period, is steeped in the fashion and iconography of a time where American culture was the most... unique, I suppose? It's difficult to articulate and probably would warrant an article unto itself, but, suffice to say, consumerism is a cancer and if we are to survive as a distinct culture and society, it'll have to be cut out like one.
One other thing to mention is that Ms Pleasant, in her first cataloges - which I received! - was very explicit that the dolls were for girls age 8, no younger (the back of the catalog had baby dolls for any age). She said she felt this was a sort of magic age for girls, when they were old enough to care for their doll (absolutely just one, that was important) but not too old to play with their doll. And it is remarkably authentic, I would argue, and not cut-throat business at all, to say in her own catalog that she was selling to the few, not the many. I have a soft spot for Ms Pleasant.
So I had the catalog every year (it was an annual) for three years before I finally had the much anticipated birthday present of my very own Kerstin doll (being a Swedish immigrant myself), at last being 8. And every year after I would carefully budget and save to buy her kit and books myself, or I could ask for ONE thing for Christmas or birthdays. And it was the same for all my friends too. So... I think the dolls made us all better people, in a way.
It was all so well made, and I did take care of my doll. I still have all of it, put away in her convenient Swedish trunk, waiting for a granddaughter I guess as I didn't get any girls myself. And I totally would make the granddaughter wait until 8 too.
I was heartbroken to see the dolls ruined by Mattel, the mass production and so on. The first time I met someone with more than one, it was like meeting a pervert. Like, they didn't GET IT about the dolls.
Thank you for the comment, I really appreciate the first-hand insight, it's both interesting and enlightening. I read plenty of anecdotes that ring similar to yours while doing research but it feels different to actually get a personal account in the comments of my own piece. It also makes me feel even more... disappointed, I suppose, in reading about the decline of the brand under Mattell's watch. It doesn't really affect me, obviously, but it isn't fun to read about something that was obviously so special treated so poorly and callously by corporate interests in order to milk it for everything it's worth. I hope you return to read the second (and third) installments - I'm happy to receive feedback to correct any mistakes I made about the history of the line.
Hey, I'd DM you if Substack had such a feature, but would you mind if I screencap your comment and use it in my final piece in this series? Your comment really gets at the heart of the matter of the final point I'm trying to make about the series, and it'd be great if the readers could see someone with the lived experience of it.
Oh my God, it would be an honor!
Some years back, I had occasion to replace my then-girlfriend's teddy bear, which was eaten by our dog. It was just any old teddy bear, it was some special Blah-de-blah original model teddy bear.
Looking around for a replacement, I stumbled into the Stuffed Animal Internet. I felt the abyss open beneath me. I estimate that there are at least 10,000 people around the world for whom teddy bears and stuffed animals are -their entire lives.- Even more eerie than the teddy websites was the feeling that, just around the corner, there were doll websites run by people with abnormal interests.
I got the required replacement and got out, and never looked back.
Have you ever seen the people that collect life-like baby animal dolls and treat them like they're real babies? Those were probably the people you could sense lurking around the periphery. It's... honestly kind of dark, because you know that, for those people, it isn't just harmless fun or even eccentricity, but untreated and deep-seated mental-illness.
I haven't and hopefully I never will.
Fascinating, as usual!
They really were astoundingly high-quality books for being an accessory to a doll; when I was a kid I thought it was the other way around and that the dolls were there to complement the books.
My daughters (ages 6 and 8) are really into the Walmart knockoff "My Life As" dolls, which are the same size and can wear the American Girl clothes. A different approach to the opening up of AG to the masses.
As to Molly being "your type" when you were young . . . for me it was Samantha. Especially on the cover of "Samantha Saves the Day." She gets a lot of grief in your essay, but . . . I am unrepentant. I was always too much a lover of fancy things.
Thank you for the kind words.
Looking back, it's funny you say that, because I kind of had the same opinion about the dolls complimenting the books rather than the other way around, though I assume that's because I only ever saw the books in person and was only tangentially aware of the dolls. You could really make the argument that the Pleasant Company was really doing a multimedia affair where both were equally important to driving the IP as a whole, even more so if you factor in the movies (which I'll get to), and that no one piece was really ancillary to another. Until recently, but, again... we'll get to it.
And, hey - if I sounded like I was being hard on Samantha, it was all in good fun. Friendly ribbing, that's all. It comes from a place of fondness. Truth be told, I remember her books fondly, and, to be honest to a fault, for as much as I clown on it, I think her relationship with Nellie is sweet. And, her period of American History - the late Gilded Age, early Progressive Age, Edwardian-era America - is probably my favorite, at least aesthetically; the architecture and fashion of the time I find inexplicably appealing. It was the era where the great American cities like Saint Louis, Detroit, Cleveland, and New York were arguably at their peak, and, in part, I think my fascination with the period is how things could go from what they were to where they are today in such a (relatively) short amount of time. In a way... you could say that some of those jokes at Samantha's expense might be rooted in a kernel of envy. But I also remind myself that A) it's a fictional nine year old that was B) also an orphan who was fortunate enough to be adopted by a wealthy family member which leads to me to the point that C) it was a time when a whole lot illnesses and diseases that can be cured with a shot today were death sentences, so... it's all a matter of perspective. After all, I'm not one to be one of those "historical cynics" who's like, "Everyone before now was depressed and miserable and lived in filth and squalor and everything was terrible literally all of the time", but, realistically speaking, there were more Nellie's than there were Samantha's back then... but damn did they go off when it came to building cool buildings.
This is all to say that I have the utmost respect for Miss Parkington and all the other American Girls, haha.
Great article. Finally took the time to sit down and read it. My girlfriend had two AG dolls, one of them a somewhat cheaper customizable line. She was complaining about how inaccurate the costumes are for the modern dolls. Even the one from the 90s is in clothing that would not be worn by a 9 year old. Historical accuracy makes people feel "excluded" and not diverse. We are in the era of yeast life indeed.
Thank you! I noticed that while doing research myself. Being a product of that era myself, I was like... I don't ever remember seeing other kids dress like that. I did on, like, Disney Channel movies, which seems to be the filter we're just going to look back forever through, but, realistically, I remember you'd be lucky if you could get the average 9 year old girl to wear more than a t-shirt and jeans on the average school day.
As a Lego Magazine boy with five American Girl Doll-loving older sisters, I laughed so many times reading this.
Looking forwards to part two. I always enjoy your dives into pop-culture
I want to say that it's hard to believe that there's such a deep community surrounding what is ultimately niche subject like American Girl dolls, but A. I'm too busy staring at horses to say that with a straight face and B. what doesn't have a shockingly deep and abnormal community of terminally-online weirdos surrounding it these days? Even we, who write about what are easily considered serious matters or interests (though not in the depressingly dour manner so common today), are in some ways not exempt from this phenomenon, placed as we are in what is still a fundamentally online sphere. It seems that a fundamental reality of the digital world; as we become more atomised in the real world, we are drawn ever deeper into these strange relationships in the online world. Mostly, it's community building with some brand (the only truly acceptable identity for the masses to-day) as the excuse to associate, but for some poor souls they let the brand truly become their identity. The results are always frightening - and demonic.
P.S: if you need a nigh-inexhaustible content hole to distract you and fill your head with useless knowledge, have I got the fandom for you
That's kind of the absurd paradox we find ourselves in, isn't it - the internet has blurred the boundaries between observer and subject, participant and audience, and forced us all into engage in this strange sort of performance art, in which the only real way to disengage is simply to log off, go outside, and, as they say... touch grass.
I will say, though, I don't think there's much demonic activity in the American Girl fandom. I don't think. It's a bit absurd but, compared to what I've seen even from other toy fandoms, they seem content to be weird in their own little corner of the internet and, really - I respect that. But, I could have not dug deep enough. And if that's the case? I'm not sure I want to.
If you have any fandom recommendations, too, I'm open to hear them.
>recommendations
I was just jokingly tempting you with going off the deep end with cartoon horses (I wonder if there's a Faust and the Devil joke to be made here. Though in this case, it would be Faust, first name Lauren, tempting the Devil). There's near infinite content to be found there, and some of it's even good - although most of the really good stuff is either written or music, which doesn't really fill the slot you're looking to fill I suppose.
On a completely separate note, your aside about those children's magazines that used to be big really hit home. I vividly remember the feeling of coming home from school and seeing that a new issue of Nat Geo (I was a precocious child) or Cricket was sitting on the kitchen table, waiting to be devoured. There was nothing quite like just grabbing it and sinking into a couch or your favourite chair to devour it all, especially on a day in late fall or early winter when you felt like you had just run through all of the interesting books in the school library. Kind of like getting a crop of good substack poasts in one's inbox now, but much more real
You're just reminding me that I need to finally get around to finishing the last (for now) entry into my brony trilogy... it's taken a lot longer to wrap up than I ever anticipated, but it's like, every time I think I've said all I can say on the matter, I'm proven miserably wrong.
I also feel the same way about not having every show on demand via streaming. Watching new episodes of Pokemon exclusively on Saturday mornings made the whole thing feel like a special event in a way that I feel like you just wouldn't get today, with streaming being what it is. Convenient as it is, if something is easy to watch, easy to obtain, easy to understand, so on and so forth... it's not really all that special anymore, is it? That's kind of the issue with the American Girl dolls - and exclusive and distinctive toy line that was watered down for the lowest common denominator, until it's most defining features were sanded down and shaved away. I recently saw a quote that said, "Every generation is convinced their childhood is better than the next's, and every generation is correct." There's wisdom to that, I think.
My sister had the Kitt doll.
The accessories were very well made and I enjoyed looking at them (the doll sized books were complete editions of the original text, for example).
Also if you want goo cryptid content check out Bob Gymlan on YouTube. He’s the best.
I appreciate the recommendation, but I'm already familiar with Bob Gymlan. He's definitely a stand-out in the genre, field, whatever you want to call it. I don't always agree with him but I've never encountered someone in the pro-cryptid camp (which, I'll admit, I am in to a degree) that is as consistently thought-provoking and challenging as he is. I would agree that he's the best around.
If you want to read a fun book, check out “Abominable Snowmen” by the Scottish zoologist Ivan T. Sanderson.
It was one of the first books on the topic, really well researched and written in the classic early/mid century academic style.
I'm familiar with the name, but not his books. He was mentioned and cited quite a bite by John Keel in his works, so I'll definitely check them out. Thank you for the rec.
Frankly, I thought this piece of history was fascinating. Thank you!
And thank you for the support. I'm glad you enjoyed!
Wild West Extravaganza and Ancient Life Coach are great podcasts. Very entertaining material but they may deserve more direct attention than I can give them while working. I like them while driving or doing chores though.
I'll be sure to give them a look, thank you!
Hey, nothing's inherently wrong with fandom, or using one's adoration of a piece of media as a means of self-expression. Like, when I harp on a lot of these people, it usually comes from a place of sympathy, if not empathy. If anyone ever saw how much fanfiction I've written over the course of my life... well, let's just say it's concerning. But, it also helped me cut my teeth with words, so, I can't fault anyone who gets their start that way, you know? It's only when people start threatening to kill each other over it that things get out of pocket.
That being said, a lot of what I'm reading from fans and in the feedback to this post is people fondly remembering the books. We'll touch on what happened to them in the next part, but reading all this only makes their eventual fate all the more disappointing. This might be a stretch, but I think the American Girl books were a proof of concept that girls could be just as interested in history as boys. Now, they might be interested in different aspects of history, but it's history all the same. It's sad to see that, these days, most material for girls is all pandering to the most base level iconography and symbology of being a woman; cosmetics, clothes, tech gadgets, basically all that pink glitz and glamour shit. American Girl - at least, in its original state - kind of served as a counter-balance to a more sensible, universal, and fundamental type of femininity rather than the crass and boorish, crude and cartoonish caricature that is peddled to young girls these days. A lot of the material talks about "what it meant to be a girl" in those time periods. Not to say women didn't always like those things, but... it's just there's a lot more to being a woman than what you BUY, just like t-shirts with beard iconography or bacon-scented soap makes a man more a man. Of course, though, just like everything else, masculinity and femininity have been hollowed out and reduced to costumes that can be bought and sold - which is very convenient for the powers that be. Point is, compared to then and now, I feel like the line, the IP, the toys, whatever, engaged with children in a way that was more respectful than a lot of what you see today and, in regards to girls, treated them with a lot more respect, as well. It really does feel wholesome. Mostly.
I like that theory. I'm not entirely sold, either, but it would explain a lot. I know that's often the reasons parents that shower their kids with gifts do what they do.
I would also agree with you. That's kind of what makes the American Girl line so interesting, in a lot of ways. Samantha, being from the Progressive Era/Edwardian period, is steeped in the fashion and iconography of a time where American culture was the most... unique, I suppose? It's difficult to articulate and probably would warrant an article unto itself, but, suffice to say, consumerism is a cancer and if we are to survive as a distinct culture and society, it'll have to be cut out like one.