American Girl

American Girl, LLC
Current logo of American Girl, LLC.
President and CEO	Pleasant Rowland (formerly; company now owned by Mattel)
Founded	1986

“In Soviet Russia, doll retires YOU!”

~ Russian Reversal on American Girl

“They're pretty much known for kicking us out of our career after years of milking the hell out of us.”

~ Felicity Merriman on her employers

“You got it right, sister.”

~ Sam Parkington

American Girl is a line of dolls, books, and accessories based on ten-year-old girl characters that originally focused on various periods of American history from the viewpoint of girls and has now expanded to include dolls of and stories about contemporary girls. The company was founded in 1986 by Pleasant Rowland, and its products were originally purchasable by mail order only. In 1998, Pleasant Company became a subsidiary of Mattel. The company has been awarded the Oppenheimer Toy Award eight times.

The original dolls were a spinoff from the 18-inch dolls made by Götz in Germany during the late 1980s to the 1990s. Pleasant Rowland initially bought the remaining stock of Romina dolls from Götz in 1985-86, to be rebadged and marketed as Samantha Parkington, complete with books and various accessories. Around that time the company also released two other characters - Kirsten Larson and Molly McIntire, and in the 1990s American Girl introduced several other dolls from various time periods such as Felicity Merriman, Addy Walker, and Josefina Montoya, along with a line of dolls representing the modern era.

Characters

The AG line is known for its myriad of characters from different time periods in America, from the 1760s to the 1970s. The main historical characters currently consist of:

• Kaya'aton'my aka Kaya (1764): A Nez Perce Native American kid living in the Southwest; she loves to swim everyday and has a cool horse.
• Felicity Merriman (1774): Colonial tomboy from Williamsburg, Virginia. Known by her friends as a spunky, active little princess who's fed up with all the stuff that young ladies are supposed to do (or are they?). Also has a horse, and is pretty much known to be a staple of lulz among fans of the series, as she was often paired with fellow colonist Benjamin Davidson.
• Caroline Abbott (1812): A shipbuilder's daughter from Sackets Harbor, New York, caught up along with her family during the War of 1812, even going so far as to seeing her dad end up getting impressed by the British. Retired from the line in 2014 shortly after the BeForever reboot.
• Josefina Montoya (1824): daughter of a rancher in Mexican-controlled Southwest. Her mama just died before the start of her series, but she got over it when her aunt came in.
• Cécile Rey and Marie-Grace Gardner (1853): Two completely different girls hailing from New Orleans - a French-speaking African-American and a white kid, growing up during the time where black people are generally underappreciated.
• Kirsten Larson (1854): One of the OGs in the series, she was an immigrant from Sweden who came to Minnesota during the Pioneer days. She was rumoured to have died of dysentery in 2009, although it was later confirmed that she was to be retired from the roster in 2010.
• Addy Walker (1864): The first African-American doll; she first started off as a slave in North Carolina, then escapes to Philadelphia during the Civil War.
• Samantha Parkington (1904): One of the OGs in the series, she was also pulled out in 2009, but was re-released with the launch of the BeForever reboot in 2014. She's an orphan who lives with her rather conservative Grandmary during the Victorian Edwardian era. She likes progress, new inventions, and is interested in the changes that was happening in the early 1900s. She also has her own internet meme together with Dwayne Johnson.
• Rebecca Rubin (1914): (Russian: Рэбэка Рубин) A Jewish immigrant living in New York, Becky has a passion for acting, and is aspiring to be one, much to the chagrin of her parents.
• Claudie Wells (1922): An African-American girl (the fourth) inspired by the art and artists of the Harlem Renaissance who desires to know how to better express herself, and when she learns that her boarding house is in danger of being lost, Claudie travels with her mother and learns about her family's history during the Great Migration along the way.
• Margaret Mildred "Kit" Kittredge (1934): A shrewd and resourceful kid from Cincinnati, Ohio, with a knack for journalism. Her dad had a car dealership back in the early Thirties, but a series of unfortunate events forced them to close it down in order to make ends meet.
• Nanea Mitchell (1941): Released in 2017 and the second BeForever-exclusive character, Nanea lives in Hawaii when the Pearl Harbor attack took place. The war severely affected her life as she and her friends are caught up in the conflict and her books start just before the bombing.
• Molly McIntire (1944): The last of the original three gangstas; she lives in Illinois during World War II, while her father is serving in bomb-plagued England as an army doctor. Her stories center on changes that they had to deal with during the days when most of America is busy committing antics on Hitler during the war. Axed from the line in 2013, despite protests from those who felt that Mattel's doing it wrong with history.
• Maryellen Larkin (1954): The first character to be released after the BeForever reboot, hailing from Daytona Beach, Florida. A polio survivor (thus making her the first character to have a disability, though it isn't explicitly shown in her doll) and the middle child in a large family, she tries to make herself heard.
• Julie Albright (1974): Lives in San Francisco in The Seventies. She learns how to deal with the changes her parents' divorce caused to her life while navigating social upheavals like second-wave feminism, the environmentalist movement, and the changing rights of racial minorities (explored through her relationship with her Chinese best friend).
• Courtney Moore (1986): Hailing from Orange Valley, California, Courtney is into video games such as Pac-Man and STEM subjects. Has two best friends whom she hangs out with at the local video game arcade, and dreams about a video game character whose name is "Crystal Starshooter".
• Isabel and Nicki Hoffman (1999): Based in Seattle during the turn of the millennium, Isabel and Nicki are American Girl's first twin historicals and the second duo in the roster overall (not counting Best Friends). The Hoffmans live in an interfaith Judeo-Christian family where they celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah, and the twins are a study in contrasts, with Isabel being the girlier of the two and Nicki being the grunge-loving tomboyish skateboarder. Together they face the new millennium with both excitement and worry as the Millennium Bug looms.

Gallery

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  A typical American Girl doll.