For so many of us, American Girl dolls were more than just toys, they’re how we learned about the past. But is American Girl’s version historically accurate? Believe it or not, there's no shortage of scholars who have a lot to say about that.
This episode of Civics 101 is all about dolls, and what one beloved brand got right – and wrong – about the American experience.
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Guests include Marcia Chatelain Pulitzer Prize-winning author and the Penn Presidential Company Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania; Spencer Crew, former president of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center and professor of history at George Mason University; Emilie Zaslow, author of Playing with America’s Doll: A Cultural Analysis of the American Girl Collection; and Molly Rosner, author of Playing with History: American Identities and Children’s Consumer Culture.
LISTEN TO PART 1:
LISTEN TO PART 2:
Transcript:
American Girl Part 1
Justine Paradis: [00:00:02.12] Justine. Hannah. Nick. Hannah. Justine. Nick. Samantha. Samantha. Oh, my God. Samantha.
Nick Capodice: [00:00:13.04] That's she.
Justine Paradis: [00:00:15.29] It's her. Her hair. Yeah.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:18.77] So, this is, um. This is Samantha.
Justine Paradis: [00:00:23.30] Can I hold her?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:23.90] Yes, please. Please describe for our listeners what you've got in your hands there. I have not held an American girl doll in a really long time. This is actually. I feel emotional. Oh, wow. Look at the teeth. So this is a Samantha doll who has, I would say, seen better days.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:41.24] She's seen better days, I believe. She received a small haircut at some point. Her hair is, um.
Justine Paradis: [00:00:46.73] It does look like she got a haircut and bangs specifically. She maybe had an emotional got bangs.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:51.42] Samantha has bangs
Justine Paradis: [00:00:52.97] all right.
Nick Capodice: [00:00:53.45] Did she get those at the McCarthy salon?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:53.45] Okay.
Justine Paradis: [00:01:01.43] It does look like she's wearing a off brand dress.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:06.50] This is not off brand. It is off era, though. Can you guess where that dress?
Justine Paradis: [00:01:12.17] Kirsten.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:12.71] Yes. Yes.
Nick Capodice: [00:01:14.33] Wow.
Justine Paradis: [00:01:14.75] And so little loose in the leg. A little.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:19.07] This is okay. I have someone else with me here.
Justine Paradis: [00:01:22.79] Kirsten?
Justine Paradis: [00:01:23.39] Yeah. Hey.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:25.07] She's wearing a really anachronistic outfit.
Justine Paradis: [00:01:26.90] This is a modern American girl dress. This is like a dress. An outfit that I would have been jealous of in middle school and, like, wished it came in in my size.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:34.28] Exactly. Exactly.
Nick Capodice: [00:01:35.72] Wait, did Kirsten work at the North face?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:40.25] And then there's.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:41.21] This you'll be familiar with.
Justine Paradis: [00:01:42.65] Yeah. This is Samantha's outfit, and with a really nice locket.
Justine Paradis: [00:01:46.97] Does it open? It does. Oh, yeah, it totally does. I didn't have Samantha, but.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:51.83] Yeah. So we've got some dolls in the studio for this episode of Civics 101.
Justine Paradis: [00:01:59.54] So did you pick Samantha because of the hair?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:02:01.65] I picked Samantha. So, Samantha, for those who don't know, has brunet hair or brown, as some people might call it. I also had that kind of hair, and I still do as a child. But also I picked Samantha, to be totally honest with you, because she has a gold locket, which you just pointed out. And the original doll you were supposed to cut out from this teeny tiny piece of paper, these pictures of her dead parents.
Justine Paradis: [00:02:29.19] Because she's an orphan.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:02:30.03] Because she's an orphan to put in the locket. And I, in trying to cut out that heart with not the best of fine motor skills, totally botched it. And so Samantha's locket remained empty. forever.
Justine Paradis: [00:02:43.98] No memories forever. Devastating.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:02:45.57] Upsetting. Yep. Everyone, this is Justine Paradise, by the way, of podcast. Outside/In fame and also other fame.
Justine Paradis: [00:02:54.54] Other fame. I'm famous for many things. Yes. Hi. Thanks for having me.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:02:58.56] Hello. I'm Hannah McCarthy. As you know. This is Nick Capodice.
Nick Capodice: [00:03:02.37] Hi there. Just over here.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:03:04.86] And this is Civics 101. And today, believe it or not, we are talking dolls.
Dramatic Music: [00:03:26.03] (Musical intro)
Justine Paradis: [00:03:27.67] That is. So powerful to me. It takes me so right back. Oh, my God.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:03:33.79] This is you're hearing music from a computer game that Justine and I were very fond of, wherein you stage plays and it's the American Girl dolls, and you've got, like, their bedrooms and the outdoors and the kitchen.
Justine Paradis: [00:03:48.79] This is one of the many offshoots of the American Girl Doll brand. And it was it was probably the weirdest one, I would say.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:03:54.64] It was super weird. And you could type in their their lines for the plays they were doing and a computer would read it. And Nick's pretty good at computer voices.
Nick Capodice: [00:04:04.45] Oh, yeah. I was hoping you'd ask me to do a little fake computer.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:04:06.91] Just do a little.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:04:07.57] Like, give us an example.
Justine Paradis: [00:04:08.83] Read a line.
Nick Capodice: [00:04:10.33] Here. Dolores was a good teacher. She showed Clara a faster way to knit the heel on a sock. She showed Francisca how to sew a patch over a hole so that it hardly showed at all.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:04:22.75] That's exactly. That is exactly what it was like. That's what it was like. I think you could select, like, male voice, female voice, maybe even British voice.
Justine Paradis: [00:04:31.76] There were some really good ones. There were actually characters of Maria. Was the robots?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:04:35.61] Yes. Yeah.
Nick Capodice: [00:04:36.89] Can I interrupt for a sec? Sure. What is going on here?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:04:44.89] Well, Nick, to my understanding, you had neither dolls nor toys of any kind as a child.
Nick Capodice: [00:04:49.80] Yeah, that's right. Basically.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:04:51.34] And either way, you would not have had these toys that are here on the studio table because these came into the world in 1986. Your childhood was prior to that.
Nick Capodice: [00:05:01.18] I would say my childhood extended past 1986. So that's just my opinion.
Justine Paradis: [00:05:05.24] All right. I need to hear more about, like the lack of the rocks and sticks you apparently played with. But for another time.
Nick Capodice: [00:05:10.54] Another time.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:05:12.19] But for Justine and myself and so many people that I know, these dolls, while they might just seem like dolls to. Although, Nick, do they seem like just dolls to you? I just got to know.
Nick Capodice: [00:05:22.12] No, they do. They have something about them.
Nick Capodice: [00:05:25.96] Are you just saying that? You're not just saying that because of you?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:05:27.58] I'm saying it because I can. I can. I can feel something.
Nick Capodice: [00:05:30.88] I've never actually seen a doll like this. I also didn't know that dolls close their eyes when you lay them down.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:05:36.02] Okay, well, that's.
Justine Paradis: [00:05:38.17] A big part of them.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:05:39.07] That's a lot. A lot of dolls go to sleep when you lay them down. But anyway, you know, it was not just my childhood that was influenced by these dolls and playing with them, but these dolls came with these books, some of which I've also brought into the studio. And these represent like a really engrossing encounter with American history. That's what came along with all of these dolls. And today, Nick, we're going to talk about all of this. You can feel free to ask whatever questions you have. But first, I just want to talk a little bit about why we're doing this. Justine, you were the person who came up with the idea to make a Civics 101 episode about American Girl dolls. Can I ask, do you have a why? Was there a reason?
Justine Paradis: [00:06:21.29] Oh, I mean, I guess I would just say that these books, like I remember where in the library they were when I was growing up, and I just remember it was learning about history without them, like saying, let's learn about some history. It was just a real like the stories were so good, but it was how it's such a really strong memory of, of the books themselves. And the dolls were such a big part of my life. But I also just was kind of wondering years later, like, we're revisiting so many pillars of our childhood, like, was it a good history education? I don't know. Did they do a good job at communicating American history or American civics? And I just thought that you should look into it for us. Yeah.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:07:04.21] And so so I did. Because for me, it was it was the sort of same thing. And it was this like the first foray into American history that actually stuck for me. Yeah, like I thought about it, I had a vague understanding of various areas of American history, and I can attribute that to remembering the stories of these girls throughout history.
Justine Paradis: [00:07:25.66] I also, so to answer that again, this is the summer of the doll. You know, Barbie is in the air everywhere. This was the summer of the doll. But we're also having this little renaissance of American Girl as well. I'm seeing it pop up everywhere. Yeah. So that's why and I wanted you to explore what is it actually any good do they did a good job? Did they do a good job of teaching us history?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:07:48.62] This is a good question.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:07:49.52] And one of the guests you'll hear from later described this in a way that I thought was really interesting, which is that women in their 30s, looking back to these dolls, the love of these dolls and their histories, is unironic. You know, And I think there's a little bit of with the response to Barbie, there is this like a smidge of irony. It smacks of a little bit of like and there's true love there as well. Like, I don't want to dismiss it out of hand, but there's something about these dolls. Why do I still have these? Because my mom was like, I'm going to get rid of your toys. And I was like, well, you can't get rid of the American Girl dolls, though, because, you know, there's something about them.
Justine Paradis: [00:08:24.32] Something about them.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:08:25.34] Okay. So what is covered by these history books, Justine, that you're mentioning? I just want to give our listeners a sense. Okay. So we're talking about these dolls, right? But they're not just dolls. These are dolls with, as you said, Justine, a history right through these stories. But they've got this whole rich world built around them. Right? So they've got a story, a family, a family tree. There's a whole history there. They've got friends. They've got places they go. They've got personalities, struggles. Et cetera.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:08:54.95] So first, Kirsten Larson, the pioneer experience. These books also cover New Mexico prior to the Mexican-American War, Oregon, prior to permanent white settlement and the Nez Perse people in what became Oregon. Samantha the Progressive era, World War two, enslavement, the Civil War, the Great Depression, the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, believe it or not, comes up at a certain point, which is really it's a little funny. So this is an education company. We can say that American Girl is an education company or a brand. It's also a toy company.
Justine Paradis: [00:09:35.27] Yeah.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:09:35.69] And one of the many questions that I had going into this was, you know, we might talk about this endlessly, Justine, but are there other people out there who. Want to and can talk about American Girl dolls.
Marcia Chatelain: [00:09:48.39] Oh, my gosh. This stuff is so fun to think about.
Spencer Crew: [00:09:51.48] I enjoy it. I'm a historian, so I may be biased.
Emily Zazlow: [00:09:54.45] So I actually started studying American Girl when I was doing a master's program in the 1990s.
Molly Rosner: [00:10:00.57] Sorry, I know I've been talking a lot. I have. I love this. I mean.
Justine Paradis: [00:10:05.70] As it turns out. Yes, very much. Yes.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:10:08.82] Like very much. Yes, yes, yes.
Justine Paradis: [00:10:11.46] So, Hannah, can we just get something out of the way first? Which doll were you?
Nick Capodice: [00:10:19.05] Hold on. What do you mean?
Justine Paradis: [00:10:20.76] As in, like, which doll do you identify with as a person? It's like, which power ranger were you? Or which Ninja Turtle?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:10:26.94] Leonardo. Clearly.
Justine Paradis: [00:10:28.68] Except that this is much more important, I think. American Girl Doll.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:10:31.32] Yeah, it carries more weight. So I identified very strongly with Kirsten. So she's a pioneer. She's a homesteader. She wears a candle crown for Saint Lucia Day, Swedish Saint Lucia, Day. She's got a pet dog who gets stung by a bumblebee. I don't know if you remember that. I remember that very fondly. That was. That was me.
Justine Paradis: [00:10:50.71] I think I was Felicity. And that maybe was because it was the first doll I got. But she was just sort of spunky and, like, tomboyish. And that's that was a serious pattern in my childhood.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:11:00.73] She wears there's like one of the covers of her books is So Felicity is a colonial era. Yeah, Revolutionary War. And she's wearing pants and riding a horse in one of the covers of her book.
Justine Paradis: [00:11:10.45] She always, like, steals away in the night to go ride the horse.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:11:13.12] So, yeah, it's like, really cool.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:11:15.43] Nick, I don't think you have a doll identity because that would be your choice, of course. But like, I would assign you Felicity to probably Molly now.
Justine Paradis: [00:11:23.30] Always a really good one.
Nick Capodice: [00:11:24.40] I'll take Molly.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:11:25.45] Yeah, well.
Nick Capodice: [00:11:27.13] I appreciate that. And I agree with it or disagree with it once I figure out what it means. But the point I'm going to jump in here and ask is, while I see this foot and a half long doll here in front of me.
Justine Paradis: [00:11:39.64] What a weird way to put it.
Nick Capodice: [00:11:40.81] Elaborate doll dress. I do not fully understand what it is I'm actually looking at like what is American Girl?
Justine Paradis: [00:11:49.42] Great place to start.
Molly Rosner: [00:11:50.83] I'm going to try to tell it as a little bit of like a story, so that'll help me keep it in order. Okay.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:11:56.05] This is Molly Rosner. She's the author of Playing With History: American Identities and Children's Consumer Culture.
Nick Capodice: [00:12:03.46] Children's Consumer Culture. That kind of hurts a little bit. It's kind of.
Justine Paradis: [00:12:07.75] The invention of childhood. I feel like.
Nick Capodice: [00:12:10.87] The sale of it, the sale of a child's soul.
Molly Rosner: [00:12:14.89] In 1986, Pleasant Rowland, the founder of the Pleasant Company, sent out about half a million catalogs across the country, addressed specifically to nine year old girls. They were large oversize catalogs with thick paper. They were really beautifully put together and they were filled with life size pictures of these 18 inch tall dolls. So you could really immerse yourself as a kid in this piece of mail that came just for you. It had letters at the beginning addressed to the young consumer, and it was the only way to purchase these dolls was through the mail. It was a very quaint and personal feeling, kind of marketing.
Justine Paradis: [00:13:02.14] Guerilla marketing to nine year olds. I remember those catalogs.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:13:05.02] I remember them viscerally and fondly. Yes. And this marketing absolutely worked like I don't know why I received American girl catalogs, but I eventually did.
Justine Paradis: [00:13:15.07] They found you?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:13:15.64] They found me. So the story goes that Pleasant Rowland.
Justine Paradis: [00:13:15.64] Her name is Pleasant.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:13:20.08] Pleasant also, by the way, she's number 77 on the Forbes 100 of America's self-made women.
Justine Paradis: [00:13:26.50] Really? Wow. Yeah.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:13:28.27] That's just really interesting. She built this whole brand, right?
Justine Paradis: [00:13:30.76] It's like, wow. Okay, how much money did she have?.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:13:32.71] Have. Well, okay, so here's the story, right? So the story goes that Pleasant. Rowland was visiting historical Williamsburg and was inspired. (Same), you know for good or for ill.
Justine Paradis: [00:13:44.75] Also this tracks.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:13:45.64] Yeah yeah. So that was like that was one thing in her mind. She also apparently was one day out buying dolls for her nieces and noticed that the only dolls available really for young girls were Barbie and Cabbage Patch. So kids basically had like two options. They could play grown up pretending to be this like independent, idealized lady. Or they could play grown up pretending to be a parent caring for this like lumpy baby.
Justine Paradis: [00:14:09.46] And I think we should say that porcelain dolls that looked like children definitely did exist at the time. Yeah, but Pleasant made dolls that you could drop without breaking. Like those dolls were sort of up on the shelf, you know? Yeah.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:14:21.40] But, you know, it was like. It was like, be a mom or like or play with this, like, frankly, kind of sexy lady. So you wondered, you know, like, where did she have a bunch of money? Just she has a bunch of money now. She ended up selling her brand for millions and millions of dollars down the line. We'll talk about that in brief. But she had a bunch of money because she had written successful kids textbooks. That was what she'd been doing. So she thought to herself, Know what if I created historical dolls who don't look like grown women? They don't look like babies. These dolls look like young girls. And these girls live in, and they represent these seminal eras of American history. And from there, three dolls were born. Molly, Kirsten and Samantha were born.
Justine Paradis: [00:15:11.45] Quick bios, by the way. I think we should do. Yeah. Molly McIntire, a schemer and a dreamer. Growing up in Illinois during World War Two. Molly has glasses.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:15:20.27] Which, like, truly. I think that passed for inclusivity in the late 80s.
Justine Paradis: [00:15:23.81] Yeah. So enlightened. Then then Samantha Parkington in Our Presence. She lives in Mount Bedford, New York.
Nick Capodice: [00:15:30.02] Mount Bedford, New York. Yeah. Mount Bedford. There's a Bedford, New York. And there's a Bedford Avenue in New York, and there's a mount Kisco. But to the best of my knowledge, there is no Mount Bedford.
Justine Paradis: [00:15:40.43] Well.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:15:41.39] They are dolls. These are dolls. The point here is that Samantha is supposed to live in like, a really fancy town north of Manhattan. Samantha is rich.
Justine Paradis: [00:15:50.13] It is the dawn of the progressive era, and she's living with her grand Mary because, as previously mentioned, her parents have died. She is an orphan. She is headstrong, climbs trees, sneaks around.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:16:01.62] Yeah. A lot of these characters, either they're explicitly called tomboys or it's like, you know, nodded to like they're not acting the way that, quote unquote, girls should act anyway. But with Samantha, she has the frilly clothes like she's the jolliest of dolls.
Justine Paradis: [00:16:17.19] There's also so much of a fantasy about being an orphan and all children's literature. I don't know what it is, but Samantha fit in that. But then we have Kirsten Larsen, immigrant from Sweden, who ends up in Minnesota in the 1850s, Homesteading on the Plains and helping Mama with the new baby.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:16:31.44] That's right.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:16:31.74] I think the baby's name is Britta or Britta. Probably Britta.
Nick Capodice: [00:16:34.59] Britta.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:16:35.55] All right, so we've got it right. Three historically oriented dolls to launch. They come complete with a staggering array of accessories and clothing. The catalog is go out.
Molly Rosner: [00:16:47.83] The fact that it was mail order catalogs and the price point of these dolls made it pretty clear that there was a specific intended audience of upper middle class young girls with parents who may be concerned with the lessons of history and multicultural American identity. So these dolls each had to do with historical eras. And the original logo for the Pleasant Company was a kind of sepia tinted maroon silhouette of a young girl reading a book with her doll next to her. So reading was a really crucial and foundational part of the branding, and those books were each so, you know, they were supposedly meant to teach the young reader history. But within those books, you could find very detailed descriptions and plots entire plots that revolved around merchandise. So the catalog was filled with clothing and bedding and accessories, food that were influenced by historical materials and trends. I mean, they were plastic for the most part, but they mimicked different historical eras. But those items appeared in the stories, every single one of them. So you weren't purchasing just a lunch pail for your doll. You were purchasing part of the story of her bringing her lunch and sharing it with her friend. You were partaking in that history in a really active way by purchasing it.
Speaker9: [00:18:33.55] By the way, I, deeply, deeply to the point that maybe I still do wanted Kirsten's really beautiful wooden lunchbox. It had like, cut out reliefs, remember? And it had these, like, a teeny tiny apple and cheese and sausage and bread.
Justine Paradis: [00:18:48.43] From Kirsten learns a lesson. She takes it to school. She's right there in the one room schoolhouse.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:18:52.90] I never, by the way, acquired this particular element of history.
Justine Paradis: [00:18:56.65] This is this is interesting to engage with history as a consumer by purchasing it.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:19:03.37] Yeah.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:19:04.24] Which I don't think and we'll talk a little bit more about this later, Justine, as a kid, I didn't think to myself, like, I'm buying history. I just I wanted it. But in retrospect. You didn't just have the books, right? You also wanted the stuff that you saw in the books. But there's a divide there.
Justine Paradis: [00:19:20.33] It's something about when you look at old children's books, illustrations of the books you read. Then there's some kind of feeling that happens when you look at the blue of the blueberries in that book. And it's the same when I think about those objects, about these dolls.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:19:34.20] I totally agree.
Nick Capodice: [00:19:35.15] I had that for all the I had these books about gnomes and fairies and they had these depictions of food in them that I was like, I must eat that plum.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:19:42.65] The food was so significant.
Nick Capodice: [00:19:44.82] Your whole life, you're chasing that plum and you never catch it.
Justine Paradis: [00:19:47.09] Beginning of Felicity, which we haven't talked about yet, but in her father's store, the smelling of the spices and it's very sensory.
Dramatic Music: [00:19:53.93] Yeah. Yeah.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:19:55.70] So. But the thing is, I never really cared before about what exactly the Pleasant company was going for. No, I read the books, I learned the history. I loved it. I got the catalogs. I was gifted. These dolls. They were my, without a doubt favorite objects outside of, like, various little magical things they kept in boxes. But what the company was marketing exactly. And how they were marketing it and who these dolls were for were not questions that I asked until we made this episode. They are called American Girl dolls.
Justine Paradis: [00:20:28.38] American Girl.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:20:30.63] They came with specific identities rooted in explorations of American history, and they each have a book series.
Molly Rosner: [00:20:37.02] I mean, I think the stories are very engaging, but the catalog, the catalog allows different kind of access. And you have this sort of ability for the parents to feel a little bit righteous and moral for purchasing it because it's educational, quote unquote, educational. So in that way it also flies under the radar in a way that Barbie, for instance, can't, no matter how many careers you give Barbie, she's modeled like an adult woman. She's very sexualized. And her backstory is not quite so concrete. So she can she can morph, but she's never going to be the same kind of elevated educational doll the way the American Girl dolls were.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:21:21.81] So what is an elevated educational doll? How does the Pleasant company make or at least attempt to make a doll that does more? We've got that coming up after the break.
Nick Capodice: [00:21:35.34] But before that break, we want you to know that we have one of my personal favorite pieces of swag we've ever created here at Civics 101. And it's a baseball hat, which may sound funny from a guy who never wears baseball hats, but this one looks really cool. It says Civics 101 on it. It's Black, it's beautiful, it's organic cotton, and you're going to love it if you give $8 a month as a sustainer to Civics 101, this hat can be yours as shall be our undying gratitude. Check it out at Civics101podcast.org.
Nick Capodice: [00:22:19.94] We're back and we are talking about American Girl dolls and Hannah. Just before the break, you were going to tell me what it actually looks like when a company tries to do more with a doll. So what does that look like? Where do they start?
Marcia Chatelain: [00:22:35.45] Well, the 1990s, I think the two kind of questions about the doll industry was some of the feminist critiques of Barbie, I think were starting to emerge as more legible for a generation of parents that might have grown up with Barbie and the glamorous dolls and started to really think about whether this was good or bad for girls.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:22:58.76] This is Marcia Chatelain. Most recently, Marcia is the Pulitzer Prize winning author of Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America. But she also knows and thinks about a lot of things. So many things that a staggering array of things, so smart, so smart and was kind enough to go down this American girl rabbit hole with us.
Marcia Chatelain: [00:23:17.69] And so you have all of these other types of dolls that are trying to fill the space that a Barbie doll can't. And so I think where American Girl fits in. It's a doll that is still very beautiful. It is reminiscent of a collectible porcelain doll, but it also has, I think, the comfort for parents who, even if they don't identify as feminist, who are concerned about how girls are playing with this historical content that is substantive and intellectual and is presented as historically accurate. So it allows for a kind of play that is very gendered but is not as concerning as perhaps other dolls on that market. I mean, I think that there's something about an affluent consumer of the 80s. You know, by the time the American girl comes out in the 90s, you have yuppie parents who are a little bit more socially conscious.
Nick Capodice: [00:24:15.48] So parents wanted to give their kids toys that were doing a little bit more than being fun and like these toys are going to teach them something.
Molly Rosner: [00:24:23.07] So in the 1980s, we see this kind of explosion of material culture and we have relatively young parents who want to incorporate lessons and values of things like multiculturalism into the toys that their kids are playing with. And they grew up with the G.I. Joe Barbie whitewashed toys overall. So American Girl represented this alternative. However, what's really important to note is that American Girl wasn't going after the parents. They marketed directly to the children. So they identified this part of childhood where there was a window for a new kind of doll for 8 to 12 year old girls, particularly, who were not yet going out shopping and and having independent lives with their friends, but were maybe looking for something a little more sophisticated than the imaginary play of six and seven year olds.
Justine Paradis: [00:25:25.20] What's interesting about this, though, is that, you know, sure, these dolls were sophisticated in a sense compared to Barbie or what have you, but they're at least at this point, they're not radically multicultural, like the company launches with three white girls. So I guess Kirsten is Swedish, so she's coming from another place. Samantha is an orphan, but she's also very rich, super privileged and mostly unaware of that privilege. And Molly has has glasses, but...
Justine Paradis: [00:25:52.11] She's also basically star spangled. There's a lot of red, white and blue going on in these books, literally.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:25:56.73] And so I feel like the company starts with a fairly limited definition of, quote unquote, American girl, right? Like like you said, Justine, three white girls, two of which represent a kind of can do American attitude, right? You've got the pioneer girl and you've got the girl starting a victory garden while Dad is away at war. And then you've got your basic ruffles and lace girly girl in Samantha.
Justine Paradis: [00:26:18.09] And I feel like it's also worth pointing out that Kirsten's story is set during the Antebellum period, but it's definitely a pioneer story. So I don't think there's much mention of the fact that the nation was on the verge of being rent asunder by the civil war here or of racial relations. Kirsten is friends with a young girl of ambiguous tribal identity named Singing Bird and singing. Bird's family is then forced off their lands due to pioneers, but it's still not of a ton of engagement with a nonwhite American identity. You know, it's just through her eyes that she's seeing.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:26:47.76] And Pleasant Rowland, believe it or not, open very open about the fact that she was going to hold off on releasing specifically a Black doll to the market.
Dramatic Music: [00:26:56.79] This is wild. That she's quoted.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:26:59.82] No, I agree. So like in the 80s, she's quoted in The Washington Post as saying, quote, I feel the company initially needed to get established financially before we could take the risk that may be inherent in presenting a doll via direct mail into the African American market, because typically middle class Black consumers do not purchase. As much from direct mail catalogs.
Nick Capodice: [00:27:22.51] Did she have any evidence to back that up? Is that even true?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:27:26.86] I cannot answer that question specifically. I will tell you that Marcia talked to us a little bit about the way that products of all kinds were marketed to Black consumers, and often that advertising was not what it should have been. It was not appealing. However, I think in this case, this is more an issue of perception of the market than anything else. Well, I.
Marcia Chatelain: [00:27:51.04] Mean, I think that this is the kind of market logic that sometimes can be proven wrong and sometimes is like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Well, you don't know if a Black doll will be commercially successful on first run if you don't first run it. Right. And I think that I'm curious if the market researchers at this time didn't understand that there was an affluent Black consumer market that I think would have embraced an American girl doll. I'm not sure if they would have embraced a doll whose storyline was tied to slavery necessarily.
Nick Capodice: [00:28:30.92] So as Marcia is saying here, that there is a doll explicitly tied to slavery. Yes.
Justine Paradis: [00:28:37.22] Addy Walker. And she starts as an enslaved person. Oh, wow. And then she and her family escape.
Nick Capodice: [00:28:43.67] So their first Black doll is an enslaved girl.
Justine Paradis: [00:28:47.09] One of the very first scenes is pretty intense in her book.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:28:50.69] Yeah.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:28:51.26] But, you know, First Pleasant has to decide that the time the market is right for Addy.
Marcia Chatelain: [00:28:56.72] One of the challenges I think for the Pleasant Company at that time and others is can you introduce a Black doll in the series and can you imagine a world in which the presence of that Black doll does not make the entire series unappealing? Because odds are there isn't a white consumer market for your Black doll. But just the presence of a Black doll in that same orbit could have impact on the larger brand. And that's the sad reality, I think, of how race plays out in a number of marketplaces, so that even if there is a white doll, the fact that there is a white and Black doll could turn off some consumers to the brand.
Justine Paradis: [00:29:41.84] So the next ought to come out is Felicity Merriman, literally a patriot growing up in Williamsburg, Virginia, during the Revolutionary War.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:29:49.22] Also, Justine. Do you remember this? Felicity's grandfather is an enslaver.
Justine Paradis: [00:29:53.42] No, I didn't remember that. Woah.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:29:55.10] In the books, there are two Black men who, like, quote unquote, work for her grandfather and are referred to as servants in the narrative. But then there's a looking back section of a lot of these I think all of these books.
Justine Paradis: [00:30:11.30] A peek into the past.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:30:12.08] A peek into the past and in the peek into the past history. Part of that Felicity book, it clarifies that these men referred to as servants are, in fact enslaved.
Justine Paradis: [00:30:21.83] Well, I don't know what to make of the fact that I don't remember that. But yeah, I guess I it's fascinating. That was sort of sanitized like that. And then only if you looked further was that revealed.
Dramatic Music: [00:30:35.06] Exactly.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:30:36.08] And Felicity like definitely is not teaching us about enslavement in America, right?
Justine Paradis: [00:30:41.03] Yeah. No, no, obviously not.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:30:43.85] But Addy, 1993, Addy Walker is released. And yes, like Justine says, she is enslaved at the beginning of her book series.
Marcia Chatelain: [00:30:53.24] And so I think that when we think about the other contexts in which the American girls, you know, are grappling with, whether it's, you know, World War Two, whether it's, you know, the gilded era, there's something about it that feels more doable in terms of developing a narrative out of it. The period of slavery is a little bit, I think, harder to do because it isn't a girl that is just reacting to the cataclysmic events around her. It's a girl who is deeply subject to the kind of harsh reality of the time. Does that make sense? So it's kind of like weird. And so I remember people being like, What is this? So Addy comes out in the fall of 1993, and I remember like sometimes on Black radio, I remember Addy being kind of like roasted a little bit like, What is this? And I remember conversations among people about whether or not they would get their daughter that kind of doll.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:32:02.24] So this is a debate that continues online and likely offline, but I have seen it online to this day. The question being really? The first historical Black doll that you release is an enslaved person.
Marcia Chatelain: [00:32:15.29] It's the kind of critique that sometimes emerges when a movie comes out. That focuses on the experience of slavery. And people say, well, I don't want another slave movie, meaning like, I don't want another representation of African-American history that's bound up into people being abused and exploited and having no power. I mean, I think there are many ways to look at that issue, but I think that a doll becomes a really potent place for people to kind of work out these issues around identity and their own comfort and proximity to history.
Justine Paradis: [00:32:50.55] So all of the characters that these dolls represent, Nick, they face adversity of some kind. They're supposed to be teaching us about the challenging beats of American history and how they molded young people, especially young girls. Molly's dad becomes a prisoner of war and she has to ration things. For example, Kirsten a pioneer. So that's just, you know, challenging. It's hard. Her best friend dies, her house burns down. You know, there's cholera, right? Yeah. Samantha, as previously mentioned, her parents are dead.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:33:20.47] An orphan was, maybe is, I would love to know, a perpetually compelling narrative.
Justine Paradis: [00:33:26.11] And then and then also, Samantha does meet girls who work in a factory and are exploited. And she gives a speech at one point about child labor. Felicity's growing up during the nation's treasonous break from England, so that's tense. But when you come to Addy again in her introductory book, the overseer of the tobacco plantation makes her eat a worm because she missed it, which is just a different emotional tenor than all of the other books and a power dynamic that we don't see in the rest. She has to endure things that none of the other dolls have to endure. So we witness her coming into enough self-awareness to realize she's an enslaved child. She's separated from her father and brother when they're sold, and then from her sister when she and her mother escaped the plantation, she's whipped. And so Marcia brought up this super reasonable question.
Marcia Chatelain: [00:34:13.39] How do you make a doll that's experiencing slavery? Like, that's just because if we understand the fundamentals of play as kind of fantasy and imagination, the harsh reality of slavery makes it just really strange, right? It feels incompatible. But I do think that there's something of value of saying, well, actually, you know, within the context of people being enslaved, they did have a space for joy. And there were ways that children crafted what we would call, you know, a childhood out of these circumstances. But that gets into like deep intellectual, existential stuff that is like not the point. But I do think that the I think the time that it emerges in the early 90s is when African-American history and African-American studies was also really emergent as something that was accessible and knowable to a larger public. So I think that, like, if the doll came out, you know, ten years later, I think people might have a more nuanced view of what the doll could do. But I think in the early 90s, it just wasn't very legible.
Justine Paradis: [00:35:22.00] Also, this is just interesting given the fact that the delay in releasing a Black doll was supposedly due to market considerations. You know, what was the marketing aim in releasing a doll who represents an enslaved character?
Marcia Chatelain: [00:35:34.45] So I think that from a market perspective, it may have been risky to start with the history of slavery. And at the same time, if we think about African-American girls living during periods of historical significance, I think that there will be a level of violence and a level of vulnerability regardless that I don't know if it necessarily, like, would make people feel that much better.
Justine Paradis: [00:36:02.02] Yeah. Even with Addie, most of her story takes place in Philadelphia, which is where she and her mother settle after they escape from North Carolina together. And she, of course, encounters racism there, too, just in daily life, like at the pharmacy. On the streetcars.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:36:17.68] Yeah, that's the the thing about Addie's books that I feel like we haven't really talked about yet, which is that, yes, she is born into enslavement. Yes. That is like a very important part of her story, of course. And here she is dealing with everything thereafter. You know, here she is in Philadelphia and still struggling with a whole other element of racism and subjugation. And she has a conversation with her mother where she says, you know, don't you hate white people, too, Mama? Like I hate white people. I think, you know.
Justine Paradis: [00:36:49.42] A question in a children's book.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:36:50.71] Exactly. And yeah.
Justine Paradis: [00:36:53.74] These themes of forgiveness, of of of resentment, of healing, of freedom. Like, it's complicated in these books.
Dramatic Music: [00:37:00.16] Yeah.
Marcia Chatelain: [00:37:00.40] But I do think that there is a sense that representations of slavery are about representations of a level of humiliation and debasement that I think is really hard, that's really hard for people, that's really hard to grapple with because. Culturally, our nation has done such a poor job in introducing people to the reality of slavery and its legacies that here you have this doll. It will be the object to project all sorts of complicated emotions.
Nick Capodice: [00:37:33.39] So what did Marcia say when you asked her about this? Did she think that American girl did a poor job with Addy? Like, it just doesn't work.
Marcia Chatelain: [00:37:41.16] I think about this as a historian and as a parent. I don't know what I think, right. Like, I think that I too struggle with this because I do think that the more ways that we have to teach young people about the history of slavery like the better. But I do think that, you know, there is a level of fantasy and play that is associated with dolls that I don't know if we have to rip away from kids. And there's something about slavery that is about a deprivation of human experience that I wonder how the doll can be a presentation, a representation of that history, and like, do you have to dial it? Like when playing with kids and this type adult, you then dial it back to say, Oh, but by the way, you know what I mean? Like she wouldn't have healthy teeth or she would have a nutritional deficiency, right? Like, and then you're like, Wow, Mom, you just ruined everything. So American Girl is is kind of challenging because it is trying to like do kind of serious history. But it's still a kid's toy.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:39:04.50] It is still a kid's toy. So how do you balance that serious history with a thing that you are trying to sell to children? And if you're going to call that thing American Girl, what are you saying about American ness and girlhood? We're going to try to answer all of that in part two of Civics 101 deep dive into American Girl dolls, which you can listen to right now.
Nick Capodice: [00:39:33.66] But before you go, we here at Civics 101 also teach American history, and we do it for free. And by the way, we do have merchandise right now, but it comes along with a different kind of business model. Right now, the first 250 people who make a gift to Civics 101 will receive our brand new and rather cheeky, if I do say so myself sticker. And you can check out the sticker and what it says at our website, civics101podcast.org. And we also have a hat. We have a Civics 101 baseball cap, America's favorite pastime. Anyone who gives at the $5 a month level or if you're sort of an all at once kind of person, $60. Basically, we're saying if you support our mission of education and even occasional entertainment, consider making that donation and getting some pretty nice Civics 101 swag at our website, civics101podcast.org. By the way, off script. Thank you. Really, Thank you. Thank you. It means the world to us. It's how we operate. All right.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:40:37.18] That does it for this episode of Civics 101. It was produced by me, Hannah McCarthy with help from Justine Paradise and Nick Capodice. Christina Phillips is our senior producer. Rebecca Lavoie is our executive producer. Music in this episode by Brandon Moeller. Roger Particle House, JF Gloss, Ryan James Carr, Peerless Carraby and Alleviate Ott. John Runefelt. Daniel Fridell Arc du Soleil, Marc Torch Meter era and Chris Zabriskie. You can get more info about this episode Transcripts, Lesson plans in every episode we have ever made at our website. Civics101podcast.org. Civics 101 is a production of NHPR, New Hampshire Public Radio.
American Girl Part 2
Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:08] You are listening to Civics 101. I'm Hannah McCarthy. I am here with my co-host, Nick Capodice and my dear, dear friend, Justine Paradis. Hello, Nick. Hello, Justine. Hello.
Justine Paradis: [00:00:18] Hi. Thanks for having me. Hello.
Nick Capodice: [00:00:20] Hello,
Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:21] Justine. For those of you who don't know is also a producer and so many other things in a podcast called Outside/In and we thank her very much for being here. [00:00:30] Both of you have started a journey with me and we are going to complete that journey in this part two of our, I suppose, rather unusual two part series here on Civics 101. Because we're talking about dolls.
Nick Capodice: [00:00:46] Yeah, I mean, I think I get it at this point, Anna, But yeah, you sure are.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:50] Specifically American Girl dolls, and you can get the full download of American Girls early history and I warmly recommend you do, because without it, this will not make a [00:01:00] lot of sense in part one of this two parter. But here in part two, we're going to ask some questions about what it actually means to craft the American girl narrative. What is an American girl and how does a company that makes toys also craft that narrative responsibly?
Emily Zaslow: [00:01:33] I have [00:01:30] had limited conversations with people inside the brand and have done a lot of research on the brand. So I can't say if everybody is aware of that social responsibility, but I can say that even from the very beginning, I think there's some really interesting historic conversations about the brands responsibility and that tension around profit.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:54] This is Emilie Zaslow, author of Playing with America's Doll A Cultural Analysis of [00:02:00] the American Girl Collection.
Emily Zaslow: [00:02:02] I was really interested then in the historical dolls and the stories that the brand was telling about American Girl. Because if you have a brand that claims to represent American Girl and to be American girl, right? That kind of leads one to ask two really important questions. How does the brand define American and how does the brand define girl? So I was interested in both of those things.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:02:27] So Emilie has researched The Pleasant Company and American [00:02:30] Girl heavily, and she encountered this one story in particular about this tension around profit. Right. And it comes back to Addy Walker once again.
Emily Zaslow: [00:02:41] They were coming up with the story for Addy, who's the girl who was enslaved, and she and her mother escaped. And there were a lot of conversations, you know, that I've been that I've learned about a lot of conversations [00:03:00] revolving how to tell this story and how to make sure that the doll was purchased. Right. And one of, you know, one of the things that Pleasant Rowland is known to have said is that the doll needs to be cute, right? Girls need to want to play with this doll, to hold this doll to love this doll. And if she's not cute, right, if she's looks as if she has just escaped [00:03:30] from slavery and she looks emaciated and she looks brutalized, little girls and their mothers are not going to want to buy her. Right. Which is there's a tension there. Right. You have to get her. And and not only are not going to want to buy her, but are not going to want to necessarily read the stories that this, you know, doll that's not attractive in theory because she's [00:04:00] ill and she's, you know, been well, she's not ill, but, you know, she's been brutalized, would look like.
Nick Capodice: [00:04:08] Addy, the doll is beautiful and smiling and shows no sign of nutritional deficiency or anything else that would result from an enslaved life.
Emily Zaslow: [00:04:16] You know, there were definitely people, you know, who left the company at that time or who two of the illustrators who were illustrating Addy resigned, they said, but not depict [00:04:30] her as, you know, the way that the pleasant Rowland wanted her depicted.
Justine Paradis: [00:04:35] Does Emilie have any idea as to why the Pleasant Company made the decision to make Addy their first Black doll, a character who's born into enslavement?
Emily Zaslow: [00:04:43] The lore is that pleasant Rowland wanted to create had always envisioned that she had to create and must create an African-American doll. If she was telling the story of the American girlhood experience and [00:05:00] she conferred with an advisory board, she had a she had an advisory board as well as her historians that were on staff. And the decision was made that in order to tell any story of African-American girlhood, this story of slavery must be told. First it had to be incorporated and not telling It would be sanitizing history. But then, of course, there were definitely [00:05:30] historians, parents, scholars who were very upset that that was the story that white is the first story have to be a story of enslavement.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:05:38] Pleasant determined that if her company was going to introduce a Black historical doll, that doll had to represent the most horrifying, most subjugating of historical treatment of Black people in the United States, or else they would be sanitizing history. That was her idea, right? Even though right before Addy came out in Felicity's book, enslaved men are called servants. [00:06:00]
Justine Paradis: [00:06:00] And then in the Addy books themselves, Addy's story is absolutely not sanitized.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:06:05] Right.
Emily Zaslow: [00:06:06] And then many parents are concerned about when they introduce Addy story to their children, because it is it does depict a horrible condition for Addy. It does depict the brutality of enslavement. And so there was a very mixed response to it when it came out in 1993. Yeah.
Nick Capodice: [00:06:28] Can I ask something real quick? [00:06:30]
Justine Paradis: [00:06:30] That's pretty much why you're here, Nick. Please.
Nick Capodice: [00:06:34] Okay. Emilie's describing a marketing decision to make Addy the doll appealing and cute and not really reflective of a brutal life. And then it sounds like she's describing another kind of decision. Like, I don't know if you'd call it a moral one or an educational one or whatever, but it's the decision to choose a brutal period of history and tell the truth about how a young Black girl is treated during [00:07:00] that period. Now, you both had some dolls. You both had some dolls and you both had the books. So were they like one in the same to you, like Hannah? Is Kirsten here when you play with her? Landlocked and speaking stilted English.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:07:15] So for me. No, no, not really. Actually. Like,
Nick Capodice: [00:07:22] She doesn't even have like a Swedish accent?
Justine Paradis: [00:07:24] Yeah. No, not for me either. They're totally separate.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:07:26] They're totally.
Justine Paradis: [00:07:27] The doll and the story.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:07:27] Separate like Kirsten was my. I [00:07:30] don't even. I didn't even necessarily, like, call her Kirsten. I might have given her another name in play. She would have played various people, you know, And we, like, lived in the woods together.
Nick Capodice: [00:07:40] But when you read the books, that was the story of her. It's the story of the Swedish immigrant. So the books and the doll were like.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:07:46] Kind of separate.
Justine Paradis: [00:07:46] That's that's funny psychologically. Wow. I want that to be a whole other. I want to explore that. Really. Yeah. So, no, they were the books and they were the dolls, and they were kind of separate.
Emily Zaslow: [00:07:58] There's a real divide between [00:08:00] what the stories teach and what the dolls teach, right? And they're all part of the brand. They definitely can be separated from one another and often are because children take out the books from the library, especially when the dolls being very expensive and inaccessible because the dolls cost $115. Not every child can afford to, you know or not, every parent can afford to buy a child. A child, the doll. So many children read the American Girl books who don't [00:08:30] have dolls. And likewise, there are many girls who play with American girl dolls who could care less about the stories that are attached to them.
Nick Capodice: [00:08:37] Okay, hold on. Again here, $115 for a doll in the 1980s.
Justine Paradis: [00:08:44] I know. But just to be fair, like, look at the dolls. Yeah.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:08:49] Okay. A few things here. The dolls in the 80s, they started at just under $70. But like a doll in the 80s for just under $70. By the time Justine and I were receiving them, they were [00:09:00] probably closer to about $100.
Justine Paradis: [00:09:01] They were expensive. Yeah. Yeah.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:09:03] And then there were the accessories. Oh, the accessories. Bedroom sets with real wooden, like Felicity had a four poster bed and a real metal bed warmer. And there were school desks.
Justine Paradis: [00:09:17] Steamer trunks, doll prams for your doll's doll. Washbasins.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:09:21] Yeah, I remember Molly's birthday party set was like, I would salivate over how just amazing it was.
Justine Paradis: [00:09:29] Yearning.
Justine Paradis: [00:09:29] The yearning Samantha's [00:09:30] wicker table and her chairs and her ice cream and petite fours.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:09:32] Oh, my God. Felicity had a horse.
Justine Paradis: [00:09:34] Oh, yeah.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:09:35] I wanted that horse so bad.
Justine Paradis: [00:09:37] And eventually they introduced modern accessories.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:09:40] Yeah, there was an apres ski set. I didn't know what apres meant, but the ski set came with a cast and crutches and leggings and a cute yellow parka. And then you could also get a real doll sized inflatable snow tube.
Nick Capodice: [00:09:55] My God.
Justine Paradis: [00:09:56] So basically, if you were investing in American Girl dolls and their [00:10:00] branded accessories, it could cost you literally thousands of dollars.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:10:04] Most girls I knew growing up made do with like off brand American girl size stuff or they made the doll clothes themselves. But then the girls who actually had like all of the good stuff, if a girl had Felicity's entire set like, the cultural capital.
Justine Paradis: [00:10:22] Yeah. You want to go to their house.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:10:24] You want to go to their house, they have everything.
Nick Capodice: [00:10:25] So this seems to me to have absolutely nothing [00:10:30] whatsoever to do with history. Like, so I don't mean to sound so mad, but even if all these objects are in the books, you're really just talking about pretty stuff for pretty dolls.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:10:44] Admittedly super high quality, like wooden stuff, but yeah, pretty stuff for pretty dolls. These were not objects for everybody.
Nick Capodice: [00:10:53] So it's an educational toy by telling stories from American history, but also if you want to play [00:11:00] with the toy part of it, that's going to cost you. .
Justine Paradis: [00:11:03] I'm just reflecting that. I had I got all the books from the library, but I got the dolls, you know, they bought the dolls. It's interesting. We do have to say, though, Mattel bought the Pleasant Company in 1998 for $800 million. And now American Girl looks so different. And that's a whole other thing, like there is a giant, nearly $600 doll house. There's Harry Potter branded stuff for the dolls. There's a Disney princess [00:11:30] collection. It is a far cry from the company of the past in many ways. But the American Girl brand has always been just that, a brand and a brand that was and is very costly.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:11:45] Absolutely true. And a big part of that calculation of cost is the work that actually goes into each and every one of these historical dolls. So I spoke to someone who knows what's what when it comes to developing an American [00:12:00] girl and her story. We've got that after the break.
Nick Capodice: [00:12:05] But before the break, Civics 101 is a listener supported show. And a couple of times a year, Hanna and I come on and ask you to support the show with a donation. And sometimes we have something to give in return. And right now we have possibly the single best gift we've ever had on our show, the Civics 101 Baseball hat. If you give as a sustainer at the $5 a month level, you too can have [00:12:30] this beautiful Black Civics 101 cap at your disposal regardless of how much you give to our show, please know that it means the absolute world to all of us here. All right. Thanks.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:12:57] We're back.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:12:58] We're talking American girl dolls [00:13:00] here on Civics 101. And what actually goes into these things that somehow feel more like the sum of their parts to the likes of people like me and Justine Paradis. And there is one thing, Justine, if I may. I feel like this is what you and I were wrestling with, that this company does retain. It's something that has been there since the very beginning. It's the reason why we're bothering to talk about toys on an episode of Civics 101, and that is the educational part, the historical part of this company. When American [00:13:30] Girl makes a doll set in an era of American history, the truth is and has always been, they do it with some serious academic, historical, intellectual rigor. So we've been talking a lot about Addy and Justine and I actually spoke to someone who helped Addy come to life. This is Spencer Crew.
Spencer Crew: [00:13:51] Hi my name is Spencer Crew. I am a I work at George Mason University. I'm the Clarence J. Robinson professor of history there.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:13:59] He teaches [00:14:00] family history, and the study thereof, abolition and the Underground Railroad. And he teaches museums. He also worked at the Smithsonian American History Museum for 20 years. And he was a member of the advisory board who contributed to the creation of Addy back in the early 90s.
Spencer Crew: [00:14:17] What I found most interesting is we learned is that the Addy doll wasn't just bought by African-American girls. There were a wide variety of girls who were captivated by her and bought her as well, which is good. And I think [00:14:30] it was a reinforcement of the idea that these vowels can be used by a wide variety of people and probably was what encouraged pleasant others to to the other dolls and probably other ethnicities as well, other ethnicities.
Justine Paradis: [00:14:46] Josefina Montoya, she came out in 1997. She's a Mexican girl, although she came from Spain, her family living near Santa Fe. Shortly after Mexico gained independence from Spain, Kaia, a Nez Perce girl living in what would become the state of Oregon. [00:15:00] But before permanent settlement.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:15:02] But, you know, we have to also say there were a lot of white dolls still, you know, like mostly white dolls, blond, white dolls. Actually, I don't know if they're the majority, but there are a lot of blond white dolls. But every doll does have an advisory board, every character. And Spencer was approached when the company was thinking about Addy.
Spencer Crew: [00:15:23] We were approached by the then owner of the American Doll Pleasant Rowland, who was a wonderful woman and a very persuasive woman. [00:15:30] And I think her passion and her belief in doing things in an accurate, appropriate way also drew me into it because it was clear she really wanted to make sure this was done right.
Nick Capodice: [00:15:41] So it sounds like Spencer was on board with the way the company was approaching the development of Addy.
Spencer Crew: [00:15:46] Yes, I think that we wouldn't have stayed had we not believed that she was committed, but also was going to listen to what we had to say. And that came across very clearly. I mean, what she really brought very strongly was her sense of how to create a product [00:16:00] that was appropriate, authentic, but also would be salable that people would want to buy because there's no point creating something that no one buys. And she had a nice combination of those pieces of knowledge that I think made all of us to a comfortable and excited about what we were doing.
Justine Paradis: [00:16:17] This is a point that I feel like everyone we spoke to echoed in one way or another. There's this strange dichotomy that that the Addy doll doesn't look like she's been through something horrible. But then there's this aspect that Spencer's talking about is that if you want people to engage with [00:16:30] what's ultimately a product, even if it's a historical educational product, you want people to want it.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:16:36] Yeah, which is something actually that Spencer is super familiar with after a long career in museums. I thought that was so interesting that, you know, he is teaching history through storytelling and he understands that when you're doing that through a museum. Nick, This is something you're familiar with. There is a degree to which you have to draw people in, right? Like you want things to like, latch on to them. And Spencer talked a lot about striking the balance between [00:17:00] historical truth and the story and product that keeps people engaged.
Spencer Crew: [00:17:05] We had a chance to offer commentary on the book that was part of the work. It wasn't just a doll, it was also the storyline. That was the balance to make sure you didn't sugarcoat their experiences. But you also presented a way that was accessible and that people would engage with it. It's the sort of, say, a similar kind of issue you have in museums when you're doing these kinds of stories that [00:17:30] you need to find a balance so that you can present the reality of it, but in a way that people will engage with it. Because if they don't read it, if they don't engage with it, you've not accomplished anything. So that's what we were looking for. Is that balancing point where you have the real story, but also a way that people are drawn to it and then empathize with it. We had a long conversation about her hair and what her hair would look like and how it would feel. And that was really important that it not be just a doll that has, [00:18:00] you know, the regular straight hair. But this is the girl who has curly hair. So we really wanted to make sure that that was right. And I think the other part of it was, as you said earlier, Hannah, that we wanted to make sure that we conveyed a difficulties that her family faced as enslaved people. But the other part of it was not to show them just as victims, to show them as individuals who were worth empathy, but also who desired to be free, who didn't enjoy being enslaved. And the fact we had her is escaping and the family escaping [00:18:30] sort of helped to underline that you want them to have a sense of this, the history and the reality of it.
Justine Paradis: [00:18:35] I really got the sense from Spencer that this balance was about highlighting the fact that, yeah, Addy is born into enslavement and that's essential to her story. That's going to shape her for her whole life. But also she's independent, she's smart. She was an active leader in the life she and her mother created in Philadelphia. She's just a, you know, a little girl. Like she has friends. She has, you know, little competitions and jealousies with people that have nothing [00:19:00] to do with her race at all. You know, it's just being a kid. I think there's also this theme that happens throughout her story, and that is one of self-determination. I think about this one moment later in her series where, you know, they're talking about like all the girls have a birthday book. And so when Addy's birthday book, it's when is your birthday? Enslaved people often did not know. We learned in these books because this is another form of dehumanization. But Addy's encouraged, I think, by an older woman in the book to [00:19:30] pick her own birthday, like Pick your own, and she picks April 9th, which is the end of the Civil War. So self-determination.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:19:37] Yeah. You know, I, of course, reached out to the American girl reps at Mattel for this episode and they were not able to give an interview, but they did provide a statement and I didn't feel like that statement would have made a lot of sense at the top of the episode before we talked a lot about this, but I feel like it might now because it does get at this. They said, I'm not going to read the whole thing, [00:20:00] but I'm going to I'm going to share with you some chunks of it because it is sort of reflective of this. They say "American Girl has always focused on helping girls grow up with the courage, confidence and strength of character. As a brand rooted in story for nearly four decades, each of our heroines has helped to create a sense of connection and community among our fans." Interesting that they use the term heroines. You know, you don't often, I think necessarily hear that.
Justine Paradis: [00:20:24] And fans.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:20:25] Yeah and fans. Yeah, I know. And then they say, you know, American Girl has shown unwavering [00:20:30] commitment to thoughtfully researching and creating historically accurate and culturally authentic stories and products. And, you know, they say "from nearly 20 different historical characters for more than 15 eras representing a range of cultures, races and ethnicities." And then the last part, they say, is, you know, "whether we're developing a modern day or historical character, our goal is to provide engaging, culturally relevant stories and authentically detailed dolls and accessories that spark imaginations and help girls become the strong, compassionate [00:21:00] and resilient women of tomorrow." I feel like no matter what we are talking about a moneymaking brand within a huge toy corporation. Just to be clear, in case it wasn't obvious, we know we're talking about a premium commodity, the price point of which makes it prohibitive to many, many kids out there. And the company does not say our goal is to make a product that anybody and everybody can have. So let me bring in Molly [00:21:30] Rosner again for just a moment here. This is Molly Rosner. You met her in our first episode.
Molly Rosner: [00:21:35] The American Girl company has managed to walk this incredibly fine line between consumer brand and nonprofit educational entity. And in that way, it kind of evades scrutiny on both ends. American Girl literally creates curricula for schools. But if you look at that [00:22:00] curricula, sure, there's there's lessons about historical periods, about food rationing or about labor practices in the past. You can't argue with that. But if you really read the lessons they reference, the books, they reference the merchandise, and you have a better understanding and access to that history. If you're familiar with the the dolls themselves and the brand. So while under the guise of inclusivity, they're really still bringing in new consumers or [00:22:30] making people who cannot be the consumer feel less connected to that history. There are places that are educational and profit. It doesn't mean they're not necessarily mutually exclusive, but this is like a very special case of, well, I would say in the past it was very much I'm not trying to get every consumer, I'm not trying to have every girl in the United States have [00:23:00] one of these dolls. But I want every girl in the United States to want one of these dolls. And parents might feel justified to pay for that price tag because of that educational idea.
Nick Capodice: [00:23:12] Honestly, see, I hear that and I feel a little queasy. Commodifying education or leveraging the education part of something to make the commodity itself shine that just feels not good or not as good as I want an educational thing to feel, I guess.
Justine Paradis: [00:23:29] Coming [00:23:30] from a public education dream.
Nick Capodice: [00:23:32] Yeah.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:23:34] Well, you know, like, Welcome to America, though, right? This is a place where education is ostensibly for all we've got the whole public school system, but also education is very expensive.
Nick Capodice: [00:23:45] Yeah.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:23:45] And then Nick.
Nick Capodice: [00:23:46] Yeah.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:23:46] We regularly tell people what we do here at Civics 101 is free.
Nick Capodice: [00:23:52] Isn't that bonkers?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:23:53] You heard it right, folks. Free. And Molly talked a little bit more about this, that, [00:24:00] you know something making money does not simultaneously make it something we must write off.
Justine Paradis: [00:24:06] Like, does education need to look a specific way? Like just because it it's getting sold, does it?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:24:13] Yeah, it's a good question. Yeah.
Molly Rosner: [00:24:17] Yeah. I just think that it's it's not so cut and dry. So black and white. That American girl or consumerism when it comes to history is all bad or all good. There is lessons to take from it. And then [00:24:30] there's a kind of lesson to take from how you interact with these stories. So so it can become really dangerous when we think about censoring or banning things for children, because we assume as adults that we know better and we assume there's some insidious idea behind something that may just be foreign to us. So I think we keep our eyes open and be critical consumers, but it doesn't mean that we write off something altogether [00:25:00] as valueless because it makes a profit. And at the same time, we don't consume blindly because we're nostalgically attached to the idea of something. So that's really that's kind of where I've landed in terms of reconciling the joys and the beauty and the romance of imaginary play for children when it comes into the stark reality of history and how complicated those lessons can be. So tackling that is worthwhile and if [00:25:30] anything, I wish more companies or American Girl would try even harder to to have maybe multiple perspectives on one historical era. I think that would be a really cool step or direction to go in.
Justine Paradis: [00:25:45] In terms of actually tackling that history. Did you know that the Addy character the doll was actually the first one to have an advisory committee like of outside historians and consultants? So like.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:25:56] Kirsten Molly Samantha?
Justine Paradis: [00:25:59] Apparently [00:26:00] not, no.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:26:02] Felicity. No advisory committee?
Justine Paradis: [00:26:04] That is apparently not. I mean, apparently this is according to the American girl wiki. So interesting. We'd love to have another source, but like the company realized or knew that, okay, if we're going to make this doll, we have to do it really thoughtfully. So with historians who actually know what they're doing and talking about.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:26:23] And the doll development question is really interesting because, you know, for all of her questions about how the brand is doing [00:26:30] their work and what that actually means, Marcia Chatelain, you met her in part one of this series, was also on an advisory committee for an American Girl character. Really?
Marcia Chatelain: [00:26:41] Yeah, American Girl. You know, I've been a little critical of some of the narrative stuff they've done, but I kind of like it as an introduction into history. I think that the culture wars about, you know, history and all of these right wing attempts to try to undermine the study of actual fact [00:27:00] has made me realize the importance of historians to actually try to say like, how are we going to meet the public halfway to understand what history is so that they can really resist these forces that politicize historical facts.
Justine Paradis: [00:27:15] Yeah. Marcia worked on Claudie Wells, who is a girl growing up in New York City during the Harlem Renaissance.
Marcia Chatelain: [00:27:20] So I was approached to be part of the group that commented on Claudie, and it was everyone I liked in the field, you know, incredible people like Spencer Crew [00:27:30] and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham. I mean, just like outstanding historian Shannon King, Keisha Blain, among others. And so I yeah, I said sure.
Nick Capodice: [00:27:41] So Spencer's worked on two dolls.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:27:44] Yeah. And the books. By the way, Claudie's books were written by Brit Bennett. I know you know who Brit Bennett is. Just Nick. Do you know who Brit Bennett is?
Nick Capodice: [00:27:52] I don't.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:27:53] Have you seen the book The Vanishing Half on, like, the bestseller table of every bookstore in America?
Nick Capodice: [00:27:57] Yes, I have.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:27:58] That's Brit Bennett. Oh, wow. Wildly [00:28:00] popular author who happened to tweet that she wanted to write an American Girl doll book. And.
Justine Paradis: [00:28:05] I should do that.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:28:06] Yeah, right. We should all do that. An American. Well, Mattel reached out to her and they said like, yes, yes, yes, absolutely.
Justine Paradis: [00:28:12] Yeah. They probably wouldn't respond in the same way to me.
Marcia Chatelain: [00:28:14] Yeah, I really love that Brit Bennett had an American Girl doll. She's this incredible fiction writer and this is kind of where she wanted to do her craft. I mean, I think that there's something so important about people who are at the top of their game [00:28:30] engaging with children, engaging with the general public of showing kind of the ways that it's not always about doing things that are considered prestigious. It's about doing things that are accessible. And so I loved I loved that, and I loved that they were going to do this Harlem Renaissance story and the creative work behind creating Claudie's world was just really beautiful. I mean, it was so beautifully designed. And I think the depth of her story [00:29:00] with her dad being a World War One veteran, her mother, you know, working for a Black newspaper as an investigative journalism journalist, the fact that they are living in this multiethnic, multicultural, Black world of Harlem, there is something about the elements of the story that I really trusted. And I loved being able to say like, this is a great story. This wouldn't have happened back then. These are some ways you can tweak it. So we are always looking for the historical anachronisms. [00:29:30]
Hannah McCarthy: [00:29:31] What I was honestly pleasantly surprised to learn and I say pleasantly surprised because obviously this brand is a part of my childhood and like means something to me and I'm still thinking about it, is that the development of these characters and these dolls, it actually takes years and lots and lots of conversation and viewpoints and expertise and do this, don't do that. That wouldn't be historically accurate. Here's what the experience would actually be like, etcetera. Here's Spencer again.
Spencer Crew: [00:29:59] I think we [00:30:00] did a lot of learning from each other in terms of the specifics that one might know. One of the historians was a deep, deep historian of knowledge of Harlem, so he could really make sure that happened. One was a very good historian of African-American girls and of religion. So we all have these areas of expertise that we could contribute. And at least I knew several of them. So they were friends and colleagues. So it was good to be in conversation with them. And I [00:30:30] think what we try to do is have a healthy respect for each other's perspective and point of view and to realize that all that's important for the overall story and presentation of of Claudie, but also of the family and the background of his storyline.
Justine Paradis: [00:30:48] The other element of the American Girl doll books that I feel like we need to get into, like something that I think is really powerful for girls, for me and for you too. Hannah, I think, is that all of these girls are really proactive in their worlds. They're [00:31:00] this element of like, I'm a I'm a girl who, like, doesn't quite fit the mold of what you expect or I'm breaking the rules or in some way, they're living during these often tense, really touchstone eras of American history. And they're not just witnesses, they're participants, and they're often really active and running around and asking questions. And for what it's worth doing their part.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:31:20] Yeah, I think for all of the absolutely important questions I think you should ask about this brand and the acknowledgment that this is not a perfect brand. It's a brand. It's making money. [00:31:30] Good luck finding perfection there.
Justine Paradis: [00:31:32] But also, like any historian who's doing interpretation of history is also a person who is making an interpretation. So whether or not it's a brand, it's also making a statement about like, this is how we see history.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:31:43] Yeah, no, exactly. But I can I can agree with you, Justine, and honestly say that the books and the history, they stuck in my mind in part because these girls were often getting into like a little bit of trouble, like climbing a tree when they shouldn't have been, or stealing a horse when they shouldn't have been or, you know, like leaving the house. Like they weren't just [00:32:00] kids, I guess. Which, you know, when you are a kid, you don't think to yourself, I'm just a kid. Like life is very serious. Yeah, there are a lot of things to think about. The weight of the world is on your shoulders as far as you're concerned.
Justine Paradis: [00:32:12] But. But also, it's not like I feel like the Magic Tree House Books did this. This other series where it goes back and it's like the reason that this series of events in history happened this way is because of what this girl did or what this this kid did. And it wasn't that. It was just like, this is the emotional [00:32:30] journey that you would be going through in that time. You know what I mean? It wasn't sort of magical in that sense. It was very real.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:32:36] It was very yeah. I mean, it was just sort of like practical and real.
Spencer Crew: [00:32:39] Well, I guess with the Claudie doll, what struck me was important to think about what this sense of family and how family is more than just your mother and father. Family can be a wider circle of individuals and that that means that people can work, can [00:33:00] and should work together collaboratively, try to help each other through challenges and through other kind of issues. I think as the civic lesson, that's a really important one, that we all have some of these responsibilities towards others to help ensure that they are safe and that they can navigate and get through moments of trouble and not to step away and say it's not my concern.
Justine Paradis: [00:33:24] In terms of what is a concern for a kid, especially a girl kid for whom these dolls were and [00:33:30] are definitely designed. I think there's also an element of pushing maybe a different kind of girl, dumb, probably a pretty safe feminism, but a feminism nevertheless.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:33:40] Yeah. I mean, American Girl is is certainly crafting. Yes. A safe version of feminism. A lot of the people we spoke to, Justine, would have called it safe. But yeah, Emilie Zaslow has thought about this, the feminism part kind of a lot.
Emily Zaslow: [00:34:00] In [00:34:00] terms of what they teach girls about feminism and about femininity and about American girlhood. And there are two different things, right from the books. I think one of the things from the historical collections specifically, there's an element of social change that runs throughout all of the stories that girls do not have to be stuck in the. [00:34:30] Gender gendered roles that their mothers were in. So in many of the stories, we see girls kind of struggling with their mothers and mothers who have much more traditional normative ideas about what girlhood looks like. And then girls kind of challenging their mothers and society. You know, their mothers serve as a representation of society. Also, girls using their voices [00:35:00] for social change is very is a through line. And in many of these stories, in the more contemporary stories, you see girls using their voices sometimes for more localized like interpersonal change. But nonetheless, it's change that girls voices are very important and that they should, you know, challenge themselves to speak up when they see something that is wrong in society or wrong in their [00:35:30] local communities.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:35:32] Okay. One last question I want to get to here, because after all of these interviews and all of this research, I was still asking, is American girl good, though? Like, is it teaching good lessons? Is it okay that it is both expensive and sometimes inaccessible and staking its claim and its interpretation of history, and also that it's educational and maybe [00:36:00] even inspirational, depending on what kind of kid you are. Can you both have super pricey dolls and zillions of accessories and also be a meaningfully contributing educational company that gives kids accessible history lessons? Here's what Emilie had to say.
Emily Zaslow: [00:36:16] You know, when I started talking to people about my research, the first question people would ask me is like, So is American Girl a good brand or is it bad? Should I buy American Girl for my generally daughter or should I not? And [00:36:30] I kind of began my research with a rejection of that question. I think that, you know, looking at it as a binary is problematic because it's neither. I look at American Girl as both commodities that are sold in the capitalist consumer marketplace and therefore have an intention of profit and also at the same time as intentionally feminist and supporting social change. And so it happens on multiple [00:37:00] levels. One of the most significant is that many of the writers for the American Girl Historical series, which is really the focus of my research, is the historical piece are established writers who are, you know, under contract by the brand for a particular story, but they don't work directly for the brand.
Justine Paradis: [00:37:20] Okay, This is an interesting piece that was totally unknown to me before we started working on this. Hanna That the that the people they call on to inform the brand are not people of the American Girl company [00:37:30] or I guess even in the case of Mattel at this point, like they are independent academics and historians and authors. And you can still compare that whole project to other kids dolls and say, Yeah, American Girl was different. It is different even as the brand has changed.
Emily Zaslow: [00:37:45] I also think that there are very few brands that are doing what you know still to this day, especially mass market brands that are doing what American Girl does in terms of their focus on [00:38:00] history in the historical line. They are still making dolls that are historical, that they are still hiring. I mean, what other mass market brand would hire Brit Bennett to write a children's story? Like, they're still hiring. Really? I think fabulous writers to to create stories. And even the the writers who have been working for the brand for quite a while. I mean, one of the complaints about Barbie, right, [00:38:30] And aside from the Dreamhouse and the consumption aspect, the complaints about Barbie are, you know, that she's a little bit I mean, even though she's been able to be many different you know, she's been able to have many different careers, including being president, is that doesn't have there's no backstory, right? Which is okay, because girls can create their own backstory. But there's an emptiness, I think, to Barbie. And I don't think that that's true of The [00:39:00] American Girl historical line and the fact that they still hire historians to do the research. They still hire advisory boards to advise the historians on the research. They still think that with with the historical line, they're doing something that's relatively unique. And and dare I say, although I said I don't think good or bad, but I think it is a good product. The historical products and I'll add, you know, also when in [00:39:30] this. Issue of bifurcation and why I say it's, you know, that we should not totally dismiss American Girl is there's also, um, anecdotally there are many women who are interested in history who are history teachers, who are historians by, you know, and scholars who became interested in history through American Girl. And I think [00:40:00] that that's also a really like that's some research that's starting to be done is this kind of interest in in history through American girl and I don't think that's going to end. I think that that's continuing.
Nick Capodice: [00:40:13] Can I just ask, would either of you say that that's true of you? You're two of the most historically engaged people I've ever met. And would you say part of that is due to your love of the American girl dolls?
Justine Paradis: [00:40:28] Yeah I think so. Probably not [00:40:30] the again, the dolls and the stories are different. I engage with them completely differently. Got the books from the library. Got the dolls. You know, the dolls weren't really even Felicity. A little bit, but could be anybody but that American girl. Like I think Marcia at one point said they took me seriously. And it's not something that like, I would have consciously thought, but it was it was so good. And even all of the things around it, like [00:41:00] the American Girl magazine, which was for Modern girls, the one about the care and keeping of You, which teaches you about your body. It teaches which a lot of people have this story of their mom, just like leaving it on their bed. And, you know, it teaches you how to put in a tampon and stuff, which when you're young can feel really intimidating. Like really scary, really scary. Some people have different experiences. It was intimidating to me. But there are a couple of other books like this, like the Dear America series, The Diaries. [00:41:30] There are these fictional diaries of girls, you know, like crossing the Plains or whatever, But I would say, yeah, like it. What do you think, Hannah?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:41:39] Yeah, I mean, I think it's. I was probably a little bit destined to be interested in history.
Justine Paradis: [00:41:47] That's probably true, too, for me.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:41:48] Yeah, but it's really not lost on me that my favorite toys were somehow taking my interest in the world seriously. Like, like Marcia said, like you said, Justine, I was the kind of kid who not only [00:42:00] did not like pink and frills, but, like, was proud of that, right?
Justine Paradis: [00:42:05] Like, I'm not like other girls, which is its own problematic story.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:42:08] Its own problem, and like to reveal the depth of my snobbery, I would deem things frivolous. Right? Like I don't engage with that, which is also obviously nonsense because I had the Samantha doll that was my first doll. Like, there's frivolity there. That's complicated. But my point is that American girl meant to me, and this is obviously in retrospect, but I think this is true, [00:42:30] both amazing toys, incredible toys that felt like they were substantial and also learning. I was learning about times when life was hard for girls and they made it work. And then I was learning actual facts about American history. And I got to bring this back to Marcia Justine because having that conversation with her about that aspect just made me feel like, Oh, yeah, you're you're on our level.
Justine Paradis: [00:42:56] She's on the level.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:42:56] Yeah.
Marcia Chatelain: [00:42:57] I think the original American Girl dolls [00:43:00] were for like, super nerdy girls like me. I do think that there was a level of seriousness in the American girl world that was not necessarily appealing to every girl, but to the girls that it appealed to. You felt very seen.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:43:19] So, yeah, I don't know. I mean, feeling seen by an educational toy company. Uh, maybe that's something.
Justine Paradis: [00:43:29] You don't know what it [00:43:30] would have been like without it, you know?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:43:31] Yes. Yeah.
Justine Paradis: [00:43:33] And I, like, think about the Cabbage Patch or Barbie. Um, I never wanted to play Mom. Like, I was like, I guess it's hard to imagine not having had that. And I feel really sad thinking about what if. What if you didn't? I don't know. Probably as messed up as the world is like, [00:44:00] there's in some ways it's like the best time to have grown up in the history of the Western world to be a woman. Like, just to have multiple ways of being presented to you. We talked a lot about the tomboy element, but I think that they were different enough. Like it's not just the counterpart. They're like, Oh, she's the she's the dirty tomboy one. She's not like other girls. It's like they are they contain multitudes. All of these characters, [00:44:30] they were real people. It felt like.
Nick Capodice: [00:44:33] That's interesting to me is that I'm like, just hearing these stories from both of you. I'm really grateful these books were written, and I can't help but wonder.
Justine Paradis: [00:44:41] I couldn't help but wonder.
Nick Capodice: [00:44:42] Couldn't help but wonder. See I can't even get that quote right. Would would you two have had such engagement with the books had the dolls not existed? And would Greater America have just read these books and loved them if it weren't for this beautiful toy that came with [00:45:00] it? It feels like. It feels like the toys, almost like an invitation into the book.
Justine Paradis: [00:45:05] It's really a lot of world building that they did, which I think is really cool. You know, I mean, I feel like it's in the tradition of of people who have taken women seriously over the years, like Nora Ephron or like Jane Austen or, you know, like people over over the ages. And I recently heard something about like rom coms were one of the first places where women were actual characters and not just a foil [00:45:30] for other people. And it feels like this is like it's not a rom com, but like, this is in that tradition of like, let's let's write a real person here. Jane Austen did it too. There have to be indebted to all these people.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:45:45] I always think about kids set in American history stories and what I actually engaged in outside of American Girl. And I think there was often throughout a lot of my consumption of like kids in history, just my eyes like turning to stars [00:46:00] when I actually encountered girl characters because come on, right.
Nick Capodice: [00:46:03] This is why my sister had all these books that were called like Sarah or Elizabeth, and there was a woman on the cover, and I never knew what they were about. And I was like, Oh, how's Beatrice going?
Justine Paradis: [00:46:14] Shut up.
Nick Capodice: [00:46:16] Yeah, that's my childhood here.
Nick Capodice: [00:46:19] I used to play with Kewpie dolls.
Justine Paradis: [00:46:22] Kewpie like the mayonnaise.
Nick Capodice: [00:46:24] Mayonnaise. He was named after the doll. Yeah.
Justine Paradis: [00:46:26] What? Yeah.
Nick Capodice: [00:46:26] We both know that.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:46:29] All right. [00:46:30]
Justine Paradis: [00:46:31] But not me.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:46:33] There are probably thousands of things we could say about American Girl. What it is, what it does, what it meant, what it means, what it looks like now. And so this was an episode about this brand that is also a learning tool and how it is both complicated and worth taking seriously. But there is other stuff. There's fun stuff and there's American Girl today and there I've got more accessories in this backpack here, if you want [00:47:00] to hear about that, We got you covered. We are going to release a bonus episode. In addition to this episode. You can look for that on our feed. That [00:47:30] does it for this episode of Civics 101. It was produced by me, Hannah McCarthy with help from Justine Paradis and Nick Capodice. Christina Phillips is our senior producer. Rebecca Lavoi is our executive producer. Music in this episode by Brandon Moeller. Rodger Particle House, Jeff Gloss, Ryan, James Carr, Peerless Carraby and Olivier Ott, John Rosenfeld, Daniel Friedel, Arc du Soleil, Marc Torch Meter era [00:48:00] and Chris Zabriskie. You can get more info about this episode. Transcripts, Lesson plans in every episode we have ever made at our website. Civics101podcast.org. Civics 101 is a production of NHPR, New Hampshire Public Radio.