If ever we declared a national doll, the honor would certainly go Barbie who has a longevity spanning more than half of a century. A close second, however, would be the American Girl. While fad-ish dolls have come and gone, the American Girl collection of dolls and books will be celebrating its thirtieth birthday in 2016. Since its inception, American Girl has sold over 147 million books and over 25 million American Girl dolls. According to Mattel, which purchased American Girl from the independent Pleasant Company in 1998, American Girl catalogue is the largest consumer toy catalogue.
Due to the diversity in representations of girlhood in the American Girl historical collection, there is much to be explored about the discourses of nationalism, especially as they intersect with race, ethnicity, and social class.
Exploring the fourteen American Girl narratives of the company’s historical BeForever collection, this paper will ask how the American Girl narratives represent American identity and communicate to girls what it means to be an American. Including depictions of girl characters who are coming of age in war and post-war America, as well as characters who come to the United States as immigrants, the Native American character, and the girl who is newly emancipated from slavery, this paper will explore the ways in which American Girl works to create ideal consumer-citizens, perpetuating the myth of the American Dream, highlighting hard-work and self-sufficiency as paths to success. This paper also explores the collection’s discourses of social change and their role in the shaping of girl reader’s perceptions of American identity.
About the presenterEmilie Zaslow
Dr. Emilie Zaslow is an Associate Professor in Communication Studies at Pace University.