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For 40 years, American Girl has captured girlhood through detailed, historical characters. Founder Pleasant Rowland envisioned books and dolls that blend history and play to help girls find their voices. In this episode of Behind the Seams, Dr. Kat Cartright explains the brand's meticulous research and design process. By using clothing archives and advisory boards, the team ensures historical accuracy for every character, from Addy Walker to Josefina Montoya. As Cartright notes, "we take our girl readers seriously."
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00:00It's not just a doll, it's a character. It is a character with personality, it's a
00:04character with friends and with family and when you read her books you're
00:08literally walking down the streets with her and I think that's what really makes
00:12everyone fall in love with their dolls because they are characters. We're gonna
00:18start with our founder, Pleasant Rowland, a teacher and textbook author and it was
00:23on a trip to Colonial Williamsburg that she really got the idea for American
00:27Girl. So walking around the streets there she started to ask herself how do we
00:31take really big historical topics and kind of put them down to a girl-sized
00:36audience. From there she wrote this postcard to Valerie Tripp, her good friend
00:42and a fellow author and she would go on to write so many books for American Girl.
00:48You can see that she refers to a series of books for girls about girls and so that
00:55kind of seed of an idea would become what today is American Girl. For both of
01:00them education was kind of the primary goal. It really kind of sprouts from the
01:05stories and then the product is something that kind of reinforces the
01:08story and helps it bring to life through play. So the books in particular they
01:13would teach historical facts and also lifelong lessons like compassion and
01:18empathy because they would introduce young girls to different viewpoints, to
01:23different cultures and different time periods. Now we span from 1764 with Kaya all
01:29the way to 2026 this year with our Girl of the Year Raquel. Our dolls themselves are
01:3418-inch dolls and they do have a soft body. All of their hair is wigged hair. It's very
01:39stylable. We could do highlights, their eyes open and close. They also have the
01:44iconic teeth because it really is part of the brand look. And then all of their
01:48clothes, they're made with real fabrics, they have embroidery, they have just all
01:53kinds of details that really make them really special. Each character's process
01:57starts with an immense amount of research. Our research materials include
02:02things like catalogs, magazines, textiles, clothing. We work in partnership with a lot
02:09of museums and archival collections around the whole country and even Europe and
02:14Mexico in order to bring the first six historical characters to life. And here
02:18we have Kirsten Larson. She's set in 1854 and her family immigrates from Sweden to
02:23Minnesota. And in order to bring her stories to life, we worked closely with the
02:27Wisconsin and Minnesota Historical Societies and particularly the everyday
02:32objects that are in their collections. So for example, I pulled this photograph
02:37here of a dress from the Wisconsin Historical Society and it's from around the
02:421850s and the dress's hem is flipped up so that you can see a gros stripe around
02:47the bottom. And a gros stripe was common at the time so that the dress could be let
02:52down as the girl grew taller. And so Kirsten's meat dress actually includes a
02:57gros stripe in it as a detail of historical accuracy. I've also pulled this sweater
03:03and this hat and mittens because these designs here are actually done by an
03:08American Girl staff member's mother. Originally, Kirsten was imagined as Rebecca from Norway and
03:16she switched to Kirsten from Sweden through the research process of learning more about
03:21immigration patterns to the Midwest. The team ultimately decided to make Rebecca from Norway,
03:27Kirsten from Sweden in order to kind of reflect the historical record more accurately and most
03:33importantly, not really, but they wanted to include the cute sweater. For Kirsten in particular,
03:39American Girl was founded in Madison, Wisconsin which is home to the Wisconsin Historical Society
03:44and they particularly have a children's clothing collection and so the researchers really did a
03:49lot using their textiles. And so from there we kind of identify a lot of different fabrics that
03:54could be possible and then we kind of create inspiration pieces and reproductions in order to get
04:00the look of the line just right. The historical research really informs down to every single
04:05detail of her outfit. So for example, you have a spoon bag here and this would have been common
04:11in Kirsten's time because families would have had just enough utensils for their own families. So for
04:17any sort of gathering, Kirsten would have brought her own spoon. And then her amber heart necklace is
04:22particularly important for her books because in the books this necklace is a gift from her grandmother in
04:28Sweden. We really don't shy away from the historical truth and the historical record because we really
04:34take our girls seriously as readers. And so in Kirsten's books, for example, Kirsten's best friend
04:39Marta passes away. And so the story starts with Kirsten and Marta on this journey together to the new
04:46lands, but she then passes away and it's a very kind of sad moment. But again, we take our girl
04:53readers
04:54seriously and that's something that happened in the past so we're not afraid to talk about it.
04:58This is Samantha Parkington. She's set in 1904 New York. To bring Samantha to life, another type of
05:05source that we often use in addition to textiles and everyday objects is catalogs and magazines. We
05:12use catalogs in order to look at things like silhouettes and design details, but also things like price
05:18because knowing the price of an item allows us to determine if based on our character's
05:23socioeconomic class or their location or their background, if she would have had access to an
05:29item. Diaries and letters are also items that we really pull on when we're developing the historical
05:34characters. The diary really helps inform the tone of voice and like the everyday details that infuse our
05:41stories with historical accuracy. Another fun fact about Samantha's school outfit here is this is
05:47actually inspired by a popular comic strip character of the early 1900s, Lester Brown. And so you can
05:54see the high collar and the bow which were really iconic to his look. The bow here is very iconic
05:59to
05:59Samantha and if you look at all of the girls on this page, almost every single one of them is
06:04wearing
06:05a bow. That's a detail that comes right from her time period. Adding the ribbons in the back, for example,
06:10adds like a fun play element so that girls can kind of style it and I think that was really
06:15important to
06:16Pleasant's vision. An important accessory to point out is her locket here. Samantha has lost her parents
06:21and in order to keep them close to her, she keeps their photo in the locket in the stories. So
06:26this
06:27is another just kind of the samples of Samantha's line fabric. So you have her like cranberry party
06:33dress, her meat outfit, her birthday outfit, her lesson outfit. Here we have Molly McIntyre. She's set in 1944
06:42on the home front during World War II. She's set in fictional Evanston, Illinois. What's really iconic
06:48about Molly, first of all, her glasses. It's something that author Valerie Tripp really wanted
06:53Molly to have because Valerie always wanted glasses and braids as a young girl. It would have been a
06:59really intense process of them figuring out kind of the perfect shape for right here so that they would
07:07fit around her ears and stay in place because of course Pleasant envisioned this doll being played
07:13with. It wasn't meant to be up on a shelf somewhere so it would be really important for the glasses
07:17to
07:17stay on. This argyle pattern was really common at the time so we would have looked in catalogs and
07:22magazines to kind of arrive at that. But what's really kind of special with Molly is that autobiography
07:29and oral histories and photographs of Valerie and Pleasant's own childhoods really informed Molly's
07:37stories in her product world. This is actually Pleasant at her eighth birthday and you can see the rick
07:44rack trim on her dress that informed Molly's birthday dress and just the look of the cake is so similar.
07:50Back to kind of the emotional truth of Molly's story about like her her father being away and being
07:57reunited she keeps her father close in her locket in the stories there's a photo of him. This is Felicity
08:03and she is set in 1774 Colonial Virginia and to bring Felicity to life working with the experts at
08:10Colonial Williamsburg they looked at fabrics so you have her meat dress patterns her lesson outfit so this
08:17is actually a reproduced print from 1770s and just like kind of the other dolls accessories with their
08:23necklaces. Felicity's coral necklace is also particularly important. Coral necklaces like
08:28these were given to Colonial girls at the time for good luck. This beautiful blue gown was also inspired
08:34by a trip to Colonial Williamsburg. Pleasant and Valerie were in the milliner shop and saw a fashion
08:39doll that had this gown and they kind of gasped and immediately knew that that was the dress that Felicity
08:46needed and the doll she needed. In colonial times fashion dolls were used in order for women to
08:53learn about what was fashionable in Europe at the time and so Felicity ended up with a fashion doll
08:58in her line and a beautiful blue gown to wear to the governor's ball. She also has a separate stomacher
09:04here and so this so this stomacher can be swapped out and that was common at the times because girls
09:11didn't have very many dresses so you could swap out the stomacher for a look. This is a little pinner
09:16that she would wear on her head. Here we have Addie Walker. She is set in 1864 during the Civil
09:22War.
09:22While we worked with experts and museum curators and scholars for the development of all of the
09:28characters prior to Addie, Addie's was the first that we had a formal advisory board for. I believe it
09:33was seven people who were experts in the history of slavery, the history of the black experience in the
09:391800s and experts in children's literature and they really advised on all details of Addie's world.
09:45For example, they really felt it was important to start Addie's books in slavery but by the end of
09:52the book that they believed very firmly that the reader should see Addie in freedom. They also felt
09:58very strongly that Addie's meat dress should be the first dress she wears in freedom and so in the book
10:03we have Addie get this dress from Miss Caroline who helps Addie and her mother escape to Philadelphia.
10:10And here you can see kind of an exploration of different colors and different fabrics from the
10:14time. Addie's mother is actually a seamstress and that was a very strategic choice on author Connie
10:20Porter's part and that's because by making her a seamstress Connie gave Addie access to a lot more
10:27fabrics than would have been available typically to black families in Philadelphia. For example in Addie
10:33learns a lesson this outfit is an outfit that her mom actually made her. She's competing in a spelling
10:39bee and it's really important to Addie because again to reflect the historical experience the black
10:45community reading was really important in the 1800s and so here we also have an 1860s union reader
10:52that was actually replicated in Addie's for Addie's school accessories. Oh and this little medal is
10:58what she wins when she wins the spelling bee. Here we have Josefina Montoya she's set in 1824 New Mexico.
11:05For Josefina in particular research trips were really important so the team spent time in New Mexico
11:12and in Mexico City doing research. In New Mexico at one point they even went to one of the advisor's
11:18homes
11:19and he lived in an adobe house without running water or electricity. They could really experience
11:25what it was like to be Josefina in the 1820s. The advisors were also incredibly important for
11:31informing the color palette of Josefina's world. They wanted the look of Josefina's whole world from
11:38her textiles to her illustrations to her furniture to reflect the natural pigments of her time and this
11:44color palette the artist used natural materials like dried insects that were crushed clays red clay
11:53zinc indigo things like that and you can really see the colors from this palette how they informed
12:00the meat outfit the lesson outfit the red of the sash here on her lesson outfit is actually the red
12:08made
12:08from crushed insects. Another really important thing that the team learned from the advisors was how
12:13important Josefina's ribosso would be. This was something she would wear pretty much at all times
12:19and so on one of these research trips the historian who was working on Josefina, Kathy Burkowski,
12:24actually bought this ribosso in order so that the team could instruct her on how to wear it so that
12:31we could inform both product and illustrations and make sure that they were accurate. The characters
12:36would all have a six book series that would follow a similar story arc and so in the catalog,
12:41pleasant presents the characters in chronological order. One of the first questions pleasant had to
12:47answer when she had her vision for the company was how she was going to reach her audience. Pleasant
12:52really wanted a softer voice for her brand so the catalog ended up being the way to reach people
12:57because again there wasn't the internet either and so the catalog would arrive in the mail and she
13:02imagined kind of the girls opening it in excitement and again going through chronological order because it
13:07was an educational tool and then they would circle what they wanted and give that to grandmothers and
13:12mothers and I think it really speaks to also that if like you look at all of the layered thought
13:17that
13:18Pleasant gave to every aspect and every detail of the brand you see that the brand's a lot more than
13:25dolls and
13:25dresses or books. It's about capturing the story of girlhood in America and then sharing that story with girls today
13:34so that they feel empowered
13:36to find their voice to be compassionate and make a difference in the world. So now we're with Isabel and
13:43Nicky and they are our 90s twins.
13:45They're set in 1999 and to develop these twins we got to do a lot of fun things including going
13:53through our own childhood archives.
13:55So just like Pleasant's memories of childhood informed Molly's design, the staff got to go into their parents' basements and
14:04pull out photographs
14:05and old toys and we would brainstorm together and kind of list things that we enjoyed playing with, the things
14:11we used to eat, the things we used to remember
14:13about the 90s. For example, I pulled out today, this is my diary from around the year 1999 and I
14:19will not read you pages because it is embarrassing. And also kind of a scrapbook that I created around the
14:25same time. And you can get a lot of
14:25You can kind of see how like the scrapbooking designs really informed the journals for Nicky and Isabel. And I
14:31also got to go through our archives and the particular sources that I loved going through were girls' letters to
14:37the brand. The themes from these letters would then inform the voice of Isabel and Nicky and the themes we
14:42explored in their stories. And then we also got to go through our old catalogs which really started to inform
14:48the look of their product line.
14:49There are some outfits here that we, you can see we recreated from the 90s catalogs. We also used a
14:56lot of first-hand sources, movies, catalogs, 17 magazines.
15:01Twins in the 90s were a very big thing and they tended to have like mix and match wardrobes. So
15:07we wanted them to each have a unique style but to have sort of a common thread.
15:12As you can see we used the same fabric on the skirt and the shirt here is like an actual
15:18cable knit sweater. She has buttons. There's embroidery. We really want to make sure these are just like miniature clothes.
15:26We had an expert on 90s girl culture, multiple experts on the Seattle area, and specifically an advisor for skateboarding
15:33because Nicky, one of her hobbies is skateboarding.
15:36And these are fun little details. These were grin pins which were something that was very popular in the 90s.
15:42We have the little book it pin and all the fun little Pizza Hut details. The cup here has, you
15:48know, that little texture that the Pizza Hut cups had.
15:52Yeah, all the fun details. The butterfly clips, iconic. Another 90s staple for sure. These two looks for Nicky and
15:59Isabel are part of a story where they're celebrating the turn of the century, the year 2000.
16:05So we had these original looks in our catalogs around the same time and so we recreated those looks so
16:12that our nostalgic fans would be like, oh my gosh, those are what I had and I can also give
16:16that to my daughter.
16:17Now we're with our girl of the year for 2026. She is Raquel Reyes and she's Samantha's great great granddaughter.
16:25Raquel is Mexican American on her dad's side of the family and then a descendant of Samantha Parkington on her
16:30mom's side of the family.
16:31So to develop Raquel 2, we worked with advisors. So we had advisors to inform us about adoption, which is
16:39a theme just like in Samantha's stories.
16:41We have advisors to advise us on Latina girlhood as well as a dolphin advisor because there's a really awesome
16:48scene where Raquel and her cousin find some stranded dolphins.
16:52This is a really great example of how fashion kind of evolves throughout history and how we show that.
16:59So Samantha, her stories took place in the early 1900s and it was a fun challenge to recreate what a
17:05modern girl today would wear sort of based on her style.
17:09So this iconic plaid print, we kind of change the scale and color, these big kind of leg of mutton
17:15sleeves that were turn of the century and we translated those into like a puff sleeve, which is the modern
17:20version.
17:20We also took some little elements here like her locket. We took that into a necklace and then bows. Samantha
17:29had a lot of bows.
17:30So Raquel is actually from Kansas City and in Kansas City, her parents own a paleta shop and she's kind
17:36of starts the story there.
17:38And then the stories trace her going to Samantha's childhood home in Mount Bedford, New York, in order to attend
17:44her cousin Sloane's wedding.
17:45And so you can kind of see the parallels here. So we have a short story about Samantha called Samantha
17:50Saves the Wedding.
17:51And now we have Raquel Saves the Wedding.
17:54There are also some Easter eggs for fans. One of the locations that was really important to Samantha was Piney
17:59Point.
17:59So we use that graphic on Raquel's pickleball outfit and her bag.
18:04In Raquel's bag, you also get photos of Samantha and the Mount Bedford home.
18:09And this is the diary that Raquel finds and is able to read Samantha's experience fighting for suffrage in the
18:16early 1900s.
18:17And for the graphics, the cover of this journal, we took original graphics from Samantha's Valentine's set.
18:25Really, again, tying back all those little elements to give it authenticity.
18:29This is an example of where we do a dress like your doll outfit.
18:32And you can see the doll's version is just a tiny version of the girls.
18:37Both have real ruching on the front. Both have this, you know, nice gingham print and the bows.
18:44Again, just really translating the doll into something that a girl can wear.
18:48We're often asked like what comes first, like the product or the book.
18:53The answer I'd say is like the research. It's the history for the historical characters.
18:57And for Girl of the Year, it's just incredibly collaborative.
19:00And either one could come first, but usually it's like through the research.
19:03It's the conversations with advisory boards. That's really the starting point.
19:07We first create what we call a signature style, which is the visual guide for what the character will look
19:13like.
19:13We will pull references of silhouettes, mood boards, color palette, all of that.
19:20And kind of make sure that we have one cohesive vision because we may have multiple designers working on it.
19:26And then after that's all done, then we start actually sketching.
19:29Here is the original sketch for Raquel's meat outfit.
19:33And you can see her color palettes here, some of her pattern here,
19:37and then our little references to Samantha to make sure we're keeping to the original vision.
19:42When we work on designs, we usually start off with like brainstorming and working as a group and researching.
19:48Our historical line captures the past and tells stories from the past.
19:52And then the Truly Me line allows a girl to capture and create stories of today.
19:55For the Truly Me line, our fashions represent everyday girls.
19:59And there's like different girls to express themselves.
20:01So we try to cover a girl's interests, whether it's basketball or cheerleading or dance.
20:06So it covers kind of more of a girl's everyday life versus storytelling and historical characters.
20:12And our Disney collaboration is an Ariel-inspired party dress.
20:15So it's inspired by not a direct match, but a girl would be wearing this and carrying her doll.
20:21When we first started, it looked more like the doll outfit and then it felt a little too costumey.
20:27So then we kind of pivoted and then went down this route with kind of the more party, ethereal look.
20:32We landed with more of a high-low to kind of mimic the mermaid tail.
20:36So we wanted it to be very wearable, but we know girls like sparkles.
20:40So we brought in a nice sequins fabric.
20:42We brought in kind of that ruffle detail here and then the peplum detail in this form.
20:47And to make it more wearable, we removed the scale prints to be less costumey
20:51and kind of brought in like lovely tiers of tulle.
20:54When we see things on the runway, we're like, oh, that's cool.
20:56And how's it relatable for a girl?
20:58So like, how do we temper it down to like, oh, peplums are back.
21:01It's a trickle-down effect in fashion.
21:03So we kind of like start hinting at it and like seeding it through the years.
21:06I really think the brand has been able to become iconic and endure for 40 years because of the storytelling
21:13and Pleasant's vision of bringing the books and the product together to tell stories
21:18is really what makes people fall in love with a doll because it's not just a doll.
21:23It's a character.
21:24It is a character with personality.
21:26It's a character with friends and with family.
21:28And when you read her books and you play with her things,
21:32you're literally walking down the streets with her.
21:34You are going to school with her.
21:36And I think that's what really makes everyone fall in love with their dolls because they are characters.
21:42They're meant to kind of endure and be passed down from generation to generation.
21:47And actually Pleasant has a really, my favorite quote from Pleasant.
21:51It's on the back of the book and it's,
21:52I hope the American Girl's collection will be dearly loved and well played with
21:56and then passed down to other generations of girls tomorrow.
22:00And so Pleasant really meant for American Girl to be here for 40 years and more years to come.
22:06because it captures the story of girlhood in America across time and also the story of girls today.
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