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Both my daughters grew up with American Girl dolls, books and the Magazine.
My oldest is 21 and my youngest daughter is 17.
American Girl was such a highlight in their lives that recently when neighbor girls who are 7 and 8 years old started talking about how fat each other was, boys, clothes and a whole barrage of other topics unfitting for little girls, my daughters turned to me and said, ”Maybe we should make a present of American Girl Dolls and books Chandra and Bailey.”
My 17 year old went as far as to ask to order the magazine for herself so that she can share it with the little neighbor girls. She says she will read it with them and then do the projects with them so they can have some of the same experiences she did growing up.
I always knew they had good times with their dolls and loved them very much but I never knew the impact they had until now.
I am so happy we took the time and spent the money on these simple but amazing dolls!
(By The Way, I Changed The Names Of The Little Girls.)

I am 25 now and I have loved American Girl dolls since I was around 9. The historical dolls show what it was like for girls growing up in their respective eras. They encourage exploration and learning which is great. They can also be used as a supplement to homeschooling curriculum or even by parents of children in public/private school looking for a way to supplement their daughters education.

I homeschool my 3 younger girls and was looking for something age appropriate (for the 2 oldest-2nd and 3rd grade)for them to read regarding slavery. Our local library has several of the American Girl books, which are wonderful for history. We read the stories about Addy and I found them to be perfect; not too watered down and not too violent for their age. The stories gave them a real sense of what slavery and growing up black was like.
My oldest daughter who is now 20 loved American Girl dolls and the magazine. She had Kirsten, who is still in the family today.

American Girl books and dolls were fabulous teaching tools and companions to our two girls. With the help of American Girl, our daughters gained an interest in history, learned how to save a large sum of money through the AG puzzle page, and had valuable times of playing with other girls and their historical dolls. Our 20 year-old even displayed Felicity in her Christmas ball gown this past holiday. Apart from the cost of the dolls and accessories, we will recommend American Girl highly!

I was disappointed to learn that American Girl, is now owned by Mattel Toy. Through the sale of bracelets in 2005, they were donating to Girls, Inc., which supports abortion and homosexuality. I received this info from http://www.traditionalvalues.org. Thought you’d want to know. I even wrote to American Girl when I was first alerted to this link. They never responded but now send me advertisements by email- yuck!

We too learned that American Girl is now owned by a company that supports abortion and homosexuality. We sent a notice to the company to take us off their mailing lists as there was no chance of our daughter ever getting any of their products. That email was ignored. We still get emails and their advertisements in the mail and the magazine immediately goes into the trash where it belongs!

I may be wrong, but thought they had relinquished their relationship with the Girls, Inc. Co.?? I regret they did not answer emails to concerns. We too love the dolls and just bought our first for Christmas. I am not thrilled with all the doll choices but am pleased with the purchase we made. It is a shame if they are still involved with this company. I will have to further my research. Thank you for sharing!

My grand daughters love American dolls; however, if Mattel owns the company now and are still in involved wtih Girls, Inc., as much as we enjoy the dolls and the history, the American Doll theater, we will withdray any further purchases.

American doll owners, pleae respond.

I just called them to check on this and they claim they have nothing to do with that organization, and have never been affiliated with Girls, Inc. I do remember the bracelet sales, and I did call to voice my concern in 2005. They said the bracelet sales were going to some leadership development for girls and it was through Girls, Inc, but that it didn’t support any other part of Girls Inc except for this leadership development. We also love American Girls at our house, and homeschool our 3 daughters. I was encouraged by your email in support of American Girl and them targeting parents in the upbringing of their girls!

When I contacted them in regards to their affiliation with Girls, Inc., their response was similar - stating that they only supported the “leadership development” part of the organization. Giving money or support to “one positive part” of an organization is really not possible. You will always be supporting the things that you don’t appreciate as well. That said, before becoming aware of this issue, we bought just about every piece of Felicity clothing and furniture and other various paraphernalia. My daughter loved it and we still have those things, although she is now in college. Now, for my little girl who is 7, I will use what we have; I will borrow the books from the library, and if I want to get another doll, I’d look at the dolls sold through Vision Forum. I think it’s visionforum.com but if not, check google. They have a “beautiful girlhood” section that supports traditional girlhood. It might even be a little conservative for me (hard to believe if you knew me!) but I’d always err on the conservative side! I also wish that they had multi-cultural dolls. My daughter is Thai and with all the international adoptions taking place, it would be so great to see the Christian community catch on to the need for supporting them in their heritage as well.

We wrote a heartfelt letter to American Girl on this issue. It has been quite a while back that this was an issue. We received a letter in return informing us that they did not renew their relationship with Girls, Inc. after their contract was up. I followed up with a phone call and found that the severance of this relationship was a direct result of the public’s outcry against Girls, Inc. Apparently American Girl had not been informed of the range of programs that Girls, Inc. funds. Once they were, through the public, that relationship was ended. I also got the impression that internal personnel changes were made at AG as a result of this oversight. I was extremely satisfied with this and we remain AG fans. I think I received answers instead of stonewalling or denials because my letters and calls were calm, sincere, kind and warm and not the least bit defensive or reactionary. This really drew them out.

Apparently since my daughter now owns everything from the “Bitty Baby” line, they decided it was time for her to move on to the big girl arena. They have been saturating my mailbox with invitations to fashion shows, invites to subscribe to the magazine…mind you, my daughter isn’t old enough to read yet! And the latest invite to subscribe included a card with three little girls that would have been cute had one of the little girls not been wearing short shorts and a spaghetti strap tank top that showed off half of her belly! GRRR. I wrote them to ask them to clean up their marketing campaign, and received a very curt response that stated that we had been removed from their mailing list. I don’t plan on purchasing anything else from American Girl, but when my dd is older, I will probably look to the sweet historical dolls at Visionforum.com. The older American Girl stuff is great, but ever since Mattel bought them out, they’ve been steadily going downhill, and lately it seems they’ve been picking up steam that direction. *sigh*

It is my understanding that AG’s non-renewal of their donation/fundraising efforts for Girls, Inc. was due to the boycott, but they never acknowledged it as such. In my opinion, that says they didn’t really want to sever the relationship but did so because they were afraid of losing the money. I believe the next doll/book they released was Julie, a girl growing up in the ’70’s in San Francisco. While I have not read the books, I understand she endorses a number of liberal causes. Is this an end-run around those who participated in the boycott and then reversed after the Girls, Inc. issue ended? I don’t know for sure but I certainly don’t trust the company anymore.

It is also my understanding that AG’s decision to discontinue relations with Girls, Inc. was a fiscal decision. Also, none of the period dolls prior to the 1970s doll indicated political ideals - only culture and lifestyle. I do find it interesting that they are moving in that direction - especially in light of the direction they went - VERY liberal. I, too, no longer trust that company and will be spending my money with Visionforum.com when I wish to make that type of purchase.

Several of the AG dolls prior to the 1970s DID have political ideals. I read the books over as an adult (I loved them as a child) and was appalled at how liberal they were. The depression-era books portray the “New Deal” as a wonderful program that saved many people (that is definitly a polical idea) and the woman’s suffrage-era (Samantha) books portray disobedience to authority as a good thing and that people who opposed woman’s right to vote as having no reasons other than resistance to change (while you might not agree with them, that is not historically accurate, they had many reasons.)

Also, the Beautiful Girlhood dolls from Vision Forum do come in a variety of ethnic backgrounds.

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