#American Girl Magazine

[agmagazinescans]

Letters From You & Credits

American Girl Magazine, September/October 1995

[Ko-Fi Donations]

[agheaven]

AG Magazine Scans Side Blog

Hey, Babbity Kate, the one behind that behemoth of a video about Kirsten Larson, just released a new video about Samantha Parkington!

In this video she actually gives a shout out to the AG Magazine Project, and links to it in her credits! Very rad!!

Less rad: The Internet Archive has been down the last few weeks due to a recent DOS attack on the servers. While the IA has reported no data has been lost and is slowly returning back some services, at the moment it's not possible to view any of the magazines I have uploaded on there.

This has lead me to go back to my side blog that I made a while back, The AG Magazine Scan Blog! Obviously I can’t upload the PDF file itself onto Tumblr, but I can upload articles and pages, one-by-one! A nice bonus to this method is it allows me to add tags that can hopefully be helpful for research purposes. While the Internet Archive uploads will hopefully return soon, I'm hoping this blog will be at least a decent backup that keeps the scans out there.

I did not start this spin off blog at the same time I did the magazine uploads to the Internet Archive, so it will take me some time to get caught up. I'll get to work on it, though!

[saleintothe90s]

502. American Girl's DIY Halloween Costumes, 1995 & 1994

Ok, so we all know that the Internet Archive has been down for most of the month, due to a hacking. While it's "read only" right now, you cannot log in to check out a book or a library bound copy of fashion magazines. I wanted to look at some mid to late 90s fall fashions and makeup.

All I can give you right now is American Girl. Yes, the magazine by the doll company. I subscribed this magazine from about ages 10-13, 1993-1997. While I enjoyed reading the short stories that included the American Girl characters, and the paper dolls that would come in the back of the magazine sometimes, I did feel like an outsider looking in sometimes. This magazine did skew to more upper class girls, more goody two shoe girls, girls who were gonna go out of state for college when they were 18. it felt like. I mean, I was watching Real World and listening to music with *gasp* curse words.

I flunked in school a lot, much like Fanny the dog.

I can tell you right now though, that DIY cork board out of cardboard does not work. I tried it back then and in college (where I went in state at the age of 25)

These costume ideas below are from 1995:

Girl, stop. This is beginning to remind me of that Mark Curry “I guess we’re UPS” bit.

Here's a nasty lil Halloween craft involving cookies.

The following are from 1994:

Looking at this as a kid I had no clue what Jay's potato chips was. Is that a up North brand? Story time: I was looking at the newspaper on one Sunday a few weeks after this issue came out. I saw that a girl I went to elementary school with, Amy had won a costume contest because she made this costume. She was at the ~gifted~ middle school while I was at the gritty local middle school. I looked at that photo of her and I was like "SHE COPIED AMERICAN GIRL!! SHE SHOULDN'T HAVE WON!" I was a bitter 11 year old, wasn't I?

I remember looking at this and thinking "she's gonna freeze in that costume".

The night sky is my favorite costume. That's actually pretty original.

Those bag costumes were done to death after this photo. Grapes, jelly beans, other ball shaped candies.

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[nostalgiahime]

Toys & Gadgets from American Girl Magazine (2000) [✩]

[coconutlicorice]

From American Girl Magazine Fall, 1996.

[shakespearefreak]

So I know it's summer, just about as far from December as we can get, but I'm too excited about my new acquisition to wait! I've been looking for the November/December 1993 issue of American Girl Magazine for a couple years now. I found one on Mercari a while back and added it to my Liked items, but it was $25, and I just couldn't quite justify spending that amount on a magazine, no matter how old it was or how many fond memories I had of it. Anyways, I got an offer from the seller for $16.37 a few days ago and decided to pull the trigger.

It was pouring rain on and off all day today, and I wasn't able to check the mail right away when I got the notification that it had been delivered. I live in an apartment building, and the front door is locked, so delivery drivers usually just leave packages outside. I was so anxious, picturing a cardboard envelope sitting there for hours, getting soaked and ruining the contents. But when I finally checked the mail, I discovered the seller had sent it in a watertight, plastic bubble mailer! The package had some mud and water on the outside, but the magazine itself was absolutely perfect. I got the newest AG catalog in my mailbox today, too, and I compared the two... the 30-year-old magazine was as bright and crisp as the brand-new catalog!

Anyways, I (very carefully) paged through it right away, rediscovering my old favorite articles and stories that I'd read and re-read so many times as a kid, my original magazine had fallen apart: an article on the Colleen Moore's incredible miniature fairy castle at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry (which I later got to see myself in person!); Samantha's short story "The Mystery of the Black Pearls," in which Nellie (pre-adoption) is accused of stealing a valuable necklace from her employer; an article about the Nutcracker Ballet, its young stars, and behind-the-scenes special effects magic that had me dancing around my house, dreaming of playing Clara like the article's subjects (who were just a little older than me!); and Hans Christian Anderson's lovely but tragic tale "The Little Match Girl," with gorgeous illustrations by Rachel Isadora (it never occurred to me until today how strange it was to include a story about a little girl freezing to death in a magazine for little girls)... I was surprised to feel tears prick my eyes as I went through. Anyway, I'm SO HAPPY, it was worth every penny. Now I just need to buy a clear display envelope to put it in so it stays as beautiful as it is now! 💖

[forever70s]

American Girl magazine - November 1974

[magsinhiding]

@bbcwhereareyou posts on artistic swimming and the gelatin in the hair unlocked a core memory for me of reading an American Girl Magazine article on a swimmer and there was a photo of her applying gelatin in her hair before competition.

Did anyone else get those as a kid? The other one I remember is they did a feature on an Amish girl that was so good.

[desertdollranch]

Who’s that girl? Take a guess!

It’s Harmony! She’s my 90′s character. 

She’s cozy on her bed with her Addy doll and her Beanie Babies, reading to them the May/June 1997 issue of American Girl Magazine. It’s full of fun craft tutorials, party ideas, short stories, an advice column, and a paper doll! 

She also has the January/February edition. 

These mini-mags were published once or twice a year in the human-sized edition of the magazine. They could be cut out and stapled together to make a perfectly dainty doll-sized magazine. They’re from the issues that I received when I was a subscriber! I no longer have the full-size editions (I had to sell them when I was really needing the money) but I held on to the minis for all this time because worried I’d never find them again. Now that I have a 90′s girl to enjoy them, I’m going to be on the lookout for more mini mags. 

Keep reading below the cut to see inside both magazines!

[tinydooms]

OMG I FOUND IT.

So, to the surprise of very few of my generation and disposition, I subscribed to American Girl magazine throughout the '90s--and I would wager a large swathe of Tumblr's Premiere Book Club for Strange Women and Unusual Folks did to. I loved American Girl and looked forward to the bi-monthly issues. Whenever a new issue arrived, I would do a quick skim of the entire magazine before turning back to the beginning and going through and savouring each article. And one of my favorite recurring features was the yearly short story contest. (I always entered, but I never won.)

In the July/August issue of 1994 was a short story that scared the ever living shit out of me, so much so that I hid the magazine in my closet until my mom realized and threw it away. Years later, I tried to find the magazine in the library archives, but they didn't have it. I tried again sporadically over the years, wondering if the story was as scary as I remembered. And then, tonight, I found it.

Behold: The Girl Who Became a Ghost by Erin Donaghue

WHEN I TELL YOU THIS DAMN STORY HAS HAUNTED ME SINCE 1994. Thank you, Erin Donaghue, 11 years old, of Connecticut. You have populated my nightmares and my ghost stories with evil ghosts who drown their would-be rescuers for 29 years now.

[y2kbeautyandother2000sstuff]

American Girl Magazine (and my babydoll doglette. She loves my collection and I love her <3.)

Left is March/April 2000, right is May/June 1999. (2nd picture is from the 2000 magazine).

My personal picture of my collection.

I didn't have to repurchase these like I did with my BBW/Avon/Bonne Bell stuff, my mom found these for me in storage! She's going to look for some more old AG/Polly Pockets/Lisa Frank stuff I had. She kept a lot of it. I love her so much (for many reasons)!

[agmagazinescans]

Dancing In the Wind

American Girl Magazine, July/August 2000 [IA Link pending]

[Ko-Fi Donations]

[agheaven]

A kind user who wised to remain anonymous sent me over scans for the September/October 2001 issue of American Girl! You can find the PDF and JPG files for this issue over on the Internet Archive!

If you have any magazine scans you'd like to send my way, check out my submissions page! If you wanna support me in other ways with this project, check out out my Ko-Fi!

(I also recently got some more issues from 2000-2001, so expect another bunch of updates in the future!)

[airasilver]

American Girl is still around, vastly different though. (At least I think it is.)

The others? No clue.

Childhood Magazines

[theamericanpin-up]

Alberto Vargas - "Cat got your tongue?" - October 1976 Playboy Magazine Vargas Girl Illustration - American Pin-up Calendar Collection

[newwavesylviaplath]

jack schlossberg for vogue (2024)