#American Girl Magazine

[agmagazinescans]

Dancing In the Wind

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

[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.

Facebook | Etsy | Retail History Blog | Twitter | YouTube Playlist | Random Post | Ko-fi donation | instagram / threads @thelastvcr​ | tik tok @ saleintothe90s | TeePublic Store

[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.

[trinketsandtoys]

i ordered some doll clothes on eBay a while back and they sent a sheet of stickers as a bonus

[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)!

[airasilver]

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

The others? No clue.

Childhood Magazines

[agmagazinescans]

Letters From You & Credits

American Girl Magazine, September/October 1995

[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!)

[theamericanpin-up]

Alberto Vargas - October 1969 Playboy Magazine Vargas Girl Illustration - American Pin-up Calendar Collection

[newwavesylviaplath]

jack schlossberg for vogue (2024)

[laurellala-comics]

I've been having so much fun with my Ace Attorney comics lately but I've been feeling the pull to do original stuff again. So to ease into the transition, here is my (very first!) comedy zine. You may spot some familiar faces B)

Thanks for reading my goofiness! I'm including some nerd thoughts about zines under the cut

Zines are sooo cool and I assume most people have heard of them since this is tumblr BUT if you haven't! Zine is short for magazine (pronounced "zeen" it does not rhyme with vine). It usually refers to handmade pamphlets that can be created by folding and cutting a single sheet of paper, which is what I did, but it can be used for any sort of self made publication. The goal is to make something that can be reprinted and shared so mine is technically not in the spirit of that because of all my little interactive details but shh that's fine. Zines have been used in sooo many ways (Was Martin Luther's 95 theses not in a way the first zine (this is a joke)) but they are especially recognized as part of the punk movement as a way of fighting back against mainstream media and of sharing information around! It was a way to get around censorship and spread the word about social movements and political messages buuuut it has also always been used to share fun things, like music recommendations OR FAMOUSLY. STAR TREK SPOCK KIRK FAN FICTION (this is real and there are academic papers about this). Some of the earliest m/m fanfic was passed along through zines because they did not have ao3 back then! All they had was a typewriter and a dream! It's actually sooo silly, but I took a class in college that heavily emphasized these zines as leading to the fandom culture we had today, so they really did shape the world we live in today. Tumblr posts are like our own little zines that we share, with our own messages and thoughts and yes even hand drawn gay people...

Anyway, like I mentioned, in these fandom spaces you had queer zines that were about explicitly romantic and sexual relationships between fictional men. At the time, slash shipping was not the most common way to engage with fandom, but today it has become very mainstream and widely accepted amongst the fandom. But you know what queer behaviors are still not mainstream within fandom spaces, even within queer fandom spaces? Aro ace rep babyyyy. With that in mind, I feel like what is considered radical and abnormal these days in queer fandom spaces is to engage with fictional men (or any characters) from an aromantic or asexual lens. And so I am here to hold your hand and walk you through the wonderful radical world of imagining non-romantic scenarios with fictional guys. You can have so much fun with it and I think more people should do it. What if you stood in line at the bank and your favorite anime man was in front of you. What if you had to go in for jury duty and the guy from five nights at freddy's was there. What if you went to the library and spock and kirk were both there researching the history of zines. In a world that expects us to prioritize one normative romantic and sexual relationship as the big thing that will bring you happiness and fulfillment, it is radical to say "actually, i could probably still be really happy and fulfilled if i had some cool friends to hang out with and do mundane things with. And also what if those friends were fictional lawyers."

Anyway. Thank you to all the spirk shippers who worked hard to get us here, I will pick up your mantle and continue to push against societal norms but with fewer sex scenes this time around. Not that you aren't valid for that, this is just personal preference. The end. Go make a zine everybody.