#Kaya’aton’my

[eightw]

kaya is well dressed for fall

[midsummerdolls]

First photo: Corinne, Tsukiko, Nanea, Esme

Second photo: Eloise, Divya, Lena, Amarah

Third photo: Andrés, Nihkko

Fourth photo: Kaya, Marie-Grace, Cécile, Claudie

Hey! It’s been a while! I was able to switch some of their clothes to winter-y (kind of) clothing, and they’re so cute! I want to photograph them soon 🥰

[ytcomments-archive]

[lucythornwalter]

In Greeting and Introduction:

In 1986, Pleasant Company unleashed the American Girls upon the world, and nothing has ever been the same. If you’re between the ages of 25 and 40 (sorry, Gen Z, but this is really a millennial phenomenon) and were at any point in your childhood aligned or identified as a ‘girl’, you probably have memories of decadently arranged extra-wide catalogues coming in the mail, or slim box sets of six books with names like Samantha Learns a Lesson or Changes for Kirsten, or visits to a toy store that was more like a luxury hotel, or – if you were especially lucky – unwrapping a long and heavy box on your birthday or on Christmas to reveal a much-anticipated new best friend. Even if you weren’t subjected to the rigors of late-twentieth-century girlhood, you probably knew something about this brand thanks to the way it took hold in the hearts and minds of an entire generation of – ha! – American girls who went to school with other American children and often brought dolls and books and catalogues and trip reports back with them.

So, what exactly was this brand?

1986 is a fascinating year in pop culture, and one I’ve been personally fixated on for over a decade. It’s the year of the (first) death of Optimus Prime in The Transformers: The Movie, the year of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, the year of Phantom of the Opera’s spectacular West End debut, the year of Labyrinth, the year of Hellraiser. If you outgrew American Girl and trended toward the weird and darkly gothic, this is a year you’re intimately familiar with, whether you know it or not. Fitting, then, that it’s the year the dolls were born.

The story goes that educator Pleasant Rowland, in the process of attempting to buy dolls for her family, found herself frustrated by a perceived gap in the market. While baby dolls served as proxies for burgeoning parental instinct, and fashion dolls served as more mature aspirational figures (or, in many cases, adult stars of complicated child-crafted soap operas), there were no dolls that girls could look upon as peers. I find myself skeptical of this claim, largely because mythical doll origins are often hilariously selective and inaccurate – for one thing, Barbie was not even close to the first adolescent/adult fashion doll for little girls – but it is consistently cited as one of the concerns in developing the line. With that frustration to chew on, and inspired by a visit to Colonial Williamsburg (a living history museum focused on life in America in the immediate years preceding the Revolutionary War), Rowland developed the concept of the American Girls. These would be eighteen-inch cloth and vinyl dolls portraying distinct historical figures living in different eras of American history, each with their own name and family and backstory. She worked with author Valerie Tripp to develop the identities of each girl, and then launched the brand under her new company, Pleasant Company (which is such a clever idea for an instantly recognizable corporation) with three dolls ready to go.

Now, there are American Girl stores in multiple malls, and when I was a little girl there were near-mythical American Girl Places in Chicago and New York and I think somewhere in California, but when Rowland began her business model was entirely by mail with no brick-and-mortar location to visit. Little girls and their families became aware of the existence of these dolls and their stories when catalogues that quickly became iconic arrived in the mail once every few months, and despite the high prices of everything from the dolls themselves to the books telling their stories, they bought up everything Pleasant Company had to sell. Rowland had a bona fide hit on her hands.

She had launched the brand with three characters – Kirsten Larson, a Swedish immigrant and pioneer living in the Minnesota Territory in 1854, Samantha Parkington, an Edwardian girl from a rich family living in New York in 1904, and Molly McIntyre, a Scottish-descended girl from a solidly middle-class family living in Jefferson, Illinois in 1944. Each doll, when ordered, came with a book bearing their name, and there were two additional books available for purchase alongside the collections of themed accessories and furniture. This number quickly expanded to six, all bearing similar names and reflecting similar themes across multiple decades. In 1991, a fourth historical character joined the lineup – this was Felicity Merriman, a gentleman’s daughter from 1774 Williamsburg. After her was Addy Walker, introduced in 1993, a fugitive slave who escaped to Philadelphia with her mother and lived there in 1864. Next in 1997 came Josefina Montoya, a rancher’s daughter living near Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1824 with her father, sisters, and extended family. In 2000, Kit Kittredge of 1933’s Cincinnati, Ohio joined the lineup. And lastly, at least for this analysis of my own history with the brand, in 2002 we have my dearly beloved Kaya’aton’my of the Nez Perce, living with her tribe in pre-contact years in 1764.

There are other American Girls. Mattel bought out Pleasant Company and has slowly been hollowing out the brand’s credibility, but it persists. Other historical dolls have been introduced, and many of them sound just as brilliant as the ones I grew up with. But those eight, those “original” eight, were my American Girls, and it’s their stories I want to examine, and their impacts upon my life that are still felt. Kit’s resourcefulness and adaptability when her father lost her job helped me when I was twelve and my father lost his job, Felicity’s determination to find the right balance between gender nonconformity and gender conformity inspired me to never settle for being forced into a box I didn’t fit, Samantha’s fierce loyalty to her friend Nellie was a balm to my prepubescent closeted lesbianism, and Kaya’s connection to her tribe and their traditions and culture gave me something to cling to in the midst of my rootless, forcibly assimilated indigenous childhood. (Yes, I’m indigenous, no, I’m not really going to be making my writing and blogging about an #ownvoices kind of thing, because we should get to be nerds and have the same access to privacy that white people have, but it’s relevant here and it’s relevant in my original fiction because it’s part of me.)

Of course, growing up and getting an education means looking at your past again with a wiser, more critical eye. Historical education has changed a lot since 2002, and has changed even more since 1986. The stories of the American Girls are both narrative and informative, intended to capture realistic-feeling moments in time that are grounded in real historical events and practices. How do they hold up to the standards of 2024, nearly two decades since I grew into Brontë and McCaffrey and Hugo and Dumas and Homer? How do they feel to me as an actively reconnecting indigenous lesbian whose perspective on America is very different now than when I was a child and my family tried hard to pretend we fit in? Are their books and wider stories even any good?

These are the questions I’m seeking to answer in this series of blogs, which I’ll be calling The American Girls and Me. Each fortnight (that’s every two weeks) I’ll examine a different girl, starting with her main books and going forward from there. The first series of book blogs will be published simultaneously here and on my Patreon page, completely free to read and open to the public. After that, Patreon will get things a week before they’re published here, but I’m not looking to make a serious income, so if you pay me the exorbitant price of $1 you will get to see things whenever they’re posted or you can wait for seven days to catch up. There will be some Patreon-exclusive bonus content once every couple of months, though, plus when I start publishing my original fiction it will be there alongside here, so if that sounds interesting maybe consider giving me a click?

My cutoff year is 2005 – that was the last year I asked for and received an American Girl doll as a present from my grandmother, and that was the symbolic end of the American Girl era of my life. I may take a look at the two American Girl movies that came out in 2006 and 2008 and adapted the stories of Molly and Kit respectively, but I didn’t go to great lengths to watch either of them. I was too busy rewatching The Curse of the Black Pearl and Van Helsing and The Revenge of the Sith to care about people who were now three and four years younger than me, and my own visions of both girls’ lives were too precious to me to risk a bad or disappointing adaptation.

Okay, then, what exactly will I be covering?

Like I said above, I’ll start with the stories. All eight girls, all six books + their “Looking Back/A Peek Into the Past” chapters. I’ll talk about my childhood impressions, my connections with different narratives, how those have changed now that I’m in my thirties, and places where I think the books have aged particularly poorly or particularly well.

After that, we’ll look at their short stories pre-2005, and see what those add to or detract from the canon of core story beats. These were in some cases published over a decade after the books finished up, and the tonal or thematic differences should be interesting to note.

Once the fiction is finished up we’ll look at each doll. I’ll talk about my experiences with the ones I personally own, and examine their accessories and artifacts in-person, and if it’s a doll I don’t own we’ll be looking at the catalogues from 1998-2002, which can safely be considered something of a golden age for the brand. That’s how I experienced several of the dolls, and therefore that’s what I’ll be revisiting

Next, I’ll be taking a look at nonfiction books – each of the original eight girls got a Welcome to [Name]’s World book issued for their era in American history, taking the nonfiction historical context chapters and fleshing them out to give more detail and explain more about how the lives of our girls fit into the story of the country as a whole. These are apparently extremely high-quality for children’s history books, and while I never had them as a child I definitely want them now.

Finally, having finished up books entirely, we move on to crafts and ephemera. Each girl got a paper doll set, and most of them also received a craft book and cook book. There were theater kits for pretend play as well, but I’ll be excluding those for purely practical reasons – they’re often the hardest to find, and I was never interested in that kind of pretend play with these girls.

This will be a long, involved, organized blogging project unlike anything I’ve ever really done before, but I think it will be a rewarding one. These girls are like my sisters, even those with wildly different life experiences than my own. They were a fundamental part of my childhood. They deserve to be remembered and discussed, and this era in my life deserves to be loved.

After all, I, too, was once an American girl.

[missamericangirl]

hi everyone! i would like to share these pleasant company notes from the heart note cards i got today! i don’t know much about them, so please feel free to share if you know anymore!

i got these off ebay for about 15, they are from 2003 and hallmark licensed. they came in this very adorable tin!

they come with 16 cards, with 8 girls on them (2 for each girl)!

each card has a quote on them, shown in this picture i made:

kit: “I wish I could find just the right words to tell you what a good friend you are to me.”

samantha: “I'm glad I've got a friend like you to share my secrets with.”

felicity: “We're two of akind - loyal and true. It's greatbeing friends with someone like you.”

addy: “I have you, and you have me- we're true-blue, and we'll always be.”

josefina: “Good heart, good friend, good times to spend- you're like a sister to me!”

kirsten: “Being friends with you is like being at home, no matter where I go.”

kaya: “As the sunshine warms my face, your friendship warms my heart.”

molly: “Know my favorite things to do? Laughing, talking and having fun with you!”

included are the cards, the tin, as well as some envelopes and bows with adhesive on them to stick onto the envelopes, i’m guessing!

[femurchimes]

Drew Kaya’aton’my (Kaya) from American Girl! She was always my fave

[shakespearefreak]

A few days ago, I took Kaya and Tatlo to the local arboretum 🌿 for a very short, spur-of-the moment photoshoot! My friend John even assisted by giving us a ride there and back, helping pick a good spot, and giving Kaya a makeshift prop so she’d stand better on the uneven ground! (This was surprising because John is kinda creeped out by dolls; I like to think it means he might be warming up to them a little. 🤞)

She fell backward while I was setting her up, and I guess it messed up her necklace… it was like that in literally every photo and I didn’t realize until we were already home 🤦. John had a clever suggestion when I showed him: he said she might be running! I think her pose could indicate movement, but her braids should be behind her for the full effect. What do y’all think?

[pancreasnostalgia]

Put half of the squad in summer outfits. Still wish to purchase the purple dress for Rebecca (don’t know why I haven’t yet), as well as Josefina and Samantha’s ensembles.

I was gifted Kirsten’s dress shortly after the hat was discontinued from it, and have not been able to find it listed separately.

The shoes that came with Kit’s summer dress are exactly the same as the ones with the birthday dress, so now I have two pairs.

[dominican-girl-dolls]

made myself a motivation board to work hard this semester so that i can justify to myself a very expensive purchase later this year

[americangirlpolls]

[justadream-away]

Indigenous dolls in the snow ❄️

[lovedrac]

🦢 Restoring Kaya, Pt. 2 🦢

Here she is, all cleaned up and (mostly, kinda) repaired! ☺️

I used a Magic Eraser to clean off all the dust on her body. I also used shampoo/conditioner in her hair to clean it out- and BOY, did it need it, it had plumes of dust literally coming out when I was tying it back 🥲 I also used some buffer sheets I had bought on Amazon to repair her scratches and scuffs, it was about $6 before shipping.

Repair notes under the cut!

First of all, unless you’ve got some time, I HIGHLY recommend NOT taking Kaya’s braids out unless you have a situation like mine. Kaya had been sitting in storage for about 10 years; I knew she was very dirty and needed the clean. But BOY was her hair hard to wrestle with! It looks good in the photos, but that was after about an hour of brushing and washing. Be very careful and make sure to brush bottom to top.

(She looks so cute in this photo though!!)

First time without braids ever!!! It looked pretty but it was a mess waiting to happen 🥲 The moment I started combing it became a frizzy, knotted mess.

Second, unfortunately I’ll need to still work on her because I buffed a bit too hard on her cheek and now she’s missing her face paint (seen above). Something I was worried about and unfortunately it came true 😭 I’ll have to repaint her cheek carefully. If you use buffer sheets, use them as gentle as possible. I used multiple different grains of buffer sheets and didn’t press hard but still ended up making her slightly shiny and rubbing paint off. I’ll come back to this.

But otherwise, I am glad she’s clean and her hair came out pretty good too! This took about 2 1/2 hours to do. I also am relieved those large scuffs on her calf and arm came out easily with the Magic Eraser. I’m going to take her braids out so her hair can relax; it’s obvious it needs it.

[midsummerdolls]

Hello everyone! Happy summer! I’ve been super busy with life stuff, but today I made time to change all of my dolls out of their winter clothing into their summer clothing! I am hopeful that I will get to take photos of them before the summer is over. I hope you have a great day!

[astralbulldragon13]

👀 I just got sucker punched in the literary childhood. L

A Visualization of Kaya’s Collection

Again, credit to Reddit user u/noarvi for the original idea and the original Kirsten graphic, which you can see here.

[omgthatdress]

Kaya’aton’my, AKA Kaya, was the 2nd girl to come out after I’d lost interest, so I never had her and I didn’t read her books. She’s a Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) girl in the 1760s, after European contact (Kaya has horses and her grandmother had smallpox scars on her face) but prior to colonization. Kaya was the first major departure from the previous six-book formula, but given that she wouldn’t have things like school, birthdays, and Christmas, of course she’s gonna need a different structure.

I’ve read a few different reactions to her release. For the most part, she was praised for showing pre-colonial Native society, and demonstrating that American history goes way back further than 1776. However, some people criticized it for perpetuating the myth of Native Americans being a relic of the past. The obvious answer would be to make another Native doll who has a more modern setting (1970s American Indian Movement would be FUCKING AMAZING), but I think they addressed the issue pretty well with the inclusion of modern powwow dresses.

Now, I don’t know nearly enough about Native fashion to be able to really critique and add context to Kaya’s dresses and accessories, but I do know that the company went to great lengths to make Kaya as authentic as possible. They even went as far as creating a new face mold, making Kaya the first girl to smile without exposing her teeth because in traditional Nimiipuu culture, it’s considered rude and aggressive.

[shakespearefreak]

Welcome Kaya!

So Kaya actually arrived last Wednesday (May 29th), but I didn’t have time to free her from her box until the Wednesday after that! (And then of course it took me a few more days to edit the photos and write the accompanying story.) When I finally did, one of the first things I did was give her a few gifts I’d gotten during the long months I waited for her: her Meet Accessories, her doll, and Tatlo! 🐕 She was very happy. I also introduced her to my roommate; I explained to her that he’s basically my brother, even though we’re not actually related, which she of course understood because of her own relationship with her adopted sister Speaking Rain. Finally, she met the rest of her new roommates! She and Makena admired each other’s hair, Jip and Tatlo made friends, and Kaya and Josefina bonded over their dolls.

NOTE: I chose to use the Nez Perce spelling for words/phrases in the Nimíipuu language, rather than the anglicized phonetic spelling American Girl uses in the books. Also, I do not speak Nez Perce myself, so please forgive (and more importantly, correct!) any errors.

Virginia looked up from the canvas of her latest painting. “Everyone!” she called. “I think she’s here!”

Everyone crowded around Kaya, chattering excitedly. 

(Samantha, Nellie, and Virginia were there too, I just couldn’t easily fit them all in one photo!)

“Ta’c léehyen,” Kaya said, with a slightly shy smile. “I am grateful to stay with you. I hope we will be friends.” She tried not to stare, taking in all the new faces and the wide range of clothing styles.

“I love your braids!” Makena said, admiring Kaya’s sleek black hair and abalone shell hair ornaments.

“Qe’ci’yew’yew’! I like yours, too!”

“Pardon me,” Nellie said hesitantly, pointing to Tatlo, “but is that… a wolf?” She tried not to sound as anxious as she felt.

Kaya laughed lightly. “Weet’u, this is my dog, Tatlo! He is very friendly.”

Before anything else could be said, Jip ran up to the much-larger Tatlo, his stubby tail wagging furiously!

“Jip, maybe that’s not a good idea…” Samantha cautioned, but it was too late. Jip was already jumping up on Tatlo excitedly, too happy to have another dog to play with to contain himself. Nellie gasped.

But as it turned out, there was no reason to worry. Tatlo seemed just as pleased to meet Jip as Jip was to meet him! The girls giggled as the two greeted each other in traditional doggy fashion. In a few minutes, you might have thought they’d known each other their entire canine lives.

“Oh, is that your doll?” Kaya asked Josefina, gesturing to Niña. 

Josefina nodded. “My mother made her for me and my sisters a long time ago. She was meant to be passed down every Christmas, from eldest to youngest, but after Mamá died, my sister Clara hid her so she could keep her. But in the end, Clara gave Niña to me, and even made her this beautiful dress!”

Kaya nodded soberly. “I think your mother would be glad your sister did that.” Then she brightened. “I have a doll too! Would you like to see her?”

“Sí!” said Josefina. Kaya brought out her own doll.

“She is very special to me,” Kaya explained. “She used to belong to my sister, Speaking Rain. When Speaking Rain was lost to my family, Tatlo found her again using this doll’s scent.”

“So both of our dolls are important to us because they brought us closer to our sisters, and to people we had lost,” Josefina said thoughtfully.

Kaya considered this for a moment, then smiled. “’Eehé! That’s exactly right!”