American Girl Dolls Offer an Alternative to Barbie

Across the city, it’s easy to pick out the American Girls. They tote a doll in one hand and a mom in the other, young pilgrims on their way to the Mecca of doll adoration--the American Girl Place.

On her second visit to the holy site along Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, Shannon O’Donald filled a red shopping bag with a hairstyling kit and a summer outfit for her doll Alexis. She also posed for a souvenir cover of American Girl magazine.

“This is first-class heaven to me,” said Shannon, 10, wearing a purple satin pantsuit to match Alexis’ karaoke outfit. “This is all about girls.”

These highbrow dolls are everything Barbie is not. At $84 each, American Girl dolls carry the cachet of cost and have an educational bent--six books go with each doll.

“It’s the anti-Barbie doll,” said Helen Schwartzman, an anthropologist who studies play at Northwestern University. “It’s books, not bikinis.”

“We try to show smart, strong, resourceful girls,” said Julie Parks, spokeswoman for the Wisconsin-based Pleasant Co., the force behind the American Girl empire. “Kids see themselves and the possibilities in these dolls.”

It works for Shannon.

“The books show girls can do anything they want,” she said proudly.

The Pleasant Co. sells $300 million a year in dolls, books and accessories, mostly through an annual mailing of 50 million catalogs.

The company describes itself as a “mission-driven” corporation that aims to “celebrate girlhood” and convince young girls that life is theirs for the taking.

“We don’t aspire to get girls to act older or hipper or cooler than they are,” Parks said. “We want them to act like girls.”

The company began in 1986 after founder Pleasant Rowland went shopping for her young nieces and was dismayed by the lack of “educational and fun” products that reflect growing up in America. Rowland, a former teacher and curriculum writer with a passion for history, decided something had to be done, Parks said.

Rowland’s first dolls included Kirsten, a 9-year-old set on the frontier in 1854, and Molly, a 9-year-old living during World War II. That historical line has expanded to six dolls, including a Civil War-era slave and a 19th century Latina “dreamer.”

Six “historically accurate” books and accessories galore, such as Colonial undergarments or an adobe oven and bread set, go with each doll.

Also Learning to Be Material Girls

But a walk through the store leaves the impression that the American girls who come here are also learning to be material girls.

The tour begins before a cluster of signs advertising a three-week etiquette class for $125. It winds past trinkets, baubles and American Girl sweatshirts, then ends in front of the American Girl Cafe.

Seated in the dining room’s polka-dotted chairs are girls, moms and grandmas. They all came with reservations; Saturdays and holidays are booked at least a month in advance.

At each table are miniature polka-dotted chairs for the dolls. The girls sit beside them, sipping pink lemonade and munching on “hearth-baked pizza” and “peanut butter puzzlers with preserves.”

On a recent Saturday, Katie Kaminkow celebrated her 10th birthday with a gaggle of girls and mothers. Katie, who recently moved from Chicago to Reno flew in for the day.

“They’re better than any other dolls,” said Katie, the glitter on her cheeks sparkling. “They’re cute and cool.” The books? They didn’t even make her list.

The store has been a huge hit, with about 1 million visitors and $25 million in sales since it opened in November 1998.

In an intimate theater on the first of the store’s three floors, children can watch the American Girls Revue, a live musical presentation of each doll’s story. For $15 apiece, girls can stop by for classes with the Joffrey Ballet, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

“It’s a total package the way other dolls aren’t,” said Elizabeth Chin, a cultural anthropologist at Occidental College in Los Angeles. “It reinforces a fantasy about a time when everything was OK.”

The American Girl collection has expanded to feature 20 contemporary dolls, allowing girls to pick their favorite hair color and skin tone. Accessories include wheelchairs, soccer outfits and ballet ensembles--not to mention matching clothes for the girls so they can dress just like their dolls.

On the literary end, there is the American Girl magazine, a collection of self-help books that includes a “Girl’s Guide to Divorce” and several other lines of books. The company has sold 61 million books, Parks said.

The company says the books have sustained them over the years, but a look behind the corporate veil suggests that may be changing. Mattel Inc., maker of Barbie, bought Pleasant Co. in 1998.

Parks said the sale hasn’t compromised the company, but some customers say they’ve noticed big-time merchandising arriving.

“It’s verging on the Disney and the WB,” said Jim Suhr, a retired Evanston, Ill., banker who recently bought his granddaughter her first American Girl doll.

But he said it’s hard to criticize: “There are so many things in America that aren’t so wholesome.”