‘The New AMERICAN GIRL
DOLL Makes Me Feel Old’
American Girl
Courtney Moore is from 1986, the year I turned 11. Am I really old
enough for my childhood to become part of a historical story?
AMERICAN GIRL debuted in 1986
with three historical dolls: Kirsten Larson, a
pioneer girl living in Minnesota in 1854;
Samantha Parkington, an orphan from
New York City in the early 1900s;
and Molly McIntire, a girl in Illinois
awaiting her father’s return from
World War II in 1944.

When the company announced
recently that it would be releasing
its first historical doll in years, I
was intrigued. Would it take its
cue from “Hamilton” and give us
a girl from 1776? Was it time for a
suffragette’s story to be told or maybe
one from the Roaring ’20s?
Not even close. The newest
historical American Girl, Courtney
Moore, is from 1986—the year I turned 11.

I processed this news slowly. Am I really
old enough for my childhood to become
part of a historical story? I did the math.

When American Girl first released
Molly in 1986, she was a historical
figure from 44 years in the past. She
seemed impossibly old to me at the
time. Now, in 2020, Courtney—with her big
hair, pink tights, acid-washed skirt and jelly
bracelets—is a historical figure from 34 years
in the past. She seems impossibly old to my
9-year-old daughter.

(In an interesting nod to this timeline,
one of Courtney’s toys is a mini-version of
Molly McIntire, cementing American Girl’s
founding as a seminal event in the 1980s.)
As my daughter flipped through the new
American Girl catalog, I wondered if she
would find Courtney cool or lame. How
would she take the news that her very own
mother once sported hair like Courtney’s
and had the same neon tights (plus pairs in
lime green, yellow and blue)?
“Hey! She likes Pac-Man just like you!”
said my daughter, also noticing that
Courtney has a clear phone like the one
that’s seen in “The Baby-sitter’s Club” on
Netflix. I explained that American Girl got
same category as Kirsten’s prairie
dress and bonnet from the 1850s—
By Jamie Davis Smith
historical relics meant to explain the
olden days to modern kids.

What would girls in 2020
gain from learning about
the 1980s besides a series of
fashion don’ts?
Reading Courtney’s
American Girl story, I
realized that I had been
living through history in the
1980s without knowing I was
doing so. It was a decade of
both advances for women
and technology. The 1980s
included several female firsts:
Geraldine Ferraro ran as a
vice-presidential candidate,
Sandra Day O’Connor joined
the U.S. Supreme Court and
Christa McAuliffe become
the first American civilian to
go into space.

Unlike me, Courtney
knows that she is living through
an important era in history. She’s
inspired to learn coding, a new field back
the details right because Pac-Man and “The
then, so that she too can one day create
Baby-sitter’s Club” (the books, that is) are
games as awesome as Pac-Man. She is
both from a time long, long ago: the ’80s.

undeterred by gender. After all, if a girl can
I started to think that Courtney could be
grow up to be a U.S. Supreme Court justice
a fun walk down memory lane rather than a
or an astronaut, why couldn’t she grow up to
reminder that I am now firmly in middle age,
be a coder?
my childhood as unrelatable to today’s girls
Looking at Courtney was like looking at
as World War II or the plains of Minnesota
a younger version of myself, although if I’m
were to me in the 1980s. I was pretty sure
being honest, my hair was bigger and my
I had the same Care Bear nightgown as
tights were brighter. Courtney may well earn
Courtney and called my mother to confirm
a spot on my daughter’s holiday list, and I
that I indeed had an identical one in pink.

know what I’m adding to mine: American
It was one of my most beloved possessions,
Girl’s Pac-Man arcade game. After at least a
now memorized forever in the American Girl
historical collection. I also had her jean jacket, decade of not thinking much about it, thanks
to Courtney Moore, I have rediscovered an
scrunchie, Walkman and Swatch-like watch.

old favorite. n
Still, as much fun as I had looking through
Courtney’s World with my daughter, I could
not reconcile that all of these symbols of
Jamie Davis Smith is a D.C. mother of four,
my childhood had been relegated to the
attorney, photographer and writer.

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