‘The New
DOLL
American Girl
Courtney Moore is from 1986,
enough for my childhood to
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
the details right
Baby-sitter’s Club”
both from a time long,
I started to think
a fun walk down
reminder that I am
my childhood as
as World War II or the
were to me in the
I had the same Care
Courtney and called
that I indeed had an
It was one of my most
now memorized
historical collection. I
scrunchie, Walkman
Still, as much fun as
Courtney’s World
not reconcile that all
my childhood had