1986 IS ANCIENT?
The Chronicle’s Maggie Gordon calls out American Girl.
First of all, American Girl: How dare you? I’ve been rooting for you my whole life. I loved Felicity so much, I named my cow after her. I saved for a year in third grade to buy an Addy doll. And how do you repay me for this loyalty? You release a new “historical” doll tied to … 1986? The very year I was born?
This American Girl (OK fine, woman) is not cool with the breakingnews update that I’m officially a relic.
American Girls are how I learned that history is more than a bunch of old white dudes in powdered wigs. The stories of Felicity, based in 1774, taught me how normal families were affected by the American Revolution. In Addy’s books, set in 1864, I got to be inside the brain of a little girl running away from the plantation on which she’d been enslaved. From Samantha’s books, I met a young factory worker from 1904, and learned the human toll of child labor.
Honestly, y’all taught me a lot about history. I was so enamored with these books that as a precocious 8-year-old wannabe writer, I started sending letters to Valerie Tripp, the author behind some of my favorite heroines. And bless her, she wrote me back. Time and time again. In one note, she replied to a letter in which I must have bragged about my new cow named Felicity:
“Dear Margaret,” she wrote. “Thank you very much for your wonderful letter. I am glad you like the books about the American Girl. ‘Felicity’ is a good name for a cow. It means ‘happiness.’ I hope your Felicity is happy.”
She signed it “Your friend, Valerie Tripp.”
And friends don’t just tell friends that they’re historical artifacts.
Right?
I mean, sure. If I had something to say to an author these days, I’d likely send an email.
And yeah, the lovely cursive handwriting used by Tripp in that letter is no longer taught at most schools. So a 2020 version of an 8-year-old precocious child might not be able to read her charming response.
And I guess, when I think about it, a girl born in the 1980s reading about Molly’s life in the 1940s is a difference of four decades, which,
is the same difference between the 1980s and 2020s.
And oh no, I’m panic-sweating. I mean, come on, American Girl. You named your new “historical” doll Courtney. I know so many Courtneys.
Courtneys lived up the street from me. Courtneys pledged my sorority. Courtneys starred in “Friends.” They walk among us! Unlike Felicity and Addy, which really felt like names from a bygone era.
But I just checked with the Social Security Administration, and though Courtney was a super-popular name during my childhood, peaking as the 17th-most-common name given to girls in both 1990 and 1995, it barely registers these days. In 2017, the most recent year for which data is available, Courtney was the 950th-mostpopular name for girls. There were only 277 Courtneys born that year, compared to 12,772 in 1995.
So maybe Courtney a historical name?
Is this like when I wanted to go as a hippie for Halloween in eighth grade because I’d just learned about them in history class, and instead of heading out for a packaged costume, I just dug to the back of my mom’s closet?
“This looks just like they wore in my history book!” I remember telling her as I pulled out a flowy white top.
I think she sprouted three new gray hairs in response. Now I’m the one tweezing gray hairs in front of my bathroom mirror.
And you’re holding the mirror up to me.
Maybe that’s what old friends do. Maybe, if this older version of me wrote to Tripp today, she’d say it’s time for a new generation to love and learn from these American Girls.
Maybe I write to her. I wonder if she’s on Twitter.