American Girl Turns 40 in 2026: Why the Dolls Still Matter to Grown Women Today
On a recent bus commute into New York City, I met a woman from my neighborhood who runs a small side hustle restoring American Girl dolls. She described repairing frayed hair, sourcing garments, and cleaning dolls that had been passed down or rediscovered long after their original purchase. Her clients, she told me, are almost entirely adults. The conversation was a reminder that American Girl dolls are not just for kids. As we approach its 40th anniversary in 2026, the brand’s most passionate fans are all grown up, never fully letting go of the stories, characters, and emotional imprint these dolls leave behind.
After all, American Girl was never just a toy. It was a first best friend for many, an impactful history lesson that actually stuck, or a mirror that made girlhood feel major. When educator and entrepreneur Pleasant Rowland launched the brand in 1986, she didn’t set out to create another fashion doll. Instead, she paired 18-inch dolls with chapter books that centered girls as the protagonists of American history. From immigrant girls, working-class girls, and girls living through war, injustice, and change, the books that came with the dolls were both fragments of history, as well as a young girl’s intro to cultural points of view.
RELATED: Calling All American Girl Fans! The OG Samantha Parkington Doll Is *Finally* Back
Characters like Addy Walker, introduced in 1993, confronted slavery and freedom head-on. Others dealt with poverty, disability, grief, and social upheaval. And these weren’t sanitized narratives. Rather, they were age-appropriate but honest, and they invited empathy at a formative age.
Doll owners tell us that the impact of their American Girl didn’t disappear as they grew up. It aged with them. SheKnows food editor Kenzie Maestro recalls having a Felicity Merriman, whose story was set in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia in 1774. She had an adventurous spirit and loved horses. SheKnows editor Jacquelyn Greenfield had three American Girl dolls as a child, and now, five in her adulthood.
How American Girl Resonates Today
Today, American Girl lives in hand-me-down dolls, collector communities, TikTok restorations, and parents quietly hoping their own kids will fall just as hard. I know mine just did in time for Christmas. We took our two daughters to the American Girl doll store in Manhattan for the first time ever a month ago (my 6-year-old is pictured below), and they both fell hard instantly, and ran home to make additions to their Christmas lists for Santa: an American Girl doll who looks like me, an American Girl doll kitchen, and American Girl doll bathroom, an American Girl doll gymnastics set made the final cut. I placed the order just before the supposed “guaranteed” cutoff so I can get them in time for the holiday. But as these things sometimes go, I just found out yesterday that the shipment wouldn’t make it in time for Christmas. (I’ll save that ordeal for a future post as a cautionary tale.)
But beyond the nostalgia, I noticed during my visit to the store that the brand has expanded to include more contemporary characters, more customizable dolls, and broader representation, reflecting a world that looks very different from 1986. You can now “Create Your Own Doll” and customize hair, eyes, skin, and more. There are also themed American Girl dolls; we spotted ones that looked like Glinda and Elphaba from “Wicked,” for instance. There are boy dolls, too.
And while these dolls and their corresponding accessories and playsets carry a heavy price tag, I love the fact that the American Girl can help children slow down, play with intention, read, imagine, and sit with stories that have stakes. For its 40th, there’s so much to celebrate about this brand beyond the doll itself.