For many young people, getting an American Girl doll is a rite of passage. Originally developed as a way to teach American history to children, the dolls often lived through tragedies or complicated moments in history, all detailed in the accompanying books that are an essential part of the American Girl Doll experience. Among others, there is Addy, a fugitive slave who escapes to Philadelphia with her mother during the Civil War; Samantha, an orphan whose parents died in a boating accident, and her best friend Nellie, who is a child laborer; and Josefina, who grew up in New Mexico in 1824, a few years before the Mexican-American war.
Now that a whole generation of girls who grew up with the dolls are adults themselves, it’s not surprising that they’re experiencing a sort of renaissance. Grown-ups can be frequently found partying at the American Girl Doll cafes, and American Girl Doll meme accounts that place the dolls in modern historic moments have gone viral for bringing a dose of levity to our everyday, increasingly unhinged lives. (A recent favorite: “We need an American Girl Doll who witnessed the FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago”).
The New York Times best-selling author Brit Bennett, who wrote The Mothers and The Vanishing Half, is one such fan. “My sister and I grew up playing with the dolls,” Bennett told me over Zoom recently. “They had a software where you could write your own plays using the character, and we put on a play at the public library that was an American Girl–themed play.” Bennett was tapped to write the story for a new character, Claudie, a young girl living through the Harlem Renaissance. “I knew that I wanted to write about this boarding house in Harlem because it felt sort of weirdly paralleled to this moment we’re currently living through. These people were coming out of a pandemic, these people were coming out of a war. You’re in this moment where you’ve experienced this cataclysmic event and then life just kept going, and what happened next?” Claudie lives in a boardinghouse with her mother (who is a reporter), her baker father, and a younger brother and is surrounded by a group of creatives that also share the home—a musician, a painter, and a vaudeville singer, among others.
Further bringing the concept of the American Girl doll to the 21st century is the wardrobe of special outfits created in collaboration with Harlem’s Fashion Row and Sammy B designer Samantha Black. (American Girl Doll will also be donating $100,000 in funds and products to Harlem School of the Arts and its HSA Prep program, which provides training in the arts to students aged 12 to 18.)
“My favorite doll was Samantha, and I loved her initially just because she had my name,” Black recalled, laughing over Zoom. She created three outfits for Claudie, each capturing the essence of 1920s Harlem and combining with her own zeal for bold colors and relatable shapes. “When I think of the Harlem Renaissance, I think of glam. Whether people were poor or rich, they showed their creativity through their sense of style.”
The first look—a blue satin dress with lace detail, a shaggy white coat, and black patent-leather sandals—is a traditional take on the era’s style and came after hours of research. A second look—a short skater-style dress with a sheer cape, sandals with bows at the toes, and a crown, all done in exquisite gold sequin embroidery—will inevitably become the favorite look of every girl who gets her hand on it. “I wanted that to be the absolute wow moment,” Black said. “We can all have our wow moments from any age. You should feel wow as a little girl because then you’ll grow up understanding self-care, understanding self-importance, and always making sure that you feel like you’re the best.”
The last look—a silver sequined sweater with faux-fur detail at the neck and cuffs paired with a pleated pearl satin skirt with silver sequined details, sparkly black tights, black patent-leather Mary Janes, and a matching silver sequined headband—is rooted in her own holiday outfits as a child. “I feel like every little girl has this kind of outfit. It reminded me of getting ready as a child [to see family].” She added, “I thought, What would a little girl like to see? But also, What would I like a little girl to see?”
For both Black and Bennett, seeing the doll feels a little like coming full circle. “I’m really excited for my parents to see it because they were with us in the American Girl trenches when we were looking through the catalog every Christmas and circling what we wanted,” Bennett said. “And they were dutifully trying to find a way to make this happen.” Black added, “I wanted a doll for so long, and when I finally got one, I was like, Oh, my gosh, I couldn’t even touch it. It sat there like a trophy. So I feel really honored to be a part of such an iconic brand but also to enter this world and show all the young girls like me that we can be a part of this in an even deeper way that I never even imagined.”