In 1983, educator, writer and entrepreneur, Pleasant T. Rowland was looking for dolls to give her nieces for Christmas. Rowland found that the only dolls on the market were baby dolls, such as the Cabbage Patch Kids, and teen/adult dolls, such as Barbie. She could not find dolls that were supposed to represent preteen girls. That shopping experience, coupled with a visit to Colonial Williamsburg, inspired her to create the American Girl line of historical dolls and books.

In 1986 the first catalogs were sent out. They contained the first three dolls in the line: Kirsten Larson, Samantha Parkington, and Molly McIntire. These catalogs featured only the first three stories of each character’s eventual six-book series, as well as their pajamas, beds and trunks. These dolls established the original format of the collections. The first dolls were designed by Götz in Germany; older dolls have tags that say “Made in West Germany.” In the 1990s production was moved to Hungary for a year and then to China.

During the years 1986 through 1998, the company expanded, adding three more historical characters (Felicity Merriman, Addy Walker, and Josefina Montoya), as well as a contemporary magazine American Girl, followed by a line of contemporary 18-inch ‘American Girl of Today’ dolls and the ‘Bitty Baby’ collection for younger girls.
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