Wisdom Wednesdays - Addy Walker
I know this is a single doll and not an entire doll line, but I have a sinking feeling that AG is going to retire Addy Walker soon. They've already cubed her and Samantha, I'm just waiting for them to announce the dreadful news. Addy Walker is a subject of debate (somewhat) among the African American American Girl (I know that there's a better way to say it, but as a child I was strictly told never to call African American people black by my mom, and that is what I still stick to that rule), with some loving her to some outright hating her because of the subject matter and lack of frills on Addy compared to other AG dolls like Samantha.
I haven't read her books, I don't have her doll, so I can't tell you what she or her stories are like. I can only show/tell you what other people say, so keep that in mind.
In the late 1990s, it had become apparent that African American dolls were in demand. In fact, Pleasant Rowland herself wanted to start the American Girl line with an African American girl available, but her reasons were and I quote:
The board decided to place Addy during slavery. They felt that it was the beginning of African American history (which it is) and it was the perfect place to begin for teaching history to children (... not so sure about that part). They spent time looking at everything - head to toe. They spent a year talking about the book and doll prototypes.
The author of the books, Connie Porter, described the process of writing Addy's books as: "
Not only did it have to introduce Addy and her family, it had to introduce slavery, set the initial plot line for six books, and I had to keep in mind that Pleasant Company had multiple tie-ins. There were the books but some of the products being created were also featured in the books—the clothes, accessories, furniture.” She and the advisory board wanted to make sure they didn't whitewash, dress up or make light of slavery like so many others do (sorry, Gone with the Wind, you are one of my favorite films, but you are guilty of this...).
The illustrator had a not as great time. She spoke about how Pleasant Company seemed to be only hiring white people (which I can find true because I've heard stories of American Girl being racist towards African American customers... and isn't it a little supicious that they didn't have statistics of their employee demographics?), people asked her if she was really black, a member of the marketing team thought that Addy would not sell because she was black (echoing Pleasant Rowland's earlier comment), and they did not wish to get into the politics of lighter skinned versus darker skinned African Americans. She even was quoted as saying:
"This is a money venture, this has nothing to do with being sensitive to the community." That was after she got fired and was forced to send the Addy prototype given to her daughter after illustrating only three of the books.
Addy was released in 1993. The rest is history.
What do you think has made Addy get cubed and possibly retired?
I think it has to do with the s word. Slavery. Some people (both white and black) want to forget, move on past slavery. Some parents don't want to expose their kids to it. Children get scarred from it. One author says that a scene in which Addy is forced to eat a worm by the overseer scared her as a child and I don't blame her. There was even a petition in 2013 asking American Girl to discontinue the doll, saying that 'Its [sic] especially disturbing considering that there were many marketing and advertising executives who agreed that this was a great idea! Do you think the American Girl company would ever consider creating a Holocaust survivor doll? The storyline of Addy in search of her brother and father who were sold into slavery should not be considered entertaining on any level. It diminishes the cruelty of slavery and instead glorifies it as some sort of adventurous fantasy! Please help me by asking Ellen Brothers, CEO American Girl and also Mattel Inc. to stop making this doll!.' Now that Melody Ellison has come along, a lot of people have turned to her for their historical African American doll (and she is representing a time of... I want to say triumph but it doesn't feel right, struggle only explains 75 - 80% of what happened during the 1960s). The 1960s was when African Americans fought for their rights, their freedom to be with who and be where they wanted. And they won. A battle that should have never been fought in the first place, but still, it is a more happy (? Can I call it happy?) story than running away from slavery, being forced to be away from your family after suffering years of abuse and praying to whoever will hear that the white people won't force you back down south. Some people don't mind Addy's slavery, they simply find her and her outfits beautiful.
Booker T. Washington says that we should give dolls that look like our children to them so that they can learn to love their heritage and race.
Addy is not an inherently racist doll. Reading the history of black dolls that some of the articles I read harken back to, there were blatant, racist caricature dolls commonly sold to white children with the promise that they could beat them and hurt them all the wanted. I don't know how to feel about that - I feel anger and shame for that even though it was not me doing that, it was my ancestors. Addy is not your Christie Barbie doll (also known as - Barbie that just got painted brown). It took doll companies until the 1990s (the time that Addy was released) to finally see that there was a market (aka MONEY, which is what most companies only care about) for African America dolls.
I can hear you saying right now: Scarlett, why don't you get an Addy doll? I honestly think about it from time to time but I get scared that I will be dishonoring her or her race. See, my Samantha doll is a modern girl who likes to wear the Edwardian/Victorian clothes. I would want Addy to be the same but with civil war era fashions. I would keep some clothes just for her (like how Samantha's special dress goes on only Samantha and how Nanea's outfits go only on Nanea) but I'd want some outfits to mix and match (like the rest of my doll's wardrobe, basically). At the moment, I freak out even thinking about getting a whole, decent wardrobe for my dolls, let alone making space for a fourth girl. I struggle to make sure they all get a good amount of attention. I also don't want to try and get my 'investors' to get me another American Girl doll. I am on the lookout for (hopefully previously loved) AG dolls with textured hair like Addy's. I want to style it for myself and I know that most knock-off brands don't have textured hair for their dolls and just use the same wigs they'd use on their Caucasian dolls.
| As the watermark says. |
I haven't read her books, I don't have her doll, so I can't tell you what she or her stories are like. I can only show/tell you what other people say, so keep that in mind.
How Addy Came to Be
In the late 1990s, it had become apparent that African American dolls were in demand. In fact, Pleasant Rowland herself wanted to start the American Girl line with an African American girl available, but her reasons were and I quote:
“Because typically, middle-class black consumers do not purchase much from direct-mail catalogues." I shook my head at that. Statistics, according to the very publication she got interviewed by, are split on whether or not that is true. Either way, I feel like it is a very thin excuse for not doing it. I really don't think Pleasant Rowland did any research or surveys dealing with to the want for an African American girl doll.
I bet you're sitting there, reading this right now, assuming that Pleasant Rowland was the one who came up with the idea of starting off African American American Girl in the civil war era. No, that's not true.
An advisory board was put together, much like with every other American Girl doll (no matter how historically inaccurate their outfits can be, but that's another story). It was the first formalized one of its kind, in fact, and was composed of Lonnie Bunch (who is the founding director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture and was the first curator at the California African American Museum in 1983 where he stayed until 1989), Cheryl Chisholm (who studied for two years in the field of 'Third World cinema and critical theory' before going to Atlanta and becoming the Atlanta 3rd World Film Festival and the King's Center's Nonviolent Film Festival and has made two films herself before becoming a therapist hoping to help African American women), Spencer Crew (his exhibit in the Smithosian's National Museum of American History titled Field to Factory: An Afro-American Migration 1915 - 1940 inspired a national discussion and served as director of that very museum for 9 years), Violet Harris (who is the associate dean for the University of Illinois at Urbana since 2007 and is wanting to analyze authors and illustators along with publishing trends in children's books and genres in children's book as well as having written books about African American children's book), Wilma King (who wrote
Stolen Childhood: Slave Youth in Nineteenth-Century America in 1995 and holds lectures about African American women and children slaves) June Powell (who worked at the National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center in Ohio) and Janet Sims-Wood (who began her career in the Martin Luther King Junior Memorial Library and taught African American women's history courses at Michigan's state university).
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| Cheryl Chisholm |
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| Violet Harris |
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| Lonnie Bunch |
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| Spencer Crew |
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| Wilma King |
The board decided to place Addy during slavery. They felt that it was the beginning of African American history (which it is) and it was the perfect place to begin for teaching history to children (... not so sure about that part). They spent time looking at everything - head to toe. They spent a year talking about the book and doll prototypes.
The author of the books, Connie Porter, described the process of writing Addy's books as: "
Not only did it have to introduce Addy and her family, it had to introduce slavery, set the initial plot line for six books, and I had to keep in mind that Pleasant Company had multiple tie-ins. There were the books but some of the products being created were also featured in the books—the clothes, accessories, furniture.” She and the advisory board wanted to make sure they didn't whitewash, dress up or make light of slavery like so many others do (sorry, Gone with the Wind, you are one of my favorite films, but you are guilty of this...).
The illustrator had a not as great time. She spoke about how Pleasant Company seemed to be only hiring white people (which I can find true because I've heard stories of American Girl being racist towards African American customers... and isn't it a little supicious that they didn't have statistics of their employee demographics?), people asked her if she was really black, a member of the marketing team thought that Addy would not sell because she was black (echoing Pleasant Rowland's earlier comment), and they did not wish to get into the politics of lighter skinned versus darker skinned African Americans. She even was quoted as saying:
"This is a money venture, this has nothing to do with being sensitive to the community." That was after she got fired and was forced to send the Addy prototype given to her daughter after illustrating only three of the books.
Addy was released in 1993. The rest is history.
What do you think has made Addy get cubed and possibly retired?
I think it has to do with the s word. Slavery. Some people (both white and black) want to forget, move on past slavery. Some parents don't want to expose their kids to it. Children get scarred from it. One author says that a scene in which Addy is forced to eat a worm by the overseer scared her as a child and I don't blame her. There was even a petition in 2013 asking American Girl to discontinue the doll, saying that 'Its [sic] especially disturbing considering that there were many marketing and advertising executives who agreed that this was a great idea! Do you think the American Girl company would ever consider creating a Holocaust survivor doll? The storyline of Addy in search of her brother and father who were sold into slavery should not be considered entertaining on any level. It diminishes the cruelty of slavery and instead glorifies it as some sort of adventurous fantasy! Please help me by asking Ellen Brothers, CEO American Girl and also Mattel Inc. to stop making this doll!.' Now that Melody Ellison has come along, a lot of people have turned to her for their historical African American doll (and she is representing a time of... I want to say triumph but it doesn't feel right, struggle only explains 75 - 80% of what happened during the 1960s). The 1960s was when African Americans fought for their rights, their freedom to be with who and be where they wanted. And they won. A battle that should have never been fought in the first place, but still, it is a more happy (? Can I call it happy?) story than running away from slavery, being forced to be away from your family after suffering years of abuse and praying to whoever will hear that the white people won't force you back down south. Some people don't mind Addy's slavery, they simply find her and her outfits beautiful.
Booker T. Washington says that we should give dolls that look like our children to them so that they can learn to love their heritage and race.
Addy is not an inherently racist doll. Reading the history of black dolls that some of the articles I read harken back to, there were blatant, racist caricature dolls commonly sold to white children with the promise that they could beat them and hurt them all the wanted. I don't know how to feel about that - I feel anger and shame for that even though it was not me doing that, it was my ancestors. Addy is not your Christie Barbie doll (also known as - Barbie that just got painted brown). It took doll companies until the 1990s (the time that Addy was released) to finally see that there was a market (aka MONEY, which is what most companies only care about) for African America dolls.
I can hear you saying right now: Scarlett, why don't you get an Addy doll? I honestly think about it from time to time but I get scared that I will be dishonoring her or her race. See, my Samantha doll is a modern girl who likes to wear the Edwardian/Victorian clothes. I would want Addy to be the same but with civil war era fashions. I would keep some clothes just for her (like how Samantha's special dress goes on only Samantha and how Nanea's outfits go only on Nanea) but I'd want some outfits to mix and match (like the rest of my doll's wardrobe, basically). At the moment, I freak out even thinking about getting a whole, decent wardrobe for my dolls, let alone making space for a fourth girl. I struggle to make sure they all get a good amount of attention. I also don't want to try and get my 'investors' to get me another American Girl doll. I am on the lookout for (hopefully previously loved) AG dolls with textured hair like Addy's. I want to style it for myself and I know that most knock-off brands don't have textured hair for their dolls and just use the same wigs they'd use on their Caucasian dolls.
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| You are beautiful, don't let anyone else say otherwise. |
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