Addy Walker: A Complicated Legacy

Emmalia Harrington
11 minutes ago
13 min read

On January 31st, I participated in Costumers of Color's CoCoNoir Symposium, a day of online lectures about Black American fashion history. Me being me, I also wanted to talk about dolls. I have a lot of thoughts on Addy, so she was the most logical subject for me to talk about. My speech is below. Do note some of my lines are prompts for me to change my powerpoint slides, which aren't featured here.

Introduction

Addy Walker is both a doll and fictional character. She debuted in 1993 as the first Black doll and fifth historical character produced by Pleasant Company. In 1998, Pleasant Company was sold to Mattel, and renamed American Girl. Intellectual property such as Addy’s franchise, was transferred to American Girl.

The Addy doll, her books, and her merchandise, were designed to teach young girls about the American Civil War and Reconstruction. Addy’s clothing reflects mid-1860s styles, particularly a well-dressed, working-class girl.

As a character, her story begins in 1864, when she’s about 9-years-old. In her introductory book, she’s an enslaved girl who faces heartbreak after heartbreak. Her father and brother are sold away. Addy and her mother leave her aunt, uncle, and baby sister behind as they escape north to freedom. Books two through six follow Addy as she settles in Philadelphia, experiences joy and loss, and learns freedom from enslavement isn’t the same as freedom from injustice.

My Personal History with Addy

I was not expecting to get an Addy doll. My mom was adamant one Pleasant Company doll was enough. When I wanted a friend for my Kirsten, mom handed me a rag doll already in my collection. I didn’t care whether Kirsten’s friend was cloth or vinyl, so I was satisfied.

When we learned the company was producing Addy, my mom ordered her that very day. I didn’t understand. What happened to “Kirsten is enough?” I remember voicing my confusion, but I don’t remember mom’s answer.

Now that I’m older, I get it. Mom’s white and my dad’s Black Indian. When I was younger, they were both very keen on teaching me and helping to celebrate my paternal heritage. This included getting me Black dolls as well as white and Indigenous ones. Getting me Addy meant getting me more representation.

When my Addy arrived, she became fast friends with my Kirsten. Since she came with her introductory book Meet Addy, I wasted no time diving into it. This is when things got weird.

My dad had already taught me the shittiness of American slavery through books, TV shows, and parent-child discussions. I was also familiar with escape narratives.

Reading Meet Addy was tame in comparison. It was only when researching for this presentation that I learned the worm-eating scene made a deep impression on other readers. While I remember that scene, it was one of several unpleasant experiences Addy had in the book.

The first one or two times my mom saw me read Meet Addy, she tried to turn them into teaching moments. She’d look over my shoulder, see an illustration for the current scene, and tried to instill in me how much Addy, and by extension other enslaved people, endured.

At eight years old, I did not have the words to voice my thoughts to Mom. If I did, I would have reminded her that Dad had been teaching me this subject for years. That Dad had been buying videos of Roots, and I’d already seen the Kunta Kinte and Kizzy episodes. This was not a brand-new subject for me.

The Queen Bee

Circa 2015-2017, I was mulling over the American Girl books I read as a kid. Things I didn’t notice when I was the target age stood out to me now. This included Addy as the company’s sole representation of Black American history.I joined an American Girl collector's forum someone recommended as a good place to discuss these thoughts. This forum was operated by someone I'll call Queen Bee. Addy was her favorite doll and franchise in the company. Due to Queen Bee's adoration, the forum had unofficial rules regarding Addy.1. Addy's franchise is beyond reproach.2. All must play with Addy and her merchandise in ways Queen Bee approves of.3. Any who try to criticize the franchise will be verbally eviscerated. The same with those who play with Addy products in ways Queen Bee dislikes.Why did Queen Bee love this franchise so much? Her reasons were similar to Addy's early marketing. She runs away! She goes to school! She has career ambitions!This place was not great for those who wanted to analyze issues in Addy's franchise and how it could do better. I tried, as did others. We got shouted down.I don’t dislike Addy as a character. What I do have issue with is how Pleasant Company, then later American Girl, handled her.

Addy the Token

I found two interpretations for Addy’s creation. One is related to the Rodney King protests and related unrest. Creating a line featuring a Black doll and Black American history would help build self-respect in Black girls, and understanding in non-Black girls. The less high-minded interpretation is Pleasant Company realizing there is a market for Black dolls. After producing four white dolls, coming out with a Black doll might have seemed less “risky.”

Regardless of the reason, Pleasant Company had a dominantly white staff. Making a doll representing Black American history had to be done very carefully to avoid backlash. The company assembled an advisory panel made of Black historians and academics to help with the creation process.

The board that decided Pleasant Company’s first Black doll should represent the mid-1860s. Their reasoning was slavery’s profound impact on American history, especially Black history. Learning about slavery would better teach the target audience about the whys and wherefores about more modern history. Putting the doll’s story during the Civil War era would show Black American survival as a massive accomplishment.

As for the doll herself, the board spent over a year looking over prototypes and giving feedback. Less fraught suggestions included giving Addy a gap between her upper front teeth.

Addy’s hair however, was a big debate topic. Stick straight hair on Black dolls was common at the time. The company wanted Addy to follow suit, as they thought young girls would struggle playing with curly or coily hair. The board said if Addy gets straight hair, the books would need to explain to their audience how Black children with straight hair were conceived. The compromise was textured hair resembling stretched out coily hair. This photograph from 1855 shows a Black girl with a similar texture.

Despite hiring a Black advisory board, author, and illustrators, Pleasant Company’s whiteness reared its head in not-so-great ways. Along with Addy’s hair, the company was frequently at odds with Melodye Rosales, the first illustrator they hired.

Rosales' illustrations show Black characters in a range of tones. Addy's Poppa is light brown, and her Aunt Ida is light skinned with red hair and green eyes. Meanwhile, Addy, her siblings, her Momma, and her uncle are darker. When Addy attends school, her classmates also come in varying shades of brown. In other words, Rosales used her art to portray colorism and the one drop rule.

Pleasant Company did not want to look at color nuances in Addy's story. Rosales butted heads over and over with the company's art staff and CEO about this. Thanks to an ally in the advisory board, Rosales was able to convince the company to keep her illustrations as is.

The compromise didn't last. Rosales was dismissed after illustrating the third book. After Rosales, the Black characters turned a uniform shade of brown. Even illustrations for the first three books were replaced with monochromatic Black characters.

Pleasant Company’s only Black girl was Addy. American Girl did not release an additional Black historical doll until 2011. For eighteen years, the target audience only got to see one facet of Black American history, which included slavery. Yes, Addy and the rest of her family escape or are otherwise freed, and most of them reunite. This does not erase the emotional, societal, and physical slavery-related scars her family endures throughout her books.

White historical characters like Kirsten and Molly also face loss and hardship. They also get lighter, lower stakes storylines like chasing a runaway dog or a book-spanning capture the flag game. None of the white characters get scenes like Addy and the worms.

Addy being the only Black historical doll among four, then five, then even more white historical dolls carried unfortunate implications. One is that Black American history is not as complex as white-centric history, and only needs one doll. The second is that Black Americans are a monolith, that our ancestors all have the same backstory, lived in the same parts of the United States, spoke the same dialects, had the same religion, etc. etc. All Black Americans are alike is a stereotype that won’t go away. Tokenism doesn’t help.

Another unfortunate implication is the company only sold Addy because they felt Black dolls are not as marketable as other dolls. Rowland herself said in 1993 that “middle class Black consumers” don’t buy as much from companies like hers. Addy’s first author, Connie Porter, said the company was taking a financial risk with the doll.

The sales argument falls flat given other Black dolls the company sold and still sell. Before Addy, the company sold Black baby dolls in a different toy line. After Addy, they continued to sell Black baby dolls as well as Black modern girl dolls. To say nothing of other doll companies like Barbie, Magic Attic Club, Global Friends, Hearthsong’s halfpenny dolls, etc.

As for who would buy Black dolls, there are children who want to see themselves represented, adults who want that for their children, and non-Black people who want more color in their collections.

It should be noted that the Black historical doll released in 2011 was Cecile Rey, a free girl of color from 1850s New Orleans. She was archived in 2014, and hasn’t been rereleased. Addy remained the Black token until 2016, when the company released Melody Ellison. Though Addy was no longer a token, Melody represented 1960s Detroit and the Civil Rights Movement.

The American Civil War and the mid-20^th century Civil Rights Movement were major turning points in Black American history. However, Black Americans have existed for centuries. We did not magically appear for a decade here or there, only to vanish into the ether so white Americans can get more attention.

There are many periods, places, and scenarios American Girl could cover, Black history wise. A Black Edwardian girl from a middle-class family, who’s pressured to become one of the Talented Tenth. A girl who joins Jack and Jill in its early years, which changes her views on friendship and community. A girl born in a maroon town, who befriends a recently escaped girl.

So many possibilities, that we don’t get.

Addy’s Attire

Addy’s family is working class. All the adults work, and Addy helps her mother part time at the sewing shop. Her clothing is stylish where possible, though there’s only so much her family can afford in terms of materials. In universe, her seamstress mother makes her pretty clothes. Sometimes they’re made from shop scraps. One of Addy’s dresses is of fine material a customer ordered but no longer wanted.

In the meta sense, Addy’s seamstress mother justifies how a girl of limited means can have so many pretty clothes consumers can buy for their own dolls.

By the time Addy was archived, she had over twenty outfits. To keep consumer interest, many outfits retired and new ones took their place. As I kid, I didn’t think too hard about historical accuracy. I figured the creators knew what they were doing. Now, I’m still sure the company made an effort, but manufacturing costs, logistics, and artistic license were more important.

Let’s take a look at some of her collection.

Pink Dress

We’ll start with her original default dress. This dress premiered with the doll in 1993, and was retired in 2014 in favor of a different design.

This dress has a pink background marketed as “cinnamon pink.” It’s decorated with vertical wavy white lines interspersed with dots. Keeping with 1860s fashion, there’s a round waistline, dropped shoulders, and mother of pearl buttons. While big pagoda sleeves were stylish at this time, narrow coat sleeves like we see here were more practical for day-to-day life.

The skirt is not as full as was common even in working class dresses of the time. It hangs limp, as petticoats came separately, and were a later part of Addy’s collection. The narrower skirt and missing petticoats were likely a business choice to reduce overhead.

Take a note of Addy’s self-fabric collar and buttons falling from neckline to hem. Most collars of this period were detachable and made of white material. This helped protect the dress neckline from wear and tear, made laundering the collar easier, and allowed collars to coordinate with multiple outfits. In almost every extant 1860s dress and fashion plate I’ve seen, buttons don’t go lower than the waist. I thought these two details were artistic license.

Then, when researching for this lecture, I saw this dress by Elizabeth Keckley. For those who don’t know, Keckley was an enslaved dressmaker who bought her and her son's freedom in 1855. She moved to Washington D.C. and started a thriving dressmaking business. After being introduced to Mary Todd Lincoln, Keckley became Lincoln's primary dressmaker.

Keckley’s designs are known for clean lines, simplified shapes, and eye for detail. Her green plaid dress looks quite different from Addy's striped pink, but they share decorative elements. Both have a row of buttons from neckline to hem as a focal point, self-fabric belted waists, and self-fabric collars.

I'm not sure if Keckley's dress inspired Addy's Meet dress, but coincidence or not, this is worth sharing.

Christmas Dress

In Addy’s third, Christmas themed book, her mother sewed this for a client’s daughter, who had a growth spurt between the dress’ creation and completion. Addy inherits the dress and wears it to church at the end of the book.

The full skirt, dropped shoulders, and large scale green plaid match trends from this period. In addition to the Keckley dress, the Metropolitan Museum of Art also has an example of big green plaid. The original catalogue description says the dress is made of taffeta. This weave shows up in fancier dresses of the era, including those for children.

As for artistic license, look at the white portion which fills in the dress’ upper neckline. It’s sewn into the dress rather than a separate accessory. Chemisettes, or camisole-like neckline fillers, were separate garments at this time. This made laundering easier, and allowed the wearer to use one chemisette for multiple outfits. I’ve never seen examples of integral chemisettes, or a chemisette paired with a short-sleeved dress.

My guess is the company wanted to add extra decoration to this dress, but didn’t see the purpose of a mix and match accessory. Addy had only two other outfits at this time, both of them high necked. A chemisette wouldn’t have worked with either of them.

During this period, Swiss waists were popular. These were wide, separate waistbands with a structured interior and a big rhombus shape in front and back. Some versions have tails, but I don’t think they resemble sashes. I’m guessing Addy’s sash is there for adornment, and a soft fabric rectangle is easier to mass produce than a stiffened rhombus-rectangle hybrid.

Short sleeves were common in period for both adult evening dress and girl's ordinary and fancy dress. I've seen many examples of puffed sleeves from this period, including ones that are layered and resembling ruffled disks, and those with spherical puffs. Addy's sleeves are both round and sport a single ruffle each.

When I was the target age for the American Girl franchise, I adored dressing little girl style high femme. A full skirted mid-length dress with a sash and short puffy sleeves is the sort of style I enjoyed. American Girl likely chose this design to balance historical and contemporary, familiar yet slightly exotic to their target audience.

Cape Island Dress

This dress isn’t related to Addy’s clothing from her six-book series. It’s a tie in to a side story, Addy’s Summer Place, published in 2003. I’m including this dress because it’s a copy of an 1865 child’s dress from the Wisconsin Historical Society.

Both Addy’s dress and the original have a low neckline, short sleeves, pleated bodice front, and black trim. Addy’s dress is more pinkish orange and the original is more yellowish orange, but the difference is subtle. However, while the original dress likely has trim all around the skirt, Addy’s skirt is only decorated in front.

Underwear

Addy's default underwear is a pair of drawers. Rather than buttoning in place, it has an elastic waist for the convenience of the target demographic. The rest of her underwear was released as merchandise associated with her sixth book. This three piece set consists of a chemise, crinoline, and petticoat.Unlike girls of this period, Addy doesn't get quilted stays or a petticoat with quilted bodice. Both of these would have buttons at various locations where a child could fasten petticoats and drawers. As children are balls of energy and younger ones lack the hips to hold up waistbands, these stays and buttons were practical.However, Addy's clothes need to be designed so they don't look too baggy, but still accommodate the chemise. Bringing stays into the collection could have meant making her dress bodies wider and more awkward looking when she's wearing fewer layers. Stays and corsets are also controversial in this day and age, and the company may have wanted to avoid discussing whether stays are wearable iron maidens crafted by demons, or just underwear.Though most extant Victorian petticoats are white, there were also colorful ones meant to be worn under clothes rather than be seen. Addy's red plaid, as far as I know, is plausible. I'm not a fan of her hoop skirt. I don't know about later editions, but the early version I had wasn't built to last. The wires providing the shape disintegrated within months. Design wise, the crinoline is artistic license. Instead of hoops starting near the waistband and ending at the hem, the only wires were at the hem, encased in a fabric band. I only felt rather than saw them. Addy’s hoop was also circular rather than the elliptical, back focused shape popular in the 1860s. The doll crinoline was probably cheaper to produce, and skirts the same length all the way around looked nice both with and without support.

Conclusion

Addy as a doll or character is not the issue. There was much thought in creating her franchise, aiming for sensitivity, historical accuracy, and a Black doll that wasn’t just a recolored white doll. Addy serves as an educational tool, teaching children about the horrors of slavery and racial injustice in an age appropriate fashion. As a product, she had enough staying power for Pleasant Company, then later American Girl, to keep her on the shelf for decades.

The issue is tokenism, and imposing a white vision onto her and other dolls in the company. White dolls did, and still do, have much more representation in the company than Black and other PoC dolls. While Addy was a trailblazer in the company for BIPoC dolls, for a very long time, she was the only BIPoC doll. Even then, even with the advisory board, the company wanted to exert white ideas of blackness onto her, such as Black people as a single color.

To only praise Addy risks ignoring issues around the doll’s creation and token status. Too much focus on her problematic aspects overlooks her positive impacts. When discussing Addy, we must cover her whole story, not just bits and pieces.