Story URL: http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/washington/news.aspx?id=106859
Story Retrieval Date: 2/9/2010 8:38:28 PM CST
Trial Video Article For Chicago
New nurses find themselves in unhealthy job market
Volunteers in Peace Corps' Arab world programs resign at high rate
Organ harvesting in China still considered a problem by some
Assessing the Department of Homeland Security — Part 1
Assessing the Department of Homeland Security — Part 2
In education reform, some states race from the bottom
Military officials won’t ask, tell about revising gay policy
Experts debate whether cap on Social Security payments hurts retirees
Credit card companies boost rates ahead of new law
Amid protests from the right, seniors in Virginia try to be heard on health care
In defense of animals: Congress questions use of animals in casualty training
A special job: How new doctors choose their specialties in a dwindling economy
Rap video aims to save honeybees
Camp offers helping hand to military families
Lockerbie bomber's early release spurs discussion: Was compassion misplaced?
Veterans still fighting – for health care
How much is the cost of living?
Docs cringe at the thought of painkillers taken off the market
Hello, Soto
Printer-Friendly Version
E-mail This Story
Carson Krislov/MNS
The American Girl doll known as Samantha Parkington is being retired and not everyone is happy
Not all smiles for doll’s retirement
by Carson Lindsey Krislov
Nov 20, 2008
WASHINGTON—After more than 22 years of success, the American Girl doll known as Samantha Parkington is being retired. Samantha is not only the first doll to be retired by the American Girl Company, she is also one of the original three dolls.
Girls, who are now grown young women, are not smiling.
“I yelled to the girl next to me, ‘They’re retiring Samantha!’ and she yelled back, ‘Oh my God, really?’” said Charlotte Birkner about the moment she heard that Samantha was being retired.
“I really thought it deserved a blog post,” said Birkner, who is the blogger behind the blog, LottieB.wordpress.com. In the posting, she pasted a photo of herself as a child with her Samantha doll.
Although Birkner first heard about the retirement from an online advertisement banner, many American Girl customers received a letter from the company announcing Samantha’s retirement.
"A lot of people would want to buy one last item for their collection,” said Ashley Seuell, who was so upset about the retirement that she wrote a letter to the company. “I got back a form response…it just said, we want to preserve her place, so we want to put her in the American Girl Archive.”
Seuell compares American Girl’s response retirement something else she remembers from childhood: “That’s like saying peanut butter and jelly is a very popular sandwich, we’re going to get rid of peanut butter and discontinue it so that everyone can look back fondly on their memories of once having eaten it, but you can’t eat it any more."
In a phone interview, an American Girl spokesperson said that Samantha may come out of the archives at a future date. Since its founding in 1986, American Girl has sold more than 14 million dolls, and Samantha has always been a top seller. While the doll is being archived, the books aren’t going anywhere.
“She has been a sturdy stalwart character from the beginning and I think they had confidence in her, to continue to delight and educate little girls,” said Valerie Tripp, the author of many of the American Girl books, including three Samantha books.
While Tripp said she cannot speak for the company, she said, “I think what they’re trying to do is expand and show us other periods of time that we haven’t read about yet.”
The company has said that a new historical character doll will be released next year.
