American Girl & Japanese Friendship Dolls
I’ve been researching the Japanese Friendship doll exchange of 1927 recently and find it really interesting. I found it cool that American Girl actually has a small history with the project! Along with publishing an article about it in American Girl magazine in 1997, AG dolls have actually been used as modern friendship doll ambassadors! The originator of the project in the 1920s was Sydney Gulick. In the ‘90s and 2000s, his grandson seems to have continued his mission by giving new American dolls to schools and organizations in Japan. As you can see from this list of new friendship dolls, many of them look to be Pleasant Company dolls! You can learn more about them by clicking their pictures and reading their pages.