Living in a Material World: Meet Samantha

With this episode, we go back to one of the original American Girl stories: Meet Samantha. Published in the age of Reaganomics, this AG asks a lot of questions from a place of tremendous privilege -- and we are along for the ride. Though she has every material comfort, Samantha, who was orphaned a few years prior, is lonely in the House of Grandmary. Apparently, money only gets her so far, and with this episode, we learn how she navigates new friendships (Nellie), rivalries (Eddie) and the interior lives of people who are employed at the house (Jessie, you deserve more). There may be a faux velvet hat on top of her head, but with a re-read of this book, we learn there's brains, too.

Reading/viewing list:

• Eloise: The Absolutely Essential 60th Anniversary Edition by Kay Thompson

• The Diary of Alice James by Alice James

• Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House Princess to Washington Power Broker by Stacy A. Cordery

• Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits by Linda Gordon

• Bohemian Rhapsody (movie)

• A Forgotten Presidential Candidate From 1904 (George Edwin Taylor)

• Life in 1904: Dying at 47, 4-cent sugar

• Picturing Political Power: Images in the Women’s Suffrage Movement by Allison K. Lange

• Pullman Porters: “Up From the Sleeper Car by A’Lelia Bundles

• Sundown Towns: “The Roots of Route 66” by Candacy Taylor

• How 'The Birth of a Nation' Revived the Ku Klux Klan

• The New Woman

• Guest of Honor: Booker T. Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, and the White House Dinner That Shocked a Nation

Resources:

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