Media Mentions
American Girl & Me
By Margaret Lyons, The New York Times / August 23, 2019
“We laugh; we learn. ‘Felicity is a young girl living in colonial Virginia,’ Horrocks says on the first episode. ‘Her father is a shopkeeper, and her mother is a buzzkill.’ That’s when I knew the podcast would provide me hours of delights, which it has.”
‘American Girl’ Talk
By Kelly M. Vaughan, Trinity College
“Trinity College alumnae Allison Horrocks ’09 and Mary Mahoney ’09 have found a way to tie together their childhood passion and their professions as historians.”
American Girl Dolls Explore the Strange History of… the 80s
Bill Radke, KUOW / September 23, 2020
“Remember American Girl dolls? There was the colonial era one, the formerly enslaved one, the suffragette one – and now there’s one from 1986, whose historical trappings include a Heathers poster and trips to the mall.”
Promising Yet Precarious: The State of Podcasting Amid the Pandemic
Jenny McGrath, Digital Trends / March 26, 2020
“The two historians have always mixed their expertise with pop culture while rereading historical books.”
The Wild World of American Girls
Brianna Beehler, Podcast Review (A Los Angeles Review of Books Channel) / January 24, 2020
“Friendship is also a recurring theme in the books, and Mahoney and Horrocks spend a lot of time discussing how characters fail (see: Felicity) and succeed as friends.”
Staff Picks: Dolls, Dakar, and Doomsday Preppers
Elinor Hitt, Paris Review / January 24, 2020
“Re-examining the historical fiction series that accompanies the dolls, one book at a time, the podcast is part Ph.D.-level history, part pop-culture analysis. Mahoney and Horrocks playfully manage to keep listeners up to date on The Bachelor while also addressing the misrepresentation of slavery and indigenous people in American children’s literature. But the hosts’ chemistry carries them further than the content. They let conversation wander blissfully away from the topic at hand, allowing us a moment, as women, to just enjoy still being girls.”
How The American Girl Dolls Inspired A Cult Podcast
Cassandra Basler, WSHU / December 23, 2019
American Girl Is In Free Fall
Elizabeth Segran, Fast Company / December 17, 2019
It’s a(n American) Girl Thing
Julie Bartucca, UConn Today / December 4, 2019
“They’ve managed to tap into the nostalgia of 30-somethings for the books and dolls that in many ways defined their youth, and not only explore the historical context of each book but create a community.”
5 Bookish Podcasts We Discovered in 2019
Claire Handscombe, Book Riot / November 24, 2019
“Hosts Allison Horrocks and Mary Mahoney are historians and they bring their finely tuned eyes for details to a truly important subject: the history-centered American Girl books and dolls.”
The Best New Podcasts of 2019
Alexis Jones, Kayleigh Roberts and Bianca Rodriguez, Marie Claire / October 28, 2019
“Hosts Allison Horrocks, and Mary Mahoney reflect on the American Girl dolls and books you loved as a kid. Episodes ask questions like: ‘Could Samantha hack it as a social media influencer?’ and ‘What could Felicity learn from Janet Jackson?’ It's such an odd but hilarious mix of the '90s and 2019.”
These two women developed their love of history while studying at Trinity and UConn. Now, they’re bringing it to life through a podcast about the American Girl dolls
Emily Brindley, The Hartford Courant / October 12, 2019
“The two women’s easy on-air banter — they’re best friends in real life, too — combined with the sometimes-heavy topics that the American Girl books bring up has spurred many listeners to reach out to the show with their own personal stories.”
Podmass: 9 Podcasts You Should Listen to This Week
A.V. Club / September 23, 2019
“The historical-fiction doll zeitgeist of the ’90s is dredged for feminist close reads, biting commentary, and batshit fanfic.”
Q&A: American Girl, NYT, and Mahoney and Horrocks’ Podcast Success
University of Connecticut Department of History / September 21, 2019
The Best New Podcasts for the Week of August 31, 2019
By Jenny McGrath, Digital Trends / September 9, 2019
“Now that Horrocks and Mahoney have their Ph.D.s in history, they can reread the books with fresh (and professional) insight and humor, along with a dash of pop culture. You wouldn’t think the Fyre Festival has much in common with the pre-Revolutionary War era, but Ben Franklin was an influencer in his day.”
How the American Girl Dolls Inspired a Cult Podcast
By Cassandra Basler, WSHU / December 23, 2019
“‘What if we did a podcast about American Girl?” Mahoney remembers the response was overwhelming. “All these women showed up at our conference, really just to have a space to tell their stories.”
American Girl’s New ‘80s Doll is All About Pac-Man, Divorce and the Challenger Explosion
By Rita Dorsch, CBR / September 22, 2020
Dolls, Books, and ‘The Bachelor’
By Diti Kohli, Boston Globe / October 18, 2020
“The pair of trained historians revisit the novels they read as children and analyze them from a feminist point of view. Mahoney and Horrocks trace the American Girls' timeline, starting with Colonial Virginia heroine Felicity, to their current dissection of Edwardian era Samantha.”
Our American Girls
By Julie (Stagis) Bartucca, UConn Magazine / July 2, 2021
“What do you do with a history doctorate and a pop culture obsession? If you’re these two alums, you create a hit podcast centering on ’90s nostalgia.”
Why Are Millennials Still Attached to American Girl?
By Lizzie Feidelson, The New Yorker / November 17, 2023
“While reading Horrocks and Mahoney’s book, I was reminded of Taylor Swift, another powerhouse brand inextricably bound to the millennial cultural and economic zeitgeist, as well as to its understanding of girlhood. Like American Girl, she’s huge in multiple senses, both mind-bendingly popular and remarkably capacious, offering her fans evolving opportunities for identification and inviting them to participate in the storytelling.”
How American Girl dolls became a part of American Culture
By Juana Summers, Tyler Bartlam, and Justine Kenin, NPR / December 11, 2023
“That's Allison Horrocks and Mary Mahoney, two historians and friends. And they're talking about the American Girl doll Molly McIntire, one of the original 18-inch dolls released by Pleasant Company. She is a 9-year-old World War II patriot whose father is away at war. Horrocks and Mahoney host a popular podcast that dives into the historical fiction series book by book but also musings on today's pop culture like "The Bachelor" and deep conversations about which of the OG American Girl dolls may have been queer.”
Friday Five on Toy Tales
With Joanna Hauser, Toy Tales / December 15, 2023
BOOK MEDIA
The Dolls of Our Lives - Anne Helen Peterson’s Substack interview
All Dolled Up - The American Scholar
ADDITIONAL MENTIONS
American Girl dolls: Where the brand has both championed and failed America’s girls - by Abby Snyder (February 2022)
Which Historical Lesbian Bars Would American Girl Dolls Have Visited? - by Yashwina (January 2022)
Were you a Kit or a Samantha? What your American Girl doll said about you - by Danielle Campoamour (November 2021)
Millennials Grow Up, But American Girl is Forever - by Maura Brannigan (November 2020)
How an American Girl Mallrat Reimagines Gaming’s Past - by Carly Kocurek (October 2020)
American Girl dolls explore the strange history of… the 80s - by Bill Radke (September 2020)