''Dolls of Our Lives'' (formerly ''American Girls Podcast'') is a

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...

hosted by Allison Horrocks and Mary Mahoney in which the hosts revisit the

American Girl American Girl is an American line of dolls released on May 5, 1986, by Pleasant Company. The dolls portray eight- to fourteen-year-old boys and girls of a variety of ethnicities, faiths, and social classes from different time periods throughou ...

book series they loved as children. In each episode, Horrocks and Mahoney discuss one book from the series, contextualizing the story presented and drawing connections with elements of pop culture, including

Fyre Festival Fyre Festival was a fraudulent luxury music festival founded by con artist Billy McFarland and rapper Ja Rule. It was created with the intent of promoting the company's Fyre app for booking music talent. The festival was scheduled to take pla ...

Britney Spears Britney Jean Spears (born December 2, 1981) is an American singer. Often referred to as the " Princess of Pop", she is credited with influencing the revival of teen pop during the late 1990s and early 2000s. After appearing in stage productio ...

, and The Bachelor. They are proceeding through the series chronologically in history, starting with Felicity Merriman, a character set in the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...

. Horrocks and Mahoney were inspired to start the American Girls podcast while studying for their Ph.Ds in history at the

University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from Hart ...

, where they became friends and bonded over their mutual love for the American Girl series. They met many other women who had been inspired by the books, and the podcast launched in February 2019. Horrocks, a park ranger at

Lowell National Historical Park Lowell National Historical Park is a National Historical Park of the United States located in Lowell, Massachusetts. Established in 1978 a few years after Lowell Heritage State Park, it is operated by the National Park Service and comprises a g ...

in Lowell, Massachusetts, and Mahoney, Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities at

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

in Hartford, Connecticut, produce episodes twice a month. The podcast has received positive attention from publications like ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', the ''

Los Angeles Review of Books The ''Los Angeles Review of Books'' (''LARB'' is a literary review magazine covering the national and international book scenes. A preview version launched on Tumblr in April 2011, and the official website followed one year later in April 2012. ...

' Podcast Review'', A.V. Club,

Marie Claire ''Marie Claire'' is a French international monthly magazine first published in France in 1937, followed by the United Kingdom in 1941. Since then various editions are published in many countries and languages. The feature editions focus on wo ...

, ''Book Riot'', and the ''

Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Philip ...

''. The podcast has been lauded by ''Book Riot'' for its thorough analysis, by the ''Paris Review'' for its combination of pop culture and historical commentary, and by the ''Los Angeles Review of Books' Podcast Review'' for "modelling the type of friendship listeners value, hope for, and vicariously participate in." Margaret Lyons writes for the ''New York Times'' that Horrocks and Mahoney are "funny and knowledgeable" and address expansive topics: "The hosts toss off St. Augustine quotes, but also deeply engage with '

The Bachelorette A bachelorette is an unmarried woman. Bachelorette may also refer to: Film and television * ''The Bachelorette'', a reality television dating show part of ''The Bachelor'' franchise with numerous versions: ** ''The Bachelorette'' (American TV ser ...

,' wonder whether

Ben Franklin Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading intell ...

’s propagandist side would have flourished in a

context and discuss the history of

neurasthenia Neurasthenia (from the Ancient Greek νεῦρον ''neuron'' "nerve" and ἀσθενής ''asthenés'' "weak") is a term that was first used at least as early as 1829 for a mechanical weakness of the nerves and became a major diagnosis in North A ...

when Felicity’s mother falls ill with an unnamed disease." A book by the hosts ''Dolls of Our Lives: Why We Can't Quit American Girl'' was announced in April 2023. The book is being published by Macmillan Publishing and will release November 7, 2023.

References

External links

* {{American Girl 2019 podcast debuts American Girl History podcasts Audio podcasts American podcasts