American Girl Samantha grows up with her first fans, as the company turns 40

American Girl is marking its 40th anniversary with a new story for the brand’s iconic Samantha Parkington character. The feature follows a salon-style makeover for Samantha’s dolls, where stylists in New York City recreate period-appropriate hair and styling, trimming bangs and recurling a newer doll. Samantha Parkington, a 9-year-old orphan in the fictional Mount Bedford, New York, in 1904, became one of the most popular American Girl dolls in the 1990s. Author Fiona Davis, 59, wrote adult historical fiction to continue Samantha’s arc, titled Samantha: The Next Chapter. In the novel, set in 1920, Samantha learns her grandmother’s inheritance was stolen and moves from socialite life to shop work, tracing it through glamorous nightlife and criminal-empire headquarters.