There have been signs that the Historical characters are going to get a refresh this year - from listing of new books for Julie, the shrinking of current Historical collections, among other things. But I also realized something that makes a 2024 Historical Character refresh likely...
In 2014, the Historical Characters were rebranded to BeForever.
In 2019, the Historical branding was restored, new book formatting was introduced, and the collections of the core Historicals at the time (Kaya, Rebecca, Nanea, Maryellen, Melody and Julie) were refreshed and given new items.
Since so many new historicals have been released since 2019, as well as there being less items for the older ones, I believe a refresh is imminent if AG wants to release more Historicals in the future. American Girl's current core historicals, if we are to guess from the American Girl Live in Concert musical (which 2018-19's AG Live mostly predicted), are Claudie, Melody, Julie, Courtney and Nicki/Isabel.
This leaves one to be kept in the core line of products, and if I am going to take a wild guess, it's either going to be Kaya or Nanea. American Girl usually doesn't like to take dolls of color or different religions out of the core lineup until they introduce a new historical character of a similar background. For example, Addy was cubed around the same time Melody released, and Rebecca's collection started dwindling around the time Isabel and Nicki released. However, this rule can also work with Girls of the Year, as Josefina was cubed during Luciana's availability. However, so far I haven't heard of any new Native American historicals or Asian/Pacific Islander historicals being in the works, so my guess is that Nanea will be kept, as she is newer, and AG might release a new Native American character in the future.
What do you think?
I'm so excited to see what happens in the future with American girl. I'm a little nervous too. I know would probably not do this, but I wish they would bring back all the historical characters' old accessories! (Maybe they will do that! I mean American girl would make more money off of it, too.😂)
I wish they'd bring back *all* of the historicals and rotate their collections so that every year you could get a doll, an outfit, a cool accessory (not the silly meet accessories that are just bags and hankies) and a big item like a bed that might rotate every 2 or 3 years. Keep the available collections tight so people don't feel overwhelmed with choices, and it would have a limited edition feel without being truly limited. They make all the modern junk, why not a nice historical accessory for each time period? I honestly don't believe that there isn't a market for the historical items, they have just ignored that sector for a few years. I'd love to see…
so the problem with releasing modern historicals is they don't feel as interesting or classy. And I don't think they sell as good when they're a modern GOTY. I wish AG would never retire their first 5 dolls ever again though. Older dolls would sell, because it's more interesting than today or recent history. The fashion to me is much better too.
I think it would be weird to have a modern Native and get rid of their traditional one because I would imagine it's way more special for them to keep their traditions and otherwise many of them became regular Americans, not all that historical.
I think AG is going to retire Kaya and make a new modern Native American. Or they maybe are adding Pocahontas to the Disney line. But I agree, a historical refresh is probably coming.
Having a new indigenous historical character would be fascinating. This could mean they could be focusing on the 19th century since there tons of history of native Americans in the 1800’s. They could focus on the Indian residential schools, the Trail of Tears, or the Lewis and Clark expedition.
I also think maybe all the pre-beforever characters will revert back to their original meets. Maybe they will bring back the six book format as well. They did say special releases. One of them is when Kirsten gets rereleased.