The Science of American Girl Dolls

In my chemistry class, we got to write about the science of something that we are interested in - and I chose to write about the science of American Girl dolls and the plastic that they are made of!

"As some people may know, I am a collector of American Girl dolls. But what some people may not know about American Girl dolls is that their limbs and head aren’t just made of regular plastic. They are made of a material known as vinyl, known as polyvinyl chloride, or PVC. Polyvinyl chloride is is the third-most produced kind of plastic in the world, and is made of 57% chlorine and 43% ethylene. Chlorine is a halogen, which is the second lightest of them, in between fluorine and bromine. Chlorine is on the periodic table with the atomic number 17, and is a gas at room temperature. Ethylene, on the other hand, is not a pure element in of itself, but is four hydrogen atoms bound to a pair of carbon atoms. So, at the molecular level, the plastic of an American Girl doll, which is then molded to be doll arms, legs and heads, is made of mostly chlorine atoms, as well as many hydrogen atoms and half as many carbon atoms. 

Polyvinyl chloride is mostly made for durable uses, such as the construction of doors, pipes and windows. However, it is used for the American Girl doll so that the doll can be a collector item that lasts a long time. When Pleasant Rowland founded the American Girl doll company in 1986, she wanted the dolls to be keepsake items that would last from generation to generation, as well as teach girls about historical times and show them that their voices in history, which was and still is male-dominated, are important. Therefore, when the material was picked, durability was a focus. The first American Girl dolls were created in West Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall, by a company named Gotz, which specialized in dolls with vinyl heads and limbs and cloth bodies, so the design of their Romana doll was co-opted by American Girl. But over time, as American Girl became an iconic brand to many girls everywhere, the durability became a very important feature - a feature that wouldn’t be as longstanding if it wasn’t for the polyvinyl chloride used in the doll’s production."