Where Are American Girl Dolls Manufactured?
- Admin
- Aug 30, 2022
- 2 min read
While American Girl dolls are called American Girl, the dolls have never been made in America. Throughout their history, American Girl dolls have been manufactured in 2 different towns: Rodental, Germany, and Shenzhen, China. I thought it would be fun to talk about these two different towns and compare their dolls!
American Girl dolls were first manufactured in Rodental, Germany by Gotz. Gotz was founded in 1950, and the look of their Romina doll inspired the face mold for Samantha, Kirsten and Molly. American Girl dolls were manufactured in Germany until the purchase of American Girl by Mattel.
German-era American Girl dolls are known to have bigger cloth bodies, chunkier limbs and softer vinyl and eyelashes.

Rodental is a small town with 13,000 residents, and was created in 1971 via the union of several smaller towns. Despite it's size, Rodental is noted for manufacturing novelty goods, both with the production of Gotz dolls and porcelain. It is also noted for it's Gothic style texture.

After Mattel bought American Girl, production of dolls moved to China. Due to a large population and labor costs, China is the biggest manufacturer of toys in the world. Many factories have manufactured American Girl dolls in China, but the majority of them are in Shenzhen.
Chinese-era American Girl dolls are known to have slimmer cloth bodies, smaller limbs, more firm vinyl in the limbs and harder eyelashes.

Shenzhen is the fourth most populous city in China, with a population of over 17 million. It is a global hub for technology, business and finance, and is nicknamed China's Silicon Valley, with several Chinese technology companies headquartered there. Shenzhen is located in the Guangdong province, where over 70% of toys made in China come from.

Just a slight correction...there used to be a Goetz factory near Syracuse NY where they made Samantha and Bitty Baby dolls. No idea why it was just those two. I toured it with my parents in either 1999 or 2000 (I was about 9 years old). It was really neat to see the Samantha dolls being dressed, having their hair styled, etc. Our tour guide even took a Bitty Baby off the assembly line and let me hold her a minute (they had just come out with the turquoise sleepers). So yes, through Goetz, some AG dolls used to be made in the US. I was there. :)
Finally having a. granddaughter after two sons I couldn't wait to buy het her first American Girl toy doll! as she is now 4
Upon reading about the American Girl.I couldn't believe she is not made in Amrrica! How misleading is that?@ Lomg story short ,I found a store in Lancaster PA. called Dolls
Not the American Girl ones , but.the real life sized baby o.es
AND THERE MADE IN AMERICA
Both towns Rodental and Shenzhen are cute I want to visit both.
This is very interesting. Does anyone know if the different factories’ vinyl reacts differently with benzoyl peroxide and other lightening cremes? I know for Cabbage Patch Kids dolls, depending on the factory, the vinyl fades really badly when using lightening cremes.
I wish AG would do a factory tour where we could see the process of doll parts being molded, dolls being painted, eyes being put in, wigs being made (I assume the wigs are actually made in an entirely different factory, but maybe I'm wrong - hence, why I want a factory tour!!!!)
I also wish that they could be manufactured here, but plastic is super environmentally hazardous, so I guess we all have to go back to.... yeah, there's no good way out of that scenario.