As the creators and hosts of the “American Girls” podcast, Trinity College alumnae Allison Horrocks ’09 and Mary Mahoney ’09 have found a way to tie together their childhood passion and their professions as historians.

In the podcast他主修历史和英语双学位，现在回到信誉最好的网投十大平台，以安德鲁. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities—and Horrocks—a double-major in American studies and history who is now a park ranger at Lowell National Historical Park in Massachusetts—analyze book after book, 深受喜爱的《信誉最好的网投十大平台》系列中的一个又一个玩偶, which was created by Pleasant Company in 1986.

而霍罗克斯和马奥尼在信誉最好的网投十大平台就认识了, 他们在康涅狄格大学成为了朋友, where they each pursued a Ph.D. 他们对所有美国女孩的共同热爱使他们联系在一起. 在这里，他们与美国女孩的粉丝凯利M. Vaughan ’17 about why they decided to embark on a podcast about American Girl and how listeners have responded to their fun, informative, and nostalgia-filled conversations:

KV: 你们都是训练有素的历史学家，我想你们对美国历史上各种各样的话题都很了解.S. history. 你为什么决定在本期播客中关注美国女孩的娃娃呢?

AH: 我认为在某种程度上，它把我们各自的利益联系在一起. Mary has done amazing scholarship and is really well-read on the history of books and readers’ relationships to books in their lives. 我研究了家庭和家庭生活的历史. 这是一种将所有这些与我们小时候喜欢的东西联系起来的方式.

KV: What aspects of both your undergraduate and graduate education do you feel trained you to be able to closely analyze these dolls and their books?

MM: I think in both undergrad at Trinity and in graduate school we spent a lot of time reading books that analyzed all facets of culture. We thought about big ideas and the importance of arguments that you can tease apart and perfect again. 把这种严肃性放在面向9岁儿童的书籍上，听起来可能很滑稽, but I think that allows us to understand that these books are histories of the eras that they claim to present, 还有它们产生的那个时代的历史.

KV: 20年后重读《信誉最好的网投十大平台》是什么感觉? Did you feel like historians or 9-year-olds?

AH: 我不想再体验9岁时的感觉, 但我感兴趣的是，与现在相比，这些书当时对我有什么帮助.

MM: I do remember the feeling I had when reading the books—the feeling of wondering what was going to happen in these girls’ lives and wondering in some trans-historical way if I would ever have a life like theirs.

KV: 你认为播客和你的事业是如何相互联系的?

MM: At Trinity, part of my work in the digital humanities includes outreach to faculty and students about the forms of digital scholarship we support in the library, including websites, digital exhibits, data analysis, mapping projects, and podcasting. I love coordinating research projects that offer exciting examples of integrating scholarship with digital tools that can reach broader audiences. 我特别感兴趣的一个项目是“隐藏的文学”,这是一本由英语教授编辑的数字选集 Hilary Wyss and Christopher Hager 探索早期美国文学的历史. Creating work that is digital, accessible, 教育是贯穿我个人和信誉最好的网投十大平台工作的主线.

AH: 我们在播客上做的很多事情都是讲故事, sharing what we know about history, thinking about intergenerational learning, connecting with the public through social media—is very similar to my day-to-day work as a public historian and park ranger with the National Park Service. Since starting this podcast, I think I have become even more aware of the importance of what museum professionals call “sticky memories,或是生命周期中伴随我们的时刻. 当我在我工作的博物馆和一个年轻人交谈时, 我知道我们谈话的影响可能会点燃一生的兴趣, 他们甚至可能直到很久以后才能够清楚地表达出来. One of the most delightful aspects of doing the podcasts has been hearing from people my age who were once on the other end of such conversations, 它提醒着我，每一个来访者都是多么的重要, no matter their age.

KV: How do you think the American Girl books read differently in 2019 than they did in the late 1980s and 1990s?

AH: 约瑟芬娜在现在的新墨西哥州长大, 但她不是真正的美国女孩. 想想这个非常温柔的故事一个年轻女人住在现在的边境附近, we thought really carefully about what we talked about because it’s on the news and causing a lot of trauma in the country. 这不是我们9岁时意识到的事情，这是一个在2019年读起来不一样的话题.

KV: Throughout the podcast episodes, 你在历史叙述中戳了一些漏洞, 但似乎相信书中对年轻女孩有宝贵的教训. 你认为最重要的收获是什么?

MM: I think the importance of friendship—particularly in the lives of young women—is a theme that’s really important and worth cultivating. 我在这个节目中发现的真正乐趣不是谈论美国历史, 但能和我最好的朋友一起做节目. As a kid I played with the dolls by myself, so it was kind of a lonely enterprise, 但现在，它是友谊的重要来源，我们只能更多地利用它.

KV: 听众对播客的接收情况如何? Where is it going next?

AH: We get a lot of direct messages with people sharing photos of themselves as young girls with their dolls and it’s always accompanied by a very precious and beautiful story. How many people get to say that they open a blurred photo on social media and it’s something really sincere and wonderful from their childhood? We do not take that for granted at all.

MM: One episode is actually in the style of The Care & Keeping of You book series. 如果有人读过约瑟芬娜的书，你就会知道它们最大的主题是悲伤. We were approached by a therapist who works with young people and she’s going to talk to us about ways to deal with grief in your own life and how to support a friend who is grieving.

KV: What was your reaction to The New York Times column 电视评论家玛格丽特·莱昂斯对你的播客的评论? Did you know that was going to happen?

MM: 我看到作者在推特上说美国女孩的书在网上有售 InternetArchive.org. I retweeted it because I thought some of our listeners might want to check it out and she DMed me and told me she was writing about our show. Needless to say, we were both pretty surprised!

AH: I was worried about reading the comments because there are things you don’t want to read about yourself, but a friend said to me, “Allison, they’re not about the two of you at all. 每个人都在分享他们的故事和与之相关的联系，他们很兴奋地听着.”

MM: 我认为很多珍贵的书籍给你一种语言，你自己的经验, 所以有一个论坛来讨论这些书只是邀请读者分享他们的回忆.

KV: You recently visited the American Girl Store in New York City. 这段经历对你来说是什么感觉，它对你对《信誉最好的网投十大平台》的看法有什么影响?

MM: I may never recover emotionally, physically, 或者是精神上的，从我在美国女孩商店看到的一切. 我被商店的规模所震撼. 我和《信誉最好的网投十大平台》一起长大，那时候它完全是基于目录的. I received the dolls and books as gifts from my grandmother and read the magazine and catalogue and that was it. 在一个大型商店里，有一个玩偶沙龙, hospital, 咖啡远远超出了我9岁的理解能力.

AH: This was not my first—or even second—visit to an American Girl Store; I went once as a younger person and more recently visited the store in Chicago. 我一直很喜欢《信誉最好的网投十大平台》中的物质文化元素. 除了从目录中订购产品, 我和妈妈会做额外的衣服，爸爸会帮我做家具. 通过这次访问，这是一个很好的机会，可以看到一些新的互动元素. 我特别喜欢他们对《信誉最好的网投十大平台》的改编，故事发生在20世纪70年代. We are so grateful that we were able to visit and truly appreciate the staff who took the time to make us feel welcome.

观看下面的视频，了解更多他们参观美国女孩商店的情况.

Writer Kelly M. Vaughan ’17 double-majored in American studies and English at Trinity and wrote a senior thesis titled “America through Rose-Colored Glasses: How American Girl Dolls Shape American Girlhood and Identity.” She is currently a 纽约玛莎·斯图尔特生活频道的数字美食编辑.