Paulsen explains, “I began to have this cause and effect in my brain where moments in history were no longer isolated, and I realized I lived in a world that is the way it is because of the Revolutionary War’s outcome or because we went through the Great Depression.” Photographer Sydney Rose Paulsen says she tries to be as accurate as possible when recreating historical scenes for her Instagram account, In this image, Kit Kittredge, an aspiring reporter living through the Great Depression, sits at her desk, ready to write her latest story on a doll-sized typewriter. Courtesy of Sydney Rose Paulsen

Researching the time periods in which the dolls’ stories were set, she soon gained a new appreciation of the interconnected nature of American history: Kit Kittredge, an aspiring reporter living through the Great Depression, wore simpler dresses because her family couldn’t afford new clothes, while polio survivor Maryellen Larkin, who came of age in the decade after World War II, had enough money to splurge on poodle skirts and other ’50s fashions. “I slowly started to become very interested in historical fashion because I wanted to dress like my dolls so badly,” says Paulsen. In the early ’90s, a collection of a doll, her books and accessories could run in the hundreds of dollars, making the American Girl experience financially inaccessible to many.Īs a girl homeschooled by her mother, Paulsen learned about the United States’ past through American Girl’s diverse slate of fictional figures, from pioneer girl Kirsten Larson to Virginia colonist Felicity Merriman to Addy Walker, who escapes enslavement at the height of the Civil War. One other aspect that set the American Girls dolls apart: their price. Each of American Girl’s 8- to 11-year-old characters represents a different historical period brought to life through richly researched novels and accessories, the dolls become cherished parts of their young owners’ lives. Since 1986, the Middleton, Wisconsin–based enterprise has been producing dolls for young girls that are about as far from Barbies and Bratz as one can get. Now a doll photographer with an Instagram following of almost 60,000, Paulsen has fond memories of a childhood spent immersed in the world created by the American Girl company. … They were so much my point of reference for everything.” “They were my context for how people who didn’t have my background or grew up in my time lived.

“I read dozens of times,” the 23-year-old recalls. Growing up, Sydney Rose Paulsen often viewed the world through a specific lens: namely, American Girl dolls and books.

Looking good real war says nostalgia