The American Girl Magazine Scan Project

I'm finally biting the bullet & working to scan every single American Girl Magazine issue that I currently have in my collection! I don't have every single issue, but I still have a solid chunk of the 2000s issues and that's not nothing.

I'm approaching this scanning project by scanning and cleaning in batches of months rather then by year. So instead of scanning all of my 2003 issues in one go, I'll be scanning every September/October issue I have. I plan to clean and upload all the scans in the batch before I move on to the next batch.

You can find a list of all the American Girl Magazines I have in my possession on this page.

Current Progress

~*All Issues (that I currently have) Uploaded!*~

Where to find these Scans

The Internet Archive

I would like to one day share the original files, including my original rough scans so people can make their own edits/adjustments to the original scans. However, the sheer scale of the project & the file sizes are much more data then google drive offers by default. If I'm able to find a suitable solution or workaround, I'll note it here.

Help Needed

A lot of these issues were the same ones I used in my childhood, and as a result a lot of bonus materials are missing, such as the mini mags, posters or any stickers or posters. In some extreme cases, I'm even missing the magazine cover.

I've tried to make note of the pieces I'm missing both in the file names, the file description on the archive page, and on the list of AG Magazines currently in my possession. It's highly possible I might not notice pieces are missing until I'm scanning.

If you happen to have the missing materials/pages and you are gracious enough to scan it on my behalf, I will be in your debt. The missing material will be added to the uploads, and credit will be given to you as desired. You can find details on how to submit missing scans to me through this SUBMISSION POST!

If you do not have these issues, you can also help me buy issues by donating money to my Ko-Fi.

I hope you enjoy these scans!

I don't know who that is, and I don't see anything in her biography that would suggest she has ties to the toy and book brand line known as American Girl.

If you think she may have written an article for American Girl Magazine, her name doesn't ring a bell, and I can't think of anything she might have written for the magazine. Unfortunately I only provide the scans and post them online; I don't have a deep breakdown of the subjects addressed in each issue, as much as I'd love to offer a feature like that. Unless you're able to provide more specific details on what the article might be about, you would need to search the issues I've uploaded yourself.

I'll post this publicly in case someone else following me might know what you're talking about, but don't count on it!

Yes, of course! The instructions on my blog on how to submit scans are still good :]

Hello! I recently managed to find a good deal on some American Girl Magazine issues of note, and I got them uploaded online!

The 2 issues in question are:

These are two very interesting issues to clean up one after another, and it definitely made me rather sentimental to reflect on. Go check out both of these issues over on the Internet Archive!

And as always, if you wanna help me get more issues scanned and uploaded, consider reviewing my submissions page or checking out my Ko-Fi!

I'm glad to hear my magazine scans were able to help out with your class assignment! :>

If you want my 2 cents for your assignment, I feel like the Internet archive providing a method to easily share magazine scans with others in a way that doesn't require folks to download any extra files and just view straight from their browser goes a really long way. Scanning my entire AG magazine collection is something that has occurred to me a long time ago, but I always struggled with finding a good solution to presenting it. The internet archive providing that PDF preview where you can flip through pages like an actual magazine really gave me the encouragement that it was a worthwhile pursuit, that I could share what I have without thinking overly hard about how to share the individual pages.

AG Magazine Scan Project Complete (for now)!

I just finished uploading the last of the July/August issues! With that, I've managed to upload every issue I currently own onto the internet archive!! You should check it out here!!

Don't mistake this post as me saying that every issue is uploaded; there's plenty of issues I'm missing, and even the stuff I uploaded is likely missing one thing or another. As always, you can view a complete list of all the issues I currently have uploaded, as well as notes on what I'm missing from each issue, on this page here.

I still plan to keep my eye out for any issues I'm missing on the 2nd hand market, but the speed I'm able to get the other issues will really rely on what the market is offering and what my budget that month is. You can always help me justify more magazine purchases by donating to my Ko-Fi!

If you have anything I'm missing, weather it's a magazine insert, a page of an issue, or the entire issue itself, I'm happy to accept anything and everything! I even made a snazzy submissions post with some basic guidelines and overviews on how to help out.

I would like to explore other ways to share these issues with folks outside of the internet archive, just to spread it out and not put all the chickens in one basket. One idea I've been considering is a separate blog that is dedicated solely to American Girl Articles, which I started here, but it will be Very Slow Going. I'll also see if there are ways of sharing the PDF files via other means as well. In the meantime, don't be shy about downloading files from the Internet Archive!! Tell your friends and keep your own copy!!

Thanks to all the support folks have shown for this project! It's not over yet, not by a long shot, but for now Whoo Boy I'm Ready For A Break

I would definitely be interested! I'm happy to compile them into one PDF file to upload onto the archive, and I am happy to credit you for the original scans!

If you have any scans to send me, I would recommend uploading them to google drive, then sharing the link to the drive to me. People have used tumblr's instant messaging system to send me the google drive link, just so we can talk more instantly and with a record of the conversation on both sides (plus it makes it easier for me to look it up later if I need to). I would recommend using tumblr's messages system to send me the link, but sending an ask is fine too!

Sorry for the delayed response anon!!

I do recall the AG doll kits you're referring to; I remember seeing a fair share of them in Michaels back in the day. Unfortunately those never caught my eye as much, and I never bought any of it. Sad to say I'm not aware of anyone who may have uploaded the cutouts either.

If anyone following me knows of anywhere that the Doll Kit cutouts were uploaded and shared at, please reblog or reply to this post with details for this anon!

Oh, how sweet!! ;w;

The 1995 issues I currently have (March/April, Sep/Oct, Nov/Dec) do not feature a dog, and I think the May/June issue is birthday themed. If I had to guess, either the 1995 Jan/Feb or July/Aug issue might have a dog on the cover, and Jan/Feb seems more likely to have a dog then a July/Aug issue, which might prioritize a summer theme over an animal theme.

Just to copy and paste my usual message: if you like the work I do and wanna help me get more magazines to scan and upload, I do have a Ko-Fi you can donate to so I can justify the cost of buying more magazines! If you have an issue I'm missing from my collection, you can also reach out to me with details on how you can help out!

Side note: I actually do have some magazine scans some others have supplied to me, which I'm immensely grateful for! I've been a bit slow with cleaning up scans lately (getting tired right before the finish line), but I do have them saved and I do plan to clean and upload them once all the July/August issues are uploaded :>

Hello, thank you for reaching out! I'm so glad you're interested in helping me out with the scan project!

If you're looking for information on what specific scanners I use for the project, I've answered someone's question about it before over here! Long story short: as long as you send me JPG files at 300dpi, whatever scanner you use is fine! There will be some scanners that will make scanning an entire magazine issue a lot faster, but ultimately use whatever you have access to!

Be sure to check my list of AG issues I currently have in my collection! I try to note down any inserts/pages I'm missing, but I only tend to notice them when doing cleanup. Inserts tend to be the first thing missing, so if you don't have time to scan an entire issue, even just sending me scans of the inserts can help a lot!

When it comes time to send me the scans, uploading the files via an online file sharing such as google drive then sending me a link to said drive is probably the easiest way of sending the files over!

I'll get around to making a dedicated page with scanning instructions/specifications soon! That way folks can get the details on how to help out without having to send an ask!

@doodling-daisies was kind enough to send me scans of the paper doll and cut-out pages from the Premier issue of American Girl magazine! That means the full complete Premier issue is now available online :) Thank you again for your scans!

Do you have an issue I'm missing pages from? Send me a scan, if you can! Send a message via Tumblr chat for more details/instructions!

I think you are remembering the Care and Keeping of You Book? My copy of the book has the sugar snap peas & milk for dinner, so think you are remembering the correct book.

My copy of Care & Keeping of You has a copyright date of 1998, but I know AG has re-released the book with new illustrations, and I wouldn't be surprised if they also updated/adjusted the contents of the book slightly, especially as the food pyramid has updated since the original publication.

Heya, I'm glad you've been enjoying the issues I've scanned!

A big reason I'm tackling this scan project to begin with was I was starting to get an uptick of people going 'hey, do you have this issue? Can you share scans of this article? Do you know what issue this article appeared in?' and I figured it'd be way more useful to just have every single issue I have scanned and uploaded online so folks can look it up themselves. I definitely have the July/August 2005 issue in my collection, but I don't have the issue scanned yet (and I don't have it on hand so I can't check it manually real fast to see if the Great Grapes is in there).

I just finished scanning all of my May/June issues, and I do plan to start on scanning all of my July/August issues next. I don't have any specific dates on when I'll have the July/Aug 2005 issue uploaded, but you can always keep an eye on my Ko-Fi page for updates when I complete a specific issue, or check out my profile on the Internet Archive.