Pleasant Company and American Girl In 1986, Rowland founded Pleasant Company to manufacture
American Girl dolls. She had saved $1.2 million from textbook royalties and invested the majority of those savings into the project. The American Girl product line aimed to teach aspects of American history through a six-book series from the perspective of a girl living in that period. The company would go on to produce dolls, books, and historically accurate accessories (now known as the
Historical Characters.) Rowland described the American Girl dolls as "chocolate cake with vitamins": incorporating imagination, play, and history. Rowland worked with
Valerie Tripp, a close friend and colleague from
Addison-Wesley, to develop characters for the first line of dolls. Each character represented a different period of American history. The first three characters were Kirsten Larson, a
Swedish immigrant who settled with her extended family in the 1850s
Minnesota Territory; Samantha Parkington from the
Progressive Era; and Molly McIntire, a character living during
World War II. Initially, the dolls and their accessories were only available via mail-order catalog. The first manufacturing and distribution center was in a warehouse in Madison, Wisconsin, later moving their corporate offices to
Middleton, Wisconsin. In the first two years of Pleasant Company, sales grew from $1.7 million to $7.6 million. The company began producing the
American Girl magazine in 1992. In 2002, Rowland described her belief in the importance of the whole package (of dolls, books, and accessories):I knew there was magic in the American Girl concept, but it was in the whole idea, not just part. I knew the books had to have stories so good that the reader would identify with and fall in love with the character. If she loved the character, she would want the doll. If she had the doll, she would want the clothes and accessories to play out the stories. If she played out the stories, she would want more books. So nothing could disappoint. The product had to be right, down to the tiniest detail. To balance the fine lines between marketability, historical accuracy, and cultural sensitivity, Rowland and the board had extensive discussions about the appearance of the doll and her accompanying story with the author,
Connie Porter, and the advisory panel. Melodye Rosales, the illustrator for the first three Addy Walker
American Girl books, described her relationship with Pleasant Company and Rowland as confrontational. Rosales claimed that "she was removed from the project because Pleasant Company wanted her to make the characters and their surroundings look more pleasant than they would have in reality." Rowland later recalled: "The last important piece of the original business plan came into being with the building of American Girl Place... This would be the American Girl mecca, an extremely special environment with a store, a theater, a museum, and a restaurant." As a result of the transaction, Mattel appointed Rowland as vice chairman of Mattel's board. In July 2000, Rowland retired as a Mattel board member and as president of American Girl.
Other ventures In 2001, Rowland purchased retailer
MacKenzie-Childs, based in Aurora, NY, from
Victoria MacKenzie-Childs and Richard MacKenzie-Childs. After Rowland restructured the company's management team in 2006, MacKenzie-Childs became profitable. In 2008, Rowland sold MacKenzie-Childs to the part owners of Twin Lakes Capital
Lee Feldman and Howard Cohen. To support research into early reading instruction, and update and distribute
The Superkids Reading Program she developed at Addison-Wesley, Rowland founded the nonprofit
Rowland Reading Foundation in 2003. The reading program was purchased by education publisher
Zaner-Bloser in 2015 and continues to be used in thousands of classrooms across the U.S. == Philanthropy ==