This year, 2019, I am making a major shift to the foundation of my work. Since the advent of this project, the age of my characters has always been ambiguous; am I their age, between 8 and 10? Or am I the age of myself at the time I take my portraits? During my recent research on European and American women’s roles in the 19th and 20th centuries, I landed on a solution: why not imagine the lives of these characters as young women, 22 - 24 years after their stories ended, placing them at the same age I am now. What would Kirsten, Josefina, or Samantha look and think like in the late 1870s, 1920s, and 1840s, respectively? How would the contexts of major cultural impacts like the Civil War, WWI, Prohibition, and Westward Expansion have affected their lives? Using primary and secondary texts on women’s history, politics, economics, theology, and social change, I am beginning to construct the visual epilogues to the American Girls’ classic stories.

This image is an illustration of the first step in this new set of portraits — a chemise, corset, and bustle, modeled after the fashion trends in the late 1870s.