I like the friends dolls, but I do miss the excitement surrounding a new full-fledged historical.

WHat about the Louisiana Purchase? I could see a story on the mixing of cultures in the Delta, mixing French, Spanish, Native cultures and suddenly becoming Americans.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Pardon me for getting excited as a girl from Louisiana, but YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is one of the most overlooked and most important periods of American history. There was SO MUCH going on down here in those years. And all of it has affected how our country was formed, and the French and Spanish colonial way of government is STILL how Louisiana is run. Louisiana has a Napoleonic French system of government. In some ways we're more French than France and more Spanish than Spain.

Louisiana has a fascinating colonial history. You had the French coming in and carving out the territory, then the Spanish came in and put their mark on everything, then you have the Caribbean influences from the first generation of slaves, then the Native American, THEN all 4 of those intermarrying with each other to create the unique and distinctive Creole culture. (Which is VERY different from Cajun) Then the Americans come in and mix things up even more. Just absolutely fascinating how the cultures intermingled and melted together to form Louisana's very unique historical and cultural identity.

Then you had the religious conflicts between the predominantly Catholic French and Spanish, and the Episcopalian Americans moving in in vast numbers. That's why Louisiana has parishes instead of counties. We're divided up along Catholic church parish lines. That's why parishes here are such funny shapes instead of being square like counties in Texas or Arkansas. We're divided along waterways, which was the easiest way to travel prior to 1845.

I say to American Girl: Give me a Creole girl!!! Make her French and Spanish and give them American neighbors to interact with where she must learn English and a whole new way of everything. Show some of the turmoil of the Creoles as they realize that they everything they know and everything they have built is changing. It's FASCINATING!!!!

I also want another immigrant, a Russian immigrant from the 1880's to be specific, and make her Jewish. Her family fled Russia to escape Alexandrer III's pogroms. (mass extermination of Jews)