Kit Kittredge

Kit Kittredge is a fictional character in the American Girl series of books, written by Valerie Tripp. Kit serves as a protagonist and central character to her story arc, set during the Great Depression. Kit's core series of books was written by Valerie Tripp and illustrated by Walter Rane. Development of the character started in 1998, while series author Valerie Tripp was working on the Josefina books. Tripp cites Cincinnati's proximity to the Ohio River, along with the city's industries, works programs such as the Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration, and the Cincinnati Union Terminal, as the reasons for her choice of where the Kit Kittredge stories took place. The city's association with baseball, particularly the Cincinnati Reds and player Ernie Lombardi was also incorporated into the narrative. Tripp also stated that she drew inspiration from her mother's experiences during the Great Depression, and also from her daughter's tales of affluenza, which she used to teach children the importance of being grateful for what they have and helping those in need. Coinciding with the doll's release was a food drive and a fundraising program hosted by various charitable organizations. In 2020, former child model and redditor Caitlin Waite–who lent her likeness to the character–uploaded behind-the-scenes photos of her and a few other models in an Imgur post, also revealing that the character's original meet outfit received a last-minute revision prior to release due to a batch of straw hats that came with the doll which broke easily; the books' illustrations had to be redone to account for the change in material, forcing Waite and the others to travel back to the Pleasant Company offices at Madison, Wisconsin for a reshoot. The 2023 re-issue of Meet Kit released to coincide with the character's 100th birthday includes a foreword from Valerie Tripp, where she reveals that the Kit Kittredge character is in large part based on her own mother who was the same age as Kit in 1932.