Америкалық қыз қуыршағының авторы – Плезант Роулендтің өмірі мен қызметі

American businesswoman and founder of the American Girl doll companyInfobox person
| name = Pleasant Thiele Rowland
| birth name = Pleasant Williams Thiele
| birth date = 1941 03 08, Age: 83 is an American educator, reporter, writer, entrepreneur and philanthropist. Rowland is best known for creating the American Girl brand. Pleasant Rowland is also notable for her philanthropic work in the arts in Madison, Wisconsin and her efforts to redevelop historic properties in Aurora, New York.

Rowland was born in Chicago and grew up in Bannockburn, a suburb north of Chicago. She is the oldest of three sisters and a brother. Her sister, Barbara Whitney Carr, was the former president and CEO of the Chicago Botanic Gardens from 1995 to 2007. Her father was Edward M. Thiele, a Chicago advertising executive who was president of the Leo Burnett ad agency from 1961 to 1971. After graduating from Wells College in 1962, Rowland began teaching second grade students at Mattapan Elementary in Massachusetts. From 1962 to 1968, she continued to work as a schoolteacher in several states. She was an on air reporter and anchor for KGO TV, the San Francisco ABC affiliate, from 1968 to 1971. While on assignment, Rowland met a representative of Boston Educational Research, an educational publishing company. She left the news industry to work as director of product development at the publishing company. She was involved in writing and publishing children's textbooks in Boston, Massachusetts from 1971 to 1978. Rowland also published the Children's Magazine Guide. Rowland created a comprehensive language arts program called Beginning to Read, Write, and Listen. The program was informally known as the "letterbooks" and designed for kindergarten and first grade students. "Based on [Beginning to Read, Write, and Listen's] success, Addison Wesley, another school publisher, approached me about writing a basal reading and language arts program,” Rowland explained. Rowland developed the Addison Wesley Reading Program until the project was shelved in 1981. Rowland met her future husband, W. Jerome "Jerry" Frautschi, in Madison in November 1976. Rowland was in town for a press check on the first printing of her language arts program at Webcrafters, a family owned printing firm. Jerry's brother, John Frautschi, succeeded their father as president of Webcrafter in 1970. (Webcrafters was later purchased by the CJK Group, Inc., in 2017.) During her business visit to Webcrafters, Frautschi served as Rowland's sales representative. Rowland and Frautschi were married in May 1977. 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 worth of product. 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):<blockquote>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.

In 2001, Rowland purchased bankrupt retailer MacKenzie Childs, based in Aurora, NY. 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.

Rowland and her husband W. Jerome Frautschi are major philanthropists in Madison, Wisconsin. Frautschi and his family have been based in Madison since his grandfather, Swiss immigrant Christian Frautschi, came to Madison in the 1860s. Critics started a non profit organization called the Aurora Coalition to "support historic integrity and economic autonomy." In opposition to these changes, the Aurora Coalition launched a lawsuit to stop the renovation of the Aurora Inn and the demolition of a neighboring grocery. The National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Preservation League of New York state joined the suit because of concerns that local government was not paying enough attention to state laws requiring thorough review of projects in historic districts. The New York State Supreme Court ruled against the Aurora Coalition and allowed the renovation of the Aurora Inn to proceed. The Appeals Court allowed the lower court's decision to stand. The Aurora Foundation redeveloped the inn for lodging, dining, and events and completed renovations in 2003. During her speech at the ribbon cutting ceremony, Rowland remarked on how Wells College and the surrounding village were "reminders of the values and traditions of another, more tender time." Rowland donated $40 million to Wells College to revitalize Aurora’s downtown district and reverse declining enrollment. In press accounts, Rowland expressed her vision of enhancing the historic character and attractiveness of the community and improving the local economy. The Aurora Coalition commented on Rowland's changes to the town on their website:<blockquote>Rowland promised to collaborate with the community to promote economic growth. Six years later, her promise is unfilled and Rowland remains inaccessible and unresponsive. Locally owned [businesses] were evicted. Few new jobs went to locals. Most LLC employment is part time or seasonal. Our local government failed to require Environmental Impact Studies or Section 106 Reviews for her projects, and many negative results arose from her segmented development: destruction of historic architecture, devastation of archeological sites, loss of public recreational space, elimination of local businesses, loss of parking space, development of dangerous traffic patterns, obliteration of local gathering places, corrosion of community identity, etc.

Frautschi and Rowland started the Overture Foundation in 1996. With the sale of Pleasant Company to Mattel, Frautschi's retirement from Webcrafters, and the involvement of city planner George Austin, Frautschi and Rowland set out to help develop an arts district in Madison. As a privately funded project, these gifts enabled the Overture Center to be built with high quality materials like travertine floors, custom dyed carpeting, and historically accurate light fixtures. "The arts are for everybody," Rowland said. "It's one way of bridging all the gaps, and all the voids, and all the tensions in a community, and I think it's important that we make sure that it's available and accessible to everyone in this community." Rowland supported the Chicago Botanic Gardens with a $5 million gift to establish Evening Island in 1999, the second largest of the Botanic Garden islands. She dedicated the gift and the project to her father, Edward Thiele. At the time, this donation was the largest private gift the Chicago Botanic Gardens had received. In 2019, Pleasant T. Rowland pledged $20 million to build the Madison Youth Arts Center (MYArts) Opened in 2021, the MYArts building is intended to provide space for performing and visual youth arts groups. In a statement to Madison365, Pleasant Rowland shared: “[I hope] that Madison Youth Arts Center will give all children in our community the opportunity to engage in creative expression in a place that affirms their value, honors their voices, and reflects their dreams.”

Rowland also donated $1 million for Madison's Black Business Hub in 2021. In a press statement, Rowland wrote: “The disparity in access to entrepreneurial opportunity in Dane County is extreme, and unfortunately has been exacerbated by the pandemic,” Rowland wrote in a press statement. “I am inspired by the Urban League’s vision and pleased that our investment can help bring that vision to life.”